MUKUND DEV ONLINE MUSIC CLASSES
Period of Classes
Online Music Class on Skype
Mukund Dev welcomes all music lovers from different parts of the world to come and study Indian classical music by online Music class.
His aim is to serve and maintain the purity of Indian Classical Music and give his students pure knowledge of music under guidance of Padma Shri Gundecha Brothers.
Voice Training Tips
The style of voice production is different in different genres of music. Think of how different an opera sounds compared to jazz music. Or how different Hindustani (north Indian) classical music sounds compared to Carnatic (south Indian) classical music. In fact, almost all genres of music have their own distinct styles of voice production. Therefore, it is important to find role models within the specific musical genre of your choice. For instance, it would not be appropriate to use an opera singer as your role model for voice production when trying to sing Hindustani classical music. Or the other way round.
Singing in Aakar
Right from the outset in Hindustani classical music, one must learn to sing in aakaar – which means to sing using only the vowel sound ā. Most people are used to singing songs with lyrics, which contain both consonants and vowels. Constants play the role of stabilizing the voice and helping it transition from one note to another, so it is much easier to sing tunefully when you use consonants. Take the consonants out, and suddenly you are left without a crutch, the notes seem to merge into each other and become blurry. The challenge is to train your voice to sing each note with precision and clarity without the consonants. Serious students must eventually practice singing in all of the pure vowel sounds – a (the schwa sound), ā, i, u, e and o, as well as the nasal consonants n and m, because the voice behaves differently with different vowels. Some notes are harder to hit with certain vowels.
One of the reasons it is important to learn to sing clearly in aakaar is because when you are singing rapid note patterns at dizzying speeds, a pure vowel sound is all there is time for. You cannot afford the luxury of consonants and lyrics at those speeds. Another reason is that Hindustani classical music requires the artist to improvise melody, and singing in aakaar allows the artist to focus on and freely explore melody. Apart from all this, there is the very important fact that melody can be experienced at its purest when no distractions in the form of lyrics are present.
Useful Resources for Students of Classical Music
Manual Tanpura or Electronic Tanpura
The first thing I would recommend for all learners of Hindustani classical music is to acquire an electronic tanpura to practice with. There are many such products available these days, both standalone devices and software that you can install and play from your computer or smartphone. Digital versions cannot replace the real instruments but they are worth having for their convenience and easy accessibility. Here are some examples of digital tanpura products.