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Indian music school enhances the joys of yoga |
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Monday, May 03, 2004 |
 With the surging popularity of yoga, thousands of Atlantans are getting a dose of not only Indian meditative postures, but also the haunting, exotic music that goes along with the ancient practice.
This growing awareness is just one reason the 3-year-old SwarNaad School of Indian Music in Norcross has grown at such a fast clip, says owner Sanjay Patel. The 70-student roster includes pupils of several races, ages 4 to 45. All have come for voice lessons or to play uniquely Indian instruments, taught by Patel and another part-time teacher. Cost is about $50 per hour.
Patel started the school in 2002, after teaching in students' homes for the first few years he lived in Atlanta. He focuses on Indian classical music, while fellow teacher Yashvant Panchal teaches popular "Bollywood" movie music and folk songs.
Patel's own music education started when he was 5.
His great-grandfather had emigrated from India to Kampala, Uganda, to serve as a contractor for the British government. Patel was the third generation of his family to be born in the East African country. When he reached school age, his parents sent him to live with family in their hometown of Amdavab, in the Indian state of Gujarat.
"I started hitting [in rhythm] anything I could — empty containers, tables, benches," he says, laughing. "I'd be punished at school for it. . . . But it was meant to be. My teacher saw potential in me."
He soon started formal lessons in the most basic of Indian percussion instruments, the tabla, eventually learning to play the organlike harmonium and three other percussion instruments: dhol, dholak and nal.
Patel studied music in the traditional Indian system of guru shishya parampara, which translates as "teacher discipline tradition." The system relies on the personality as well as the expertise of the guru, or teacher.
Paying for those lessons and his first tabla wasn't easy, he says, but he saved enough money until he could order his drum from a renowned tabla maker. "I had paid in full," he says. "Then I went 30 or 40 times to get it, and the tabla maker kept saying, 'It's not ready, it's not ready.' Finally I started crying right there."
The tabla maker sat the 15-year-old Patel down and proceeded to craft the drum as the boy watched. It took nine hours, but Patel witnessed every detail. "He put his heart into making it, and that gave it a beautiful sound," Patel says. "I will never part with it."
That first drum traveled with him to London, where he went for college training in accounting. He held odd jobs, including ice cream factory worker, to pay for college, when, by chance, an acquaintance asked him to fill in as a music teacher.
Eventually he began teaching full time, even maintaining a waiting list of students that grew to 150 names, he says. That was 1984, and his musical responsibilities continued to grow — eventually to include the post of music development officer for a London borough government. His charge: promote a diversity of music in schools in an effort to "bring harmony in a multicultural society."
He has never worked a day as an accountant.
In addition to teaching, Patel continued to perform, and in 1992 appeared before Queen Elizabeth II in a gala orchestral concert honoring her 40th anniversary as head of the Commonwealth.
In 1999 came a permanent move to the United States and a new start. But he says he has never wavered in his convictions concerning the importance of his music.
"This [talent] is a very precious thing we have," he says. "It becomes a moral responsibility . . . to give my knowledge to the people. It's our responsibility to keep this music from going away."
• SwarNaad School of Indian Music. Global Mall, 5675 Jimmy Carter Blvd. Suite 586, Norcross. 770-409-8199. swarnaad.com
Source: ajc.com |
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