Dear all,

Wow, what a week! With the "settling in" process long behind us, Theo V and I are living the life in central Delhi. We've both repeatedly talked about how much better it is in Delhi than in England. Once you get over the hot weather, you realise that the city's bustling streets and vibrant atmosphere are all part of the life here. And to be honest, as Britons we're always complaining about the weather anyway, so it wouldn't really matter what conditions we were in. And it's definitely better than cold rain (the average British climate). Furthermore, if you walk down any suburban street (as I do every day on my way back from work) then you'll find that the ubiquitous ice-cream vendors more than make up for the hotness. Finally, since my last blog I've become much less perturbed by the conniving rickshaw drivers - I've learned how to say "are you crazy?!" in Hindi, so my bargaining power has been greatly enhanced for situations in which they attempt to charge me extortionate western prices. It was initially embarrassing, however, when I got this phrase mixed up with "can you take me to...". All I can say is that the rickshaw driver certainly didn't think that HE was the crazy one in that particular situation.

Theo and I are based in Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi, a beautiful and lively area with many local markets and public parks. We've been scouting out the area over the last week and we're now much better at finding our way around. Theo was delighted to find a Costa Coffee the other day in a nearby market. We also found a place where we can play pool. It's these little things which are almost certainly going to be keeping us sane if we ever suffer from western withdrawal symptoms.

At the same time though, we are trying to immerse ourselves in Indian culture as much as we can. Over the weekend we both learned how to make genuine Indian food - we started by learning how to cook a Matah Paneer (a classic Indian dish made with cottage cheese) and then supplemented this by whipping up some chippati and puri - pancake-like rolls which accompany the main curry. Pressure was on though, because we were at my friend Nakul's house once again, and some of his extended (and very hungry) family were watching and waiting with anticipation. I'm happy to say though that there are no reports of food poisoning, so I call that a success. Theo was particularly good at making his chippati nice and round with the rolling pin (the "authentic" look), and I was good at...well, I think I was more of an all-rounder...

But of course the music lessons should take priority in such blogs, as they are the very thing we're here for. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but it's my first time teaching piano ever. The very first day when I arrived at the school, I was expecting to be shown around and talked to about how to teach etc. Instead, I started watching one of the lessons and the teacher decided to get me to start doing the teaching instead. Talk about improvisation. But since then I've definitely found my rhythm (excuse the pun), and I've started to angle my teaching towards expanding the student's understanding of what music actually is (without trying to be patronizing of course).

I've found it very interesting that the students are so obedient. They will do more or less any (musical) thing you ask of them. This perhaps explains why they are used to following instructions without actually thinking about what they're achieving or what the point of the particular exercise is. For this reason I've found the group lessons I teach to be the most enjoyable. After starting the lesson with a healthy mixture of aural games (including rhythm, harmony, melody and improvisation "tests"), I then try to initiate a kind of group discussion in which the students are forced (by me) to talk about the pieces that they are playing. Are their pieces just a bunch of notes in the right order? Or do they have a greater significance than that? Do the pieces actually reflect certain characters and styles, and do they evoke particular emotions? Well, suffice to say that the first time I tried talking to some students about this in a lesson I got five dumbfounded faces staring back at me. But that might just have been because of my obscenely bright ginger hair.

Since that first attempt, however, I've managed to get hold of and ipod dock, and in all the group lessons I am now playing excerpts of various piano masterpieces to them. This healthy diet of Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky et al seems to be working quite well - I've managed to get them to talk a lot more in lessons now, and most importantly to think about the music they're making. Hopefully this will encourage them to enjoy what they're doing at lot more, and their pieces will start to sound genuinely musical and interesting (as opposed to lots of notes which have been passively learned and then regurgitated). And it will certainly boost their marks in an exam.

So I would say that I've now established my goal for my time here in Delhi as a teacher. If I can get them to enjoy themselves more, to the extent that what they're playing starts to sound genuinely musical rather than just correct, then mission accomplished. If not though, at least I've been to get away with listening to Chopin every lesson. A win-win situation for me!

Finally, I'm very excited to learn about the potential performance opportunities for some of the students at the Ravi Shankar centre. This will be a fantastic opportunity for them, and a great incentive for them to practice! I look forward to discussing plans with Hannah Theo and Al tonight over some drinks after our jazz guitar concert (more culture there, though not necessarily Indian).

That's all for now, all my love to everyone back home in England.

Ruairi x

Life so far

Hi, all,

Fully adapted now, we know Delhi better, we have been working for two weeks at our schools, monsoons have started around here... a lot of things have changed in these two weeks, and so have we, a bit, I suppose.

