Performing Arts - Violin

Learning one of the most difficult musical instruments might be a real task of challenge in itself; however it is incomplete without performing it if front of a considerable audience.

It has been a year since I started learning violin. Albeit, I have only come to realise – I am still digging the crust of an immensely deep and dense pie. Learning violin really takes immense determination and passion. Moreover, training in Indian classical takes it to a greater level of arduousness. I have merely learned two Rags (Bhupali, Durga)  as per the Indian tradition. However, when it came to performing I was faced with one of the most bewildering of all challenges.

Cultural events in any Indian society stand unmatched when compared to the rest of the world. Ganesh-Utsav (usually a 10 day long celebration centralized on the elephant-headed god of wisdom and prosperity Ganesh) is one of the biggest of such cultural and religious gatherings. Having said that, it gave me a nice opportunity to display the skills I had developed over the past year; serve people by entertaining them; and perhaps encourage others to take interest in it. So I decided to perform on one of the day 10 days. I consulted my coordinator Ms. Vijayalaxmi for approval and contacted Mr. Anoop Iyyer my supervisor. Mr. Iyyer is an excellent keyboard player and show organizer. He helped me put up a complete show. Even though I was learning Indian classical, it wasn’t adequate to be able to perform in a classical show naturally. In addition, if I had to perform in from of the common audience, I had to consider the fact that not everyone had the taste and understanding of classical music.         

Mr. Anoop on keyboard and me playing violin.

Therefore I decided to play something other than classical music, something which could at least be apprehended by the audience.  Thereby, I planned to prepare a piece of western music and play that instead. I came up with the world famous song “My heart will go on” from the movie Titanic. The song was known to all and the evening served as an adequate time to play and enjoy it. Admittedly however, planning to play it was the easiest part. The way western violin is played is different from the Indian style, even the seating differs. I had to struggle a lot to play it while sitting on a chair (we sit down conventionally). I had to prepare it in very less time. I never thought I would be able to do it in time. To my surprise, I just did prepare it well! In fact my sister wanted to sing it with me on listening to my violin. I became aware of my own abilities to perform under pressure and the latent talent my sister had. I didn’t know she could sing so well. Being able to play a new song was still easy I thought, when it came to performing.

My activity supervisor, Mr. Anoop supported and encouraged me to take up this task. Initially I was really nervous about performing in public. I did agree to perform but since I had no experience of it I wasn’t really sure. I even thought of cancelling it, but something in me refrained to give up. Such are the times where we actually need to show perseverance because it our determination which enables us to withstand the challenges. Mr. Anoop kept encouraging me and it really helped me stick to my commitment. 

Our performance: "My heart will go on"

The event was set, crowd occupied that area and after the opening ritual and a couple of religious songs it was our turn. Mr. Anoop just asked me to simply start without any second thought. I started playing and without realizing I finished it smoothly. To me it just felt like a fraction of second, I had no idea what the audience was clapping at in the end. It turned out that people really liked it. Some people even wanted to learn violin getting inspired from me. I felt really excited. I was glad that I could perform it so well and that people liked it. Suddenly, that so called ‘stage fear’ vanished. Performing an art is a skill and I was really happy to have at least taken a step towards perfecting it.  

The Letter of News

Newspapers, magazines, and journals are an inseparable part of cultures around the world. Every person, sooner or later, comes across several forms of print media and is driven to learn its importance and significance.  On a global scale spreading important information to its intended subjects is called mass communication.  Undertaking such a meticulous task – albeit on a miniscule level – is challenging in itself. Therefore, our CAS coordinator Ms. Vijayalaxmi asked us to undertake the task of publishing a newsletter for our school. It was something I never did before but was certain that we will learn a lot by being the editors and compilers of the school Newsletter.

In this activity which accounted for 3 hours in total, I teamed up with my friend Shafqat who cooperatively worked with me to complete the publishing. Together, we planned an initial outline for our newsletter and then informed all the IBDP and IGCSE students to contribute their articles, essays, and opinion columns based on various school activities for the newsletter.

