Online Hindustani Music Classes

The sooner you start the better. Some parents introduce classical music to their babies in cradles. Such kids start taking classes from 3 or 4 years of age. But, there is no upper limit of age when it comes to learning Hindustani classical music. Students come from diverse age groups including children, teenagers, college-goers, working professionals or even seniors in the age bracket of 60 to 70 years of age.

The most inevitable career option for a Hindustani classical music student is to become a singer. Years of dedicated practice under the guidance of an accomplished Guru will help you to achieve this. The second option is to become a teacher and impart the knowledge you acquired from your Guru, to help other potential singers.

You can practice at any time of the day. But the best recommended time for learning new things is early morning between 4-6 AM. It helps in the habit formation. However, adult students who have several personal and professional commitments might find it difficult to adhere to such a strict regime. They can fix a time of the day as per their convenience. Only make sure that you sit down for practice with a fresh mind and follow it everyday like a ritual.

If you are a beginner and still learning the basics, try to set a fixed time of day and sit for at least 20 to 30 minutes. Apart from helping you to master the basics, this will help you in your habit formation for self-practice sessions. How do you sit for long hours while maintaining a certain posture while practicing? How should your arms be positioned while playing the accompanying musical instruments? How should you set the right scale, rhythm, and tempo for an electronic device? All of these and many more concerns that a beginner-level student faces. That is why, it is recommended to sit for the practice for a short period but maintain the time duration and schedule diligently.

For intermediate and advanced-level students of Hindustani classical music, learning goals should be prioritized more than the duration of practice. Ideally, take up one concept at a time and perfect it. It could take more than a day’s practice to reach a certain level. Also, the self-practice regime does not just include singing. It also involves listening and musing over the concept. You might sit down to practice the piece vocally for a fixed time. But you should also listen to various artists who have sung that composition. You should keep humming the tunes while carrying on with your day-to-day activities to make the learning process holistic and fruitful.

There are several levels of learning Hindustani Classical Music. The first level includes perfecting the Swaras. Some students take up to one or two months to it the right notes while some do it within a week’s time. Likewise, for every level the time taken to perfect the concepts varies from student to student. However, an estimated 2-3 years will take for you to perform some complex Semi-classical compositions such as Thumri. You can add 2-3 years more to it for performing a Raga in its full spectrum.

It depends on the age of the student and also the level of proficiency viz, beginners, intermediate and advanced. Small kids have a short attention span. Also, at beginners level, the approach is slow and steady. That’s why the time duration has been fixed at 30 minutes. Mostly session duration for intermediate courses are scheduled for one hour and advanced courses are between 90 minutes to 2 hours.

As we mentioned before age can never come in the way of your learning Hindustani classical music. Trust your teacher to evaluate your learning abilities and understand your learning objectives, and create a completely customized lesson plan for you.