Last week, a lot of the conversations we were having were about how we were going to face teaching. Now, a lot of them are about what we are going to get them to do for the following week. Actually, as Olivia pointed out before, I'm surprised at how disciplined some of the kids are. I mean, I had this student the first week to whom I was teaching her first piano lesson. The following week she had already achived an almost perfect hand, arm, and body posture in relation to the piano. Another one, I had to promise to him that I would teach him for a bit longer next week because the homework that I had given him, which wasn't little for a six-year-old, was such a small challenge to him that we finished going through it all 5 minutes before the end of the lesson!

The warm welcome keeps being almost overwhelming: Jack Thomas, my contact at the school, offers me lunch at the school, treats me amazingly and he's invited all 5 of us, the Delhi-based, to a jazz concert and a jazz workshop that they are organising.

Other than that, Hannah and I have made successful contact with the Delhi Music Society and, though we have not been given a schedule yet, our activites there will include a concert, lectures on appreciation of music, masterclasses and judging this system of trial examinations they have established in order to determine whether the people who voluntarily take the board exams are actually ready for them.

Theo V, by the way, I had a conversation with the theory teacher at my school: Anjli had given your name for composition classes. I told them I'd talked to you about it. I'll give you their number.

Apart from that, if anybody is feelinf up to a bit of tourism this weekend, Theo, Hannah and I might be going to Agra this weekend, anybody joining us?

Nice to read your posts, guys,

Lots of good wishes

Al

Facebook friends

It seems we´re really getting into the swing of things now. We haven´t been ripped off for a week! This evening we approached a cycle rickshaw to take us back to the flat, insisted on agreeing a price before we got in. "How much?" I asked. He paused. I smiled. He smiled. He knew we weren´t going to be ripped off easily.

On Sunday Alvaro and I went sightseeing in Delhi, taking in the Red Fort, Chandni Chowk market, Firoz Shah Kotla and the Indhira Ghandi Memorial Museum, each of which was extremely memorable and derserves a blog entry of its own. Despite the intense heat, possibly the hottest day yet, it was a fantastic day and good to finally be able to appreciate some of Delhi´s rich culture and history.

Alvaro and Hannah are organising a partnership between WAM and the Delhi School of Music. Blog about this to follow...

The long awaited monsoon season has finally reached us - if tentatively. Yesterday there was a deluge, accompanied by deafening thunder and even more power cuts. In the evening Gurgaon was stained and eerie yellow from the dying sunlight in the thunder clouds and a faint rainbow lingered in the upper atmosphere. Today was our first bright day, and not quite as hot. Much more European. (There are actually far more exciting things here than the weather, but the weather is one of the few things simple enough to be described succinctly.)

We all have very different experiences of teaching but it seems we´re all finding it a rewarding experience, and satisfying to be offering a style of teaching which our pupils are clearly not used to, and which they appreciate. Some are even adding us as friends on Facebook...

You may remember our earlier blog about the taxi driver on our first day who asked for 300 rupees from us to pay a policeman´s bribe. Well apparently a standard bribe is 50 - 100 rupees so he did quite well out of us.

Being Punjabi, feeling at home and loving the mangoes!

So now we have been in India for over a week, though it feels we have always been here - I already feel very settled and am starting to get into a routine. I have really enjoyed my first few days of teaching, and am amazed at the obedience and concentration of the children here, unlike my unruly and often very cheeky students in London!

The children listen very well and often play from memory. To balance this I hope to improve their reading ability, essential for learning a wider range of music. I also want to focus on posture, as many of the children sit too close to the keyboard, with their wrists either too high or too low. Many of them play with collapsing fingers, so I want to help them build up strength in this area to enable greater control of tone. It´s important to make them realise how certain hand/finger positions and movements affect the sound, and I also want to achieve greater economy of movement, enabling faster playing by not lifting fingers too high. I have been showing them plenty of ideas for practicing techniques which will help them to build up little by little when learning a piece, as seeing so many notes for the first time can be quite daunting. I even found myself giving singing and violin lessons after having previously studied viola, so it seems I will be very busy here!

The past two days I have walked along one of the main roads in Gurgaon to get to my school (though I was deterred by the first heavy monsoon rains this morning!). However, I wasn´t prepared for the amount of staring I would have to endure, being the only Westerner for a long distance. But unlike in the UK, this attention is not threatening, just curiosity, and more often than not friendliness. I feel a lot safer walking through the shopping centre at night than I would at home in London. The roads are another matter however! Last night we watched a very scary zombie film in our flat, but this does not even compare with being on a cycle rickshaw entering one of the many chaotic roundabouts, frequently showing little regard for red lights or driving on the correct side of the road (I had a heart-stopping moment on my way back today after being passed on either by two motorbikes travelling in the opposite direction).