I myself wrote a poetry called Curiosity for the literature section of the newsletter. I had written poems before but never on demand and in a specific time. Initially, I was uncertain if I could do it for writing poetry requires creative thoughts and a peaceful mind, neither of which can be guaranteed always.  However, as I convinced myself to stick to it I was slowly able to compile a poem without having the associated thought s lingering in my mind for a relatively long time. I realised and definitely became aware for the first time that I could write poetry whenever I wanted to. I also learned how poetry is not just about writing what your heart says. Sometimes it involves considering the formal conventions and regulating some aspects of poetry including the ‘artistic license’. Since very few thought of writing poetry or a short story I also came to know about the preferences and mentalities of my friends. It sure helped me accept the fact that I am a unique individual with specific set of skills and so are they.  It is not necessary therefore that they may be equally interested in such cases.

Collecting all the different articles and reports from the interested students was a still an easier task. Reviewing them, editing them and presenting them in a palatable manner are some of the things we both struggled to achieve. Mainly, it is the conflict between freedom of speech and social convention which one must strive to resolve. We had to closely review the texts we received and edit them appropriately. In totality however, we learned a lot of things working together and really enjoyed producing a newsletter for our school. Following is our complete newsletter:

DYPIS Newsletter Aug-Sept 2013.pdf

Strings of Melody_5

Today Mr. Shirish said that he will teach me the next 10 Alankars only of I played all the previous ones correctly. And then something amazing happened, I sat there for an hour playing all that I had learned till now and my arms and legs did not pain as such as they did earlier. I felt very happy when I realised that but I also know I have a long-long way to go. Although I missed some parts he was indulgent enough to teach me the next part which was – and I only realised it later – terrible! It was the most difficult set of notes I ever received! I agreed with Mr. Bhalerao that it was nothing as compared to what was going to come but still, at this stage it was the most difficult thing. I could readily anticipate myself practice these for the coming few weeks but I wished I could do it is lesser time. I practiced all that session and even asked for some extra time, which he was most happy to allot. I was very happy at that moment in fact I have been happy all this day for I am pursuing the hobby which I has thirsted me for years! 

Strings of Melody_4

It had been five days since I played the violin and so I feared if I had forgotten some things, but to my astonishment as soon as I placed my hands on the violin I could play everything Mr. Shirish asked me to. After a short revision, he taught me the next 5 Alankars. They were pretty simple but obviously more difficult than the previous 5. I started practicing and he guided me where ever I went wrong. After sometime when my hands and legs could no longer support me, he asked me to halt and I handed over the violin to him. He played to me, the same 5 Alankars I was practicing, in different styles just to reenergize me. It was wonderful, when he played the same violin it appeared as if he did nothing to it and the violin sang on its own. On the contrary, I strived to make my violin sing the correct notes. This is something inspired me. I want to achieve the same level of expertise as him; I know it is going to take ages (Mr. Shirish has been playing it for last 35 years!) but I am determined. He says for that it happen it will have to come out of my heart and not hands. My heart is already there inside the violin I just have to make it beat correctly and master this skill. I am really looking forward to learning that entire he has to offer and I grateful to him for he is teaching with such great interest.

Tutoring the Little Buds_3

"Family is not an important thing. It's everything."

                                                                                     -- Michael J. Fox

 

 A person’s family is his/her first teacher; it is also the group of people the person is most attached to. However, as people grow up they often ignore their families and take them for granted. Such behavioral trends inflict the family first and then with time can become a global issue bothering the entire human society. When we were planning about today’s session, I, my classmates and our supervisor Ms. Shaila decided that we would teach our little gems the importance of family. However, since they were too young to understand the complexity of relations, we came up with the most elementary of all activities.

When our session started, we all sat in a huge circle and gave a coloured sheet of paper to each of them. Then we applied some poster paint on their hands and asked them to imprint it on the paper. After their hand prints dried, we asked them to draw one of their family members on each finger. Subsequently, I and my classmates collaboratively collected all the papers and cut out all those little imprints. We told them that each finger on their hand, represented a member of their family; and just like they can form a strong fist only when all their fingers are clutched together, their families can only be strong if all the members keep together. I doubt if they really understood the concept of unity but they did become more conservative about their families. I think that was enough for their age. But there came one problem which I think was exceedingly funny.  My student Aabhas, had more than five people in his family, a bolt of lightning run down my nerve when he told me that! How could I possibly miss that condition? I felt a little embarrassed and to cover it up I told that his palm was the sixth member which, probably the strongest of all. He quickly related it to his father which a relieving since I did not want to appear dumb there. A nice brain-teaser I would say!

