Cool gurus all over the country are hooking onto Skype to teach their students scattered across Kazakhstan, Sydney, Paris and Wisconsin, finds Lalitha Suhasini

An hour before noon, veena and Carnatic vocal tutor Shyamala Sajnani dials Sydney from her suburban home in Mumbai to link to her 24 year-old student Madhumati Santosh, who has settled down for a mid-afternoon weekly veena session. "It's been a month since I've been learning on Skype now," says Santosh, over the phone from Sydney. Santosh learnt the veena under Sajnani for two years while she was based in Mumbai, before she moved to Australia after she got married. "I practised on my own at home, but learning like this is so much better. It's as easy, as say, looking for something on Google," she says.

Mumbai-based veena and vocal tutor Shyamala Sajnani connects with Madhumati Santosh, her student based in Sydney over Skype for her weekly veena lesson. PIC/ HASHIM BADANI

Forty five-year-old Sajnani, a self-confessed technophobe, began taking classes on Skype just this January after much coaxing from overseas students. The clear Sydney-Mumbai connectivity has helped ease her into the new system, says Sajnani.

Carnatic connection
Little did Estonian software developer Ahti Heinla realise that Skype, the internet voice calling freeware that he co-developed in 2003, would turn into a modern teaching tool for Carnatic music teachers across the world.

The new Skype Carnatic music rage has to do with Non Resident Indians attempting to reconnect with their roots in the convenience of their own homes.

Mumbai-based Satish Krishnamurthy, 29, began teaching the mridangam, a South Indian percussion instrument, just a year ago. His online students are spread across Paris and various metros in India. Krishnamurthy has an interesting backstory on how he found an audience in France eight years ago. "I was at Hari Prasad Chaurasiaji's New Year bash. I didn't know anybody there, and a French musician who plays the Irish flute got talking to me," he recounts.u00a0 The next day, the two jammed and the flautist recorded his music on a laptop. A month later, Krishnamurthy received an invitation to a gig in Paris. "Soon, students showed an interest to learn online. My international students use Carnatic music as a form of meditation," says the pony-tailed percussion guru who also teaches the kanjira and ghatam.

Says Krishnamurthy's French student Tristan Auvray, 31, based in Rennes, "We can have lessons anywhere on Skype. The good thing is we can record the video in real time so that we can later practise with the video. Besides, you save the money and time you would have spent on travelling."

Mysore V Ambaprasad, a violinist with an engineering background, who calls himself computer illiterate, got hooked onto Skype early in 2007 after a suggestion from a student. "She learnt in the traditional format for a long time in Mysore, and suggested I try online tutorials when she left Mysore," says Ambaprasad, who has over 20 online studentsu00a0 across the United States.

Taking cue from Ambaprasad, his sibling VRR Bhargava, also Mysore-based and a percussionist teaching mridangam and tabla, began his own Skype classes. "Teaching online is as challenging as teaching in real time, in person," he says.

Supplementing Skype lessons
While Sajnani's Indian student based in Kazakhstan makes a trip to Mumbai to brush up her veena lessons, Krishnamurthy visits Paris once a year to conduct mridangam workshops. "There are times when because of time difference and syncing, it's difficult to understand the time signatures properly. Sometimes, there's also a language barrier with the French students and I have to make do with hand gestures. It can get a little challenging," admits Krishnamurthy, who also has students as young as 10-year-old Anirudh Bharve from Goa taking online lessons.

Technology is intimidating
Krishnamurthy admits that musicians from an older generation are wary of teaching online. "My mother is a vocal guru, and she finds it impossible to understand the concept of teaching music online. I too studied under the gurukul system but I find it really interesting to use technology," he says.

On the contrary, Hyderabad-based Brinda Padmanabhan, 51, who began her Skype lessons six months ago, has effortlessly shifted to the virtual mode. She says, "My website was available for more than a year and was designed in such a way that people could download the notations as well as the MP3 versions, and learn at their own time and convenience. But since some of my students are settled abroad, most of them in the USA, I decided to try Skype."

Percussionist Bhargava claims admits he has encouraged several other colleagues to start online classes, but most are intimidated by technology.