… looking for a guru, finding a woodshed
There has been a deluge of musical happenings events and connections over the past few weeks, but the most important and most challenging one began today. I’m here in India for several reasons, perhaps some of which I’m not even aware of yet. But my focus here in has been twofold. First, to see as much music as possible, in particular Carnatic music. Second, to find a teacher for Carnatic music (particularly for clarinet and sax). The first agenda has been an ongoing joy, and I may never catch up on even reviewing what I’ve seen. The second agenda has been a huge lesson in the magic, madness, and frustration of trying to find anything in particular in India.
Initially, I was hoping to make some a connection through talking to people at concerts. I spoke to a lot of people, and they were friendy, interested, but not that full of suggestions. When the music lovers here find that you are sincerely interested in learning their music, and have at least some understanding, they will be much more open to you … but this wasn’t finding a teacher. I found a few numbers from ads at concerts: most of the music clubs that are putting on concerts here have strong associations with schools and teachers. Then, randomly, I walked into a cafe, sat down, and began chatting with one of the locals. Well, Dattiam is one of the principle teachers at the small private music school next door to the cafe (that I somehow hadn’t noticed when I walked into the cafe). This was an interesting connection, but the school was a great school for percussion. He said he had a woman coming in occaisionally to teach vocal … this didn’t feel like the one, but being only 3 or 4 days on the hunt, it seemed like things were coming together.
Next illusory hope was a small school south of Triplicane that was introduced to me by a chance aquaintance with a Tamil guy, James. Interesting, and the school had a few good connections with Westerners, but the syllabus seemed too hybrid, and the teachers mainly veena players.
After this, I tried a few numbers that I’d pulled down from ads and concerts. For some reason these seemed to lead to numbers that were always engaged or had an answering machine… after all, in the height of Madras Music Season, you would expect a good teacher to be very busy around town.
At this stage, I decided that I had let my own practice of carnatic music, adapting to clarinet what I’d learnt in vocal classes from Ravi and Narmatha back in Australia a few years ago. And this seemed to move me in the right direction. Being here in Chennai, surrounded by the music, is giving my practice a lot more focus (even on western music).
Then, at the Suddha Ragunathan concert at Nungumkalam, someone shoved an ad in my hand for a school, then disappeared before I could see who had done so. This seemed entirely auspicious, until I’d had several aborted phone calls, and left a pile of messages on an answering machine.
I went to a few more concerts at Nungumkalam, as they were running music concerts well into January, and there met another couple of Chennai music fans, Siva Shankar, and Chandrashekar. They had a few suggestions, and their main suggestion was that I find a sax teacher. This had been a possibility, but at this stage, I’d still been thinking that a vocal teacher would be more useful, and could follow on from the lessons I’d taken with Narmatha. They both suggested someone who I thought they’d called Janardhan. I called back a few days later, and they said they had no clues as to a teacher, but they’d love to catch up some time. Back to square one, frustration sets in.
The secret weapon. A week previously, I’d picked up the local music planner and directory… had a look through, found a Janardhan in Mylapore. Rang him spoke to him. He said lets meet that afternoon. When we did, it seemed that he was actually mainly in the UK, but that his younger brother could teach me a few things … this was getting nowhere, the brother was very young very shy and had poor to no English. Secret weapon 2. Name dropping. Mentioned that I’d studied a pile of varnams from AG Gnanasundaram’s sister (this being true helped of course!). His attitude changed immediately. Next suggestion was that I try his teacher, Kadri Gopalnath. This floored me. I had seen 3 concerts of Kadri’s but I’d been too shy to put myself forward to such a player. He is the man who wrote the book for Carnatic saxophone. This was like going up to John Colttrane and asking for lessons. Spoke to him immediately on the phone. Language was difficult, but we laughed a lot. I had a really good feeling about this. We agreed to meet at a temple concert at Katchaleeswarar (which led to many other stories I’ll describe elsewhere).
Meeting Kadri at the temple went really well, his gig there was amazing, he was well respected there, and had made substantial donations there. We agreed to meet at his place. This was going well.
First proper musical meeting, and things are not going well. Kadri plays Alto. All the Carnatic players play Alto. I have a Soprano, and no interest in playing Alto at all. Certainly not in picking up another heavy instrument to add to the luggage. He plays only from saxophone G. In all ragas, but this is his sruti. If he needed a different pitch, he would use a different horn. I suggest working out fingerings on concert Bb for the soprano. He thinks this is a bad idea, and not suitable for true classical music, only light classical. Frustrating, but we agree to meet on the following Tuesday. He gives me his book (and CD) … written for alto. His son repeatedly suggests I purchase an alto.
Second musical meeting, just as frustrating. I’d spent the morning feeling I’d be back at square one, and wondering what I should do. I enjoy Kadri’s presence, but it seemed like there wasn’t any way I could learn from him. In the meantime, many adventures had prevented me from practicing his sax G fingerings. Kadri in this meeting turned things around. He didn’t need students for the money he said (and he is gigging all over the country almost constantly). He just wanted the students he took on to be a credit to him. He gave me some good reasons why working from different fingerings on the soprano to the same pitch as his alto was a bad idea. All of a sudden, it felt right. I said simply that I would do whatever it took, and whatever he suggested but I wanted to learn the best way, from him. This was the turning point. He said he’d take me on.
First lesson proper today. I’ve had time to go over his fingerings, work through the basic lessons I’d learnt from Narmatha, study his alto fingerings from his book, pick up the basic standard text and relearn as much as i could. The lesson went fantastically. Mainly going over the basics, but I’d memorized a good swathe of the basic exercises at a fair speed. Kadri is positive, supportive, and is showing me new things, some ragas with his fingerings, pulling me up on weaknesses on the exercises, but he is now suggesting that maybe I could one day play true classical compositions.
First stage reached, but this is not a time to rest. To win his trust, I will have to learn most of the basic book in the next week. I have covered this vocally with Narmatha, but it is still a lot of head work, focus and practice, and I only have about 8 days, 2 of which I’d planned to spend visiting the ancient temples of Mamallapuram.
Not there yet, but I’m in with a chance … this first step is the beginning of an epic journey that will take up a large part of the next three months … Kadri is a great teacher, a warm and funny human being, and an awsome musician … definitely the right call, and all the music lovers I have discussed this with agree …. it’s back to the woodshed for this little saxophonist.
February 8th, 2007 at 8:57 am
you found kadri! or he found you….or…..
well ain’t that just india.
nice one dak.