We also made them watch a video based on today’s theme. This was seriously a great challenge. Those little ‘bunnies’ just wouldn’t stop jumping about! It was very difficult to make them sit at one place. But it is rightly said, parenting is the most demanding of all skills, but also the most rewarding of all. Very soon their indefatigability waved off as the video started possessing their interest. They then sat quietly (quietness for them includes a little murmur) and patiently listen to what we said. The occurrence of this incidence, suddenly seemed to teach me something. I realised how beautiful it is to be a guardian and could feel the ecstasy of being one.

Hindi Diwas (Day)

India is famous for its linguistic diversity. Some statistics suggest that it is home to 1,618 languages including some major dialects. While the accuracy of that account is dubitable it is not incorrect to say that languages in India vary invariably across the subcontinent making it the region with maximum linguistic multiplicity.

Nevertheless, Hindi is very special amongst them. On 14 September 1949, Hindi was accepted and affirmed as the official language of India by the Constituent Assembly. Thus, this day is celebrated across the country as Hindi Diwas (Day). Since I opted for Hindi SL in the Language B of the IBDP, I along with my classmates and Hindi teacher, Mrs. Vijayalaxmi (also our CAS coordinator) , planned a small program which intended to elaborate the beauty and importance of Hindi and this day.

Primary students singing.

We planned that we would work on designing the program for about 3 hours and conclude with a 2 hours show today. Since this activity was creativity based, I wanted to put in something new, so that the program leaves an everlasting impact on the audience. In addition one of our major motives was to address the critical issue of regional language depreciation in India and around the world. This is a much discussed topic of global significance since almost all the cultures today are facing the risk of their traditional languages getting contaminated and to some extent extinct. India struggling to preserve Hindi and other languages in their rich and more palatable form. The sudden introduction of new languages and internet jargon has facilitated communication; albeit it has undermined the efficiency of individual languages. Hindi is one of them. In past 4 decades, Hindi has undergone a drastic alteration making it a mixture of worldly languages which is comprehensible to the laymen, but has left it literally tasteless. In order to preserve the literature and the very beauty of Hindi – and other languages – it is vital that their importance and beauty be explicitly explained to the upcoming generations.

Me during the quiz.

With this thought in mind we sat together and came up with an outline of the program and divided tasks amongst ourselves. I took up the challenging task of comparing Prashna- manjusha (Quiz)! I say challenging because I have conducted quizzes before but none of them were in Hindi! That being said it was very difficult to decide the sort of questions I was supposed to ask! It was a language related quiz and the one intending to promote it, so it was important that it not only fulfilled this criterion but also was enjoyable for the spectators. I researched the internet and the books in my library for suitable material. Consequently, I planned a quiz with 3 rounds: first of word meanings (shabdhartha); second of proverbs (kahavatien); and third of idioms (muhavarien). Each round consisted of 2 sub-rounds: English – Hindi and vice versa. I had to collect material and edit it to fit into the limitations of the program. However with the other academic assignments it became increasingly difficult to draw time for this work. I literally found myself running haywire to get my things done. But I stood committed to the task and finally completed it last night.

Today was the show time! We started the program with a Hindi prayer and thought. Then after a brief introduction, some poetry and speech, it was my turn! I knew that my schoolmates possessed very scanty interest for Hindi, so I tried to make things casual and comical. Then I asked the team members of Ruby and Sapphire house to take their seats and commenced the game. Soon, both the teams and the audience engaged their interest in the questions and the show culminated smoothly. Almost everyone displayed some liking for some of the components of our program which was good because it implied that we were nearing our aim. It was good to see how people reacted to certain question and that their affinity towards Hindi bloomed back with a brighter shine.

Language is important, more important is keeping it rich, vivid and flavourful; that is what I learned from today and wish to propagate. Language is the tool of communication, sharper the tool the better one communicates.