Since being here I have also enjoyed plenty of delicious food, including my favourite channa masala (spicy chickpeas). In particular the mangoes are much sweeter than the overpriced supermarket variety at home, and this is complemented by a whole range of mango-flavoured items, including mango lassi (a sweet milky drink), mango icecream and even mango cornflakes!

Like most of us I will also be working on Saturday, but hope to take a trip into Delhi on Sunday to fit in some more sightseeing!

Hannahx

PS On an interesting note, I have been informed on more than one occasion that my surname is apparently Punjabi (despite having no known Indian relations!). The officer at Indira Gandhi International Airport even removed his mask (supposedly protection against swine flu) to point this out when he saw the name on my passport.

Still much to learn

Delhi is either hopelessly inefficient or delightfully laid back. Whichever way, it can make life extremely frustrating when there things to be done. Today I planned a visit to the Qutb Minar complex, but due to a last minute change of schedule from another party, I´m forced to spend most of the day in the flat. Yesterday I spent an hour completely lost in 40 degrees, being sent on countless wild goose chases around Gurgaon by locals who apparently thought it was better to give te wrong directions than none at all. If I´m complaining, it´s due only to a fault on my part. I´m still seeing Delhi from a Western perspective. Once I start to appreciate the atmosphere as ´delightfully laid back´ I know my experiences will only improve. You have to structure your time as flexibly as the Indians do.

It is difficult though to think of Delhi as care free when you see the number of desperately poor people living on the streets. There´s a lot of new building work taking place in Gurgaon, mostly large blocks of flats and plush detached houses. But within a hundred yards of our respectable ´Princeton´ estate in Gurgaon Phase V, there are countless rows of makeshift shelters made from canvas and branches lining the main roads. Behind them is a small river of stagnant water, clogged with rubbish and the putrifying carcasses of pigs, baking in the sun. Yesterday, as I was being driven back from my school by one of the staff, a boy of about 7 was waiting at some traffic lights, shirtless and pathetically thin. As we stopped at the red light he rushed at us and immediately started rubbing the whole car with a dirty rag. "Don´t give them any money," said my driver. "It only encourages more people to beg." This is the view held by most of the population, but it doesn´t help that boy. He or his family haven´t chosen to beg after seeing the success of others beggars. The beg because they have no other choice. When he saw he wasn´t going to be paid for his efforts the boy stood in front of the car and spread himself over the bonnet, begging pitifully, squeezing his hands together and touching at his mouth.

Despite the frustration, pain and confusion of living here, it never ceases to be a fascinating, vibrant, welcoming and colourful city. There may be masses of new construction, but there is still an ancient feel, particularly in the centre of Delhi. Everything is a hodgepode, the new built on top of the old, the old built on top of the even older.

Teaching is proving to be an extremely rewarding experience. Most of the kids in my school (the Theme Institute) are adorable, and teachers and pupils alike are extremely receptive to my input. There are two main musical issues which plan to address.

The first is that they all learn a piece as much by ear as possible, making very little reference to the notes on the page. When they are taught a scale, for example, they are given the names of the notes, but not made to read the notes as notation. They therefore learn to play, but don´t learn to read music, so sightreading and (most importantly) discovering new music is extremely difficult for them.

The other is that they play with loose fingers and floppy final joints. I´m going to try and teach them to keep their fingers bent in order to create a clear tone, and their wrists loose. They can get away with floppy final joints because they play on electric keyboards with the volume on maximum all the time, so they don´t need to make their fingers work hard in order to make a big sound.

Theo FS

Music lessons and football

Having read Neil's blog, I found it quite hard to resist the pangs of jealousy that hit me upon reading his daily routine:

-yoga at 7 in the morning, followed by:
-a swim. in speedos.

I imagine that during their hectic schedule Neil and Olivia find it very difficult to fit in their ayurvedic massages. Tough life. I wouldn't mind taking everything off so that someone could give me a massage.

So, while those two are busy being at peace with the world down in the south, Theo V and I spend our days haggling with rickshaw drivers in 40+ temperatures, getting lost in central Delhi with same rickshaw drivers, and then getting stuck in mile-long traffic jams on the way back home. In the same 40+ temperatures.

But that all sounds a tiny bit too bitter, and it is, because we're in fact having a pretty good time. We're getting treated really well by everyone here. This is especially the case at our music schools. Last night one of my student's parents told me that the teacher has a highly valued place in society. In fact (well, according to her at least), the teacher is just one step down from God - so effectively we are gurus. I have to say I really don't mind having this title attached to me. It 's good for the self-esteem.

It possibly also explains why I am followed around by people in the school offering me drinks and snacks all the time. Also, at our guest house where we're staying, there is a young man called Balo (pronounced "Pablo") who doesn't speak a word of english (not strictly true - he can say "yes" and "football"), who seems to want to do everything and anything for us. This even involves cleaning my bedroom and bed in the morning while I am still sleeping (or trying to!).

