Can your child become a rasika?

It is haloed moment when a child, a small notebook in hand, takes her shoes off at the door and enters the room of her Guru, her music teacher.

She is very likely in a space that has music particles in the air, notes swung through the octaves of imagination and many hours of grinding riyaaz one note at a time till the sound of each one fuses with the singer.

Sound becomes prayer. She enters the habitation of prayers as she steps into the space of her Guru.

Learning music used to be a common in small town households in India when we were growing up in the 70s and 80s. Almost everyone I knew used to be enrolled for learning some kind of music - Hindustani classical, carnatic classical, Indian or westerm instruments, and so on. Parents would make time to ensure kids were ferried to classes being held somewhere in the neighborhood. It was a quasi social gathering where parents met other parents and shared notes, while their children sat infront of the Guru, and imbibed ancient methods of a universal language.

Is your child learning music?

Learning music is not just about learning how to sing or how to play an instrument. It isn't only about learning the grammar of music, or indeed memorising compositions and achieving perfection.

Learning music is learning how to be free in a world that increasingly binds us with rules, norms and expectations.

More importantly, learning music is to imbibe the discipline of knowing what to do with freedom, where and how to use it.

It is about learning to be a rasika, someone who can appreciate the human spirit behind the arts, and not just the art itself.

The purpose of music is to express human emotions sublimated into musical notes and compositions. Every emotion that a human being feels is and can be the receptacle of music. While the world clamours for happiness, music finds exquisite expression for melancholy. The emotions welling up through the quiet of the dark night makes music. The seasons make for music. All external stimuli turn into an internal search for meaning through music. Give your child a taste of this freedom to feel all emotions deeply.

Just sample this for starters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08cg4CBjPVQ

Found some other articles on this topic that might interest you.

http://swarajyamag.com/featured/learning-music-a-guru-is-more-than-a-teacher/

http://www.nafme.org/20-important-benefits-of-music-in-our-schools/

http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music-arts/the-benefits-of-music-education/

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