Monday, April 18, 2016

Anjali - How to Learn (By Yourself)

Anjali took a few keyboard lessons from one teacher - a bike loving, rebellious, real estate loving, powder puffed sir. But somehow his rather dominating style of teaching did not appeal to her and she slowly discontinued. Nothing much to show till then.

A couple of weeks ago, on April 2, 2016 to be precise, we went to Mansi's house to pick Anjali up. Since the children were busy and knowing that Mansi's father Ramesh plays a bit of the keyboard himself, I asked him to play some of his favorite numbers. He played a couple (one from Disco Dancer) and then called upon Mansi to play a few themes she knew. Mansi played with consummate ease - themes of 'Bahubali' etc and we were all quite effusive in our praise for her skill.

Anjali watched all this quietly. Upon getting home she asked me for my phone. Then she removed the covers off the keyboard, googled how to play 'Tum hi ho' from Aashiqui 2 on the keyboard on Youtube, put the phone right in front of her on the keyboard and started learning. That's it. No further ado. No 'I want a teacher', 'I want to join classes' nothing. She picked up the 'Tum hi ho' pretty fast and within the week picked up other songs like 'Gerua', 'Janam Janam', 'Brown girl in the ring' and a couple of others I cannot remember. All pretty decent to hear.

I was pretty awestruck by the process. I wondered how children these days can learn pretty much anything from youtube and get to a stage where they can actually perform on stage. For instance the performers of Rooh, Shreya, Shruthi, Vivek and Nikhil, the young, soulful and energetic band which played at Vignana Jyothi were pretty much self taught. And they played so well.

Anjali gave a small performance herself on the day of her art exhibition. So many limitations that were previously there can now be crossed, so easily.

As simply as - just give me your phone please. And we're in business.

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