Friday 17 July 2009

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

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