Please note that most of this blog post was written in September and I am adding more information while I am Mumbai which accounts for the weird grammatical tenses. \u00a0However, I do not give away anything as this is told chronologically. \u00a0This was a difficult post to write for many reasons. \u00a0One reason was the permissions from the schools. \u00a0Two, is the fact that my research focus has changed over the time that I have obtained information. \u00a0There are no books and nothing on the Internet where all of the information is nicely packaged. \u00a0I am putting all of this together from scratch.<\/p>\n
A trip to India for my husband was imminent. \u00a0It was not a matter of if but when. \u00a0It was postponed a couple of times in 2014. \u00a0One, for our move to NYC from Baltimore, two, his brother’s wedding, and three, bad timing at his workplace. \u00a0Finally, he got the green light to go. This raised the question for me to accompany him. \u00a0The summer would have been perfect because it was right after our move to NYC and then I could focus on employment after the trip.<\/p>\n
He found out in August that we would be going to India for sure in November. \u00a0I said: How sure? \u00a0Sure enough to buy you a ticket if you want to come.<\/p>\n
I started thinking to myself, what would I do in Mumbai by myself? \u00a0Yes, my husband and I would be staying in the same hotel room. \u00a0He already works long hours and they would get longer in India having to work with New Yorkers and Indians on a 9.5 hour time difference. \u00a0I was told that by being a woman, going out at night by myself was out of the question. \u00a0Also, traffic is a menace, especially in a city of 20 million people. \u00a0The hotel is close to his office but far from everything else a tourist would want to go. \u00a0Like Cinderella, I have a curfew which unfortunately is twilight to be back at the hotel. \u00a0She at least had until midnight! \u00a0I must plan accordingly.<\/p>\n
The wheels started to turn and I finally realized what I wanted to do. \u00a0I am not a fan of cruise ships (unless I became a working musician on one) or all-inclusives. \u00a0I actually want to see the people and the culture in action. \u00a0But how can I do this in a place where I am not familiar with the culture or its primary language which is Hindi and where I know absolutely no one? \u00a0Unfortunately for me this time, my intermediate Spanish does not count.<\/p>\n
Well, there are two things I am interested in and have some knowledge. \u00a0One is fashion where I am a neophyte and two is music education in which I took few years off from teaching (music, K-12) to explore other careers although I still do research as a consultant.<\/p>\n
I therefore Googled: “what is music education like in India” and found only a handful of articles that addressed the subject. \u00a0The other results focused on how to teach traditional Indian music in (western) classrooms. \u00a0I was somewhat surprised by this at first but after sinking into a deep trance revisiting the dusty files in my mind about what I have learned about international music education and world music in general, the surprise wore off. \u00a0I realized that all I knew about traditional or classical Indian music fit on the point of a sewing needle, let alone how western classical music is viewed in India.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the music education degree requirements are vast and dense. \u00a0Generally in the US, your undergraduate music education degree will leave you qualified to teach band, chorus, strings, and general music for grades K-12. \u00a0You are a jack of all trades and a relative master of the one (or maybe two) that you had the most time to put into during your own K-12 music training. \u00a0World music and international music education, if you are lucky, barely gets mentioned but at least it piques your curiosity. \u00a0Like me, you can set it aside and deeply explore that seed of curiosity on your own time and terms.<\/p>\n
Thus, I decided that I wanted to see how music is taught in India (don’t start laughing yet until you read more about the word India). \u00a0(I am not affiliated with any university or organization so this is my own research project.)<\/p>\n
I contacted all of my Boston University professors. \u00a0Only one was able to give me help as the rest have no contacts or experience working in Mumbai. \u00a0Professor Andr\u00e9 De Quadros grew up in Mumbai and was able to put me on the right path after an hour-long phone conversation in-between flights for him and pit orchestra opera tech rehearsals for me.<\/p>\n
That conversation was enlightening. \u00a0I had to fine tune my research skills in my head as I spoke to him. \u00a0I was a little rusty but quickly saw a sheen and I was back to my old 2003-2009 (with a little bit from 2010-2014) research self. \u00a0 I perform research as a consultant but there is always a goal in sight and things are pretty well defined for what I have to do. \u00a0I am building this project from scratch. \u00a0He pointed out many things in that short amount of time including:<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0(After much laughter from Professor De Quadros). \u00a0India is a large country geographically that has about 2 billion people. \u00a0There are myriads of subcultures that live in this country. \u00a0Retry your focus to Mumbai. \u00a0Even then, Mumbai in itself has many different subcultures so you can’t lump everything together and say that this is what music education is like in Mumbai. \u00a0I must be specific to what I saw and where I saw it.<\/p>\n
2. \u00a0What do I really want to do, see, learn from watching the music classes?<\/p>\n
