The Music Student

Book excerpt: In an era where the internet and technology drive education, a handful of subjects still align with the old school. Classical music is one example where you need a teacher, a “guru”. It is not about the music notes and notation. They can be documented. The pitch and tonal quality can be detected by a computer. With the advancement of artificial intelligence, the accuracy and purity of the raga structure may also be analysed soon. But that still does not negate the need for a guru if one would like to learn classical music. Learning in front of a guru does create a flow of hard-to-explain energy that gets transmitted from the teacher to the taught. It may be easy to switch to a different high school tuition class but not so easy to switch your guru. On a different note, the human mind does continually wave its own set of thoughts and perceptions, at the conscious or subconscious level of the mind. What if such thoughts and perceptions eventually dominate and manoeuvre over the otherwise sacred relationship of the teacher and taught? Where does it lead to?