‘Music is the birthright of every child’
Delhi-based Saskia Rao-de Haas is a cellist/composer from the Netherlands and an exponent of Indian Classical music. She, along with her husband, Sitar maestro Pandit Shubhendra Rao started the Shubhendra and Saskia Rao Foundation and Musikul Education, d
India has a very rich musical heritage. This is however accessible to only very few children whose parents are musicians themselves or music lovers. The guru-shishya parampara is irreplaceable but it does not serve the educational needs of the population. Yet, studies indicate that the key stage of learning happens before a child turns 10, while recent research in neuroscience has shown that music education is perhaps the best investment we can make in a child’s overall brain development.
When our son Ishaan was very young, we began combining our knowledge of western music teaching methodologies and Indian classical music. This resulted in the Sangeet4All curriculum, a multi-sensory music course keeping the young learner, from the age of three, in mind.
Music education benefits everyone, not just the talented few. A part of the curriculum are children’s books. In the first year, a child builds a relation with sound, the title of our first book Dhwani. The second book Vadya, is the story of a sitar called Tara, who lives with her family in Tata valley in the country of Vadya. Tara feels her family is better than others until her father, the Tanpura, tells her there are many different instruments in Vadya. She travels though the country and befriends Suri the Bansuri, the Tabla twins and Gattu the Ghatam. Children relate to the storyline and to musical instruments become living entities. Each book contains a set of 10-15 unique songs as well. The third book will focus on introducing them to Raga and Tala. Three more books, Desi, Duniya and Shastra, are being written.
As a teacher, I am not only focusing on the children, but also on creating more music educators through our professional development programme. We train or re-educate music teachers into this curriculum. Being performing musicians does not give them that training. Shubhendraji and I want to ensure that every child has access to quality music education through this programme, we believe music is the birthright of every child.
(As told to Ridhi Kale)