3. \u00a0I need to find English speaking schools to an extent where I can communicate with some of the adults. \u00a0The students do not necessarily have to speak English or understand very much of it.<\/p>\n
4. \u00a0He gave me the names of two private schools he recommended. \u00a0I will name them when I have observed their programs.<\/p>\n
5. \u00a0See if I can talk to either one of my husband’s employees or a hotel worker about seeing a government school music program in action.<\/p>\n
6. \u00a0Traveling around Mumbai is a great challenge due to traffic.<\/p>\n
7. \u00a0He agreed with me that not much is written about music education in India. \u00a0Sure, there are many lesson plans that incorporate traditional Indian music in music education classrooms in the US, but there is not much research about music education in India from any standpoint.<\/p>\n
8. \u00a0See what I can find out and call him when I get back.<\/p>\n
It was only then that I realized that I would actually being doing an ethnographic music education research project. \u00a0The word “ethnographic” is used VERY loosely. \u00a0I want to see music classes in action and maybe teach a few of my own. \u00a0Hopefully, I will be able to record these lessons on video and take pictures of the environment.<\/p>\n
After the opera and a bout with the flu, I was ready to tackle the first part of the research: the literature review and contact with the two schools.<\/p>\n
After a VERY quick scan of ten articles: some online newspaper articles from India, some from music education journals, I learned or was confirmed the following:<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0Music education is scarce in India and Mumbai.<\/p>\n
2. \u00a0The guru-shishya tradition is alive and well in teaching music, especially traditional Indian Classical musical instruments.<\/p>\n
3. \u00a0Everyone is interested in increasing the presence of music education in Mumbai, the government, the people, the educators, everyone. \u00a0There is very little said if that means Western Classical music or traditional Indian Classical music or both.<\/p>\n
4. \u00a0There is a high interest in electronic music.<\/p>\n
5. \u00a0Music is very important in Bollywood.<\/p>\n
6. \u00a0In relation to the total population in Mumbai, very few people are receiving music lessons or music education.<\/p>\n
(There is more but this blog is not the research paper.)<\/p>\n
Loads of scenarios popped in my head as to what the music education scene looks like in Mumbai based on the small amount of information above. \u00a0One scenario that I envisioned was a fusion of Indian and Western Classical music in vocal and instrumental ensembles. \u00a0What would that look like? \u00a0How about musical theater? \u00a0What would an American or British musical infused with Bollywood look like? \u00a0(Cue the Indian laugh track now.)<\/p>\n
While I was getting the courage to cold call the schools in India, I browsed their websites. \u00a0(I will give the links to their websites if I get permission to do so). \u00a0I was looking for information to use to help give me a more clear picture of how music is valued. \u00a0It is vastly different from school to school and not many schools mention music. \u00a0The differences are contained within Western Classical music although a few schools mention that some Indian Classical music is taught. \u00a0Most of the music curriculum is vocal which lead me to believe that money and access to instruments was an issue.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I rejoined the National Association for Music Education (http:\/\/www.nafme.org) as an Associate member just for the information. \u00a0The editor is still there. \u00a0She is amazing. \u00a0I remembered speaking to her about my master’s thesis a decade ago. \u00a0She was excited about this project for me and said that it would be quite an addition to the music education literature if I do a good job in presenting the information and obtaining the research. \u00a0Ella is well-traveled and had many useful tips for my first trip overseas. \u00a0Her well wishes meant a lot to me. \u00a0She has read a lot of brilliant research pieces in her day. \u00a0I hope to impress her. \u00a0Yes, I plan to submit an article for review once my research is finished and it is written.<\/p>\n
It was only until now that I realized that I have never seen anyone post their stream of consciousness while tackling a new research project. \u00a0I know that many students are curious as what it is like to tackle one. \u00a0Now, they will have a clue. \u00a0The caveat is that I am doing this for myself and am not affiliated with any university. \u00a0I have done a case study that was ethnographic in nature before over the course of 5 yeas with my master’s thesis. \u00a0http:\/\/open.bu.edu\/handle\/2144\/898\/browse?value=Gnibus%2C+Melissa+Helene&type=author<\/p>\n
I know that I am leaving this blog post hanging in the air. \u00a0My goal is to keep a daily blog. \u00a0It will take a lot of perseverance to maintain this goal. \u00a0There is much to write about with my experience in Mumbai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Please note that most of this blog post was written in September and I am adding more information while I am Mumbai which accounts for the weird grammatical tenses. \u00a0However, I do not give away anything as this is told chronologically. \u00a0This was a difficult post to write for many reasons. \u00a0One reason was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-music-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.melissachalmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}