The music lessons have been challenging but enjoyable so far. For someone who hasn't really had any experience of teaching, I've definitely been thrown in at the deep end (NB this is a metaphorical deep end - not the real deep end that Neil and Olivia dive into every morning!). I'm based at the Theme Music School in Delhi, which is the school that Anjli runs. I teach a mixture of solo and group lessons. In the solo lessons I get to teach in a private room with an actual piano, but for the group lessons I'm in a "piano booth" which has 6 clavinovas and one "master" keyboard. Group lessons are definitely more challenging because I have to keep talking all time (more difficult than you'd think - I'm good at talking but not when what I say has to be relevant or acutally mean something!). And it's very hard to try to convey information to 6 different people at once (I now have much more sympathy for teachers and lecturers!). I had some pre-grade 1 pupils yesterday which was my most challenging lesson yet - I was teaching them to play different notes on the keyboard, and also rhythm things like what quavers, crotchets and minims are. But it's actually really difficult because they were all about 8 years old and getting them to sit still and pay attention for a whole hour is definitely easier said than done. It was really embarrassing when I told them all to play a middle C at the same time, and then I hit a B by mistake. What a joke. The pupils aren't the only ones who need the lessons...

Finally, I've become good friends with one of my pupils called Nakul. He lives in the same area of Delhi as our guest house. Yesterday he invited us to play football in his local park, an offer which Theo V and I both took up. This was at 8pm, but we both forgot that it doesn't really ever get cooler in Delhi, so after 15 minutes we were completely drenched in sweat - and exhausted. However I'm pleased to say that I was on the winning team. After this he invited us back to his home (which was nice to say the least) and we had freezing cold mango juice. This sounds trivial, but it was so utterly good after having lost half our body weight through sweat! Then we met his mum, who was absolutely delighted that her son had made some english friends - to the extent that she said we could come over any time we wanted. Given that he's got a playstation 3, a piano and food on demand (literally), we've decided to take this offer up - we're going round to his house again on friday for a meal...and probably for playstation too.

So all I need now is a swimming pool and a good massage, and I'll be completely resistant to any more attacks of jealousy. I think I'll skip the yoga though - if I tried to do that outside at 7 in the morning I'd get run over by a rickshaw.

Ruairi x

Ayurvedics and Indian Idols

Well, what can I say? I have been in India for nearly a week and have been exposed to so many different kinds of food, dance, music . . . life! I won't bore you all with all the experiences I have had but I will tell you briefly about our first 'Kerala Special' Ayurvedic massage experience.

So, you walk into a room where your clothes are taken off your body immediately. Yes! All of them . . and your private parts are covered with a sort of tissue nappy. Very sexy. Oil is then poured all over you and you are then massaged into heaven for the next 45 mins. Anhil, my masseuse, noticed that I had tension in my back and thighs, so he focused on these areas, apparently not caring whether or not this meant he had to keep touching my private parts. With a considerable amount of force, I might add.

You are then steamed and medically examined. The examination consists of "Was that OK?" from the 'doctor' (bloke that just walks in the room) and it doesn't really matter if you reply or not because he doesn't stick around for it! Instead, Anhil just stood in front of my medieval steam box and smiled / stared right into my eyes for the full 10 mins I was in there. Very sweet of him but . . . slightly weird.

You are then washed and dried EVERYWHERE and various bits of dust and 'other strong smelling stuff' are placed on various points on your body. Job done. I'm a new man!

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Olivia and I have just about settled into our daily routine which consists of yoga at 7 in the morning followed by a swim (where they make me wear speedos, as apparently swim shorts don't count) and then lunch. After a brief snooze we then head to the school to teach from 3:30-8:00.

I leave the classroom 45 mins early to go back to our flat to give individual vocal training to 5 of their students, one each day of the week. Expecting a young student to walk through the door, I received a shock. I was greeted by a man in his 40's who was already an established singer. AAH! OK . . . Here we go. The lesson was successful as even though his voice was beautiful he didn't know how to support so I showed him a few things. What I didn't notice was that the lesson was being watched by a man called 'Alfonso'. After talking to Alfonso and exchanging pleasantries I was told that he was probably India's most famous male singer. He then asked ME for singing lessons . . . . Even more AAH! I agreed, only on the condition that he would teach me Indian singing, which he did.

After an exhausting day we sat down to relax and chat to Simi about the day. She says, fairly off-hand, "Oh, by the way, tomorrow you'll me teaching Amritha" I felt I should have known the person. "You know . . . the Indian Idol Winner". [Big smile] Here we go again . . .

Neil x