Keeping up practice after India

A few weeks of lessons in Varanasi, Rishikesh or Pune can change how you hear music. Then you fly home, the teacher is thousands of miles away, and the phrases that felt so close start to fade. Here is how to keep them.

Keep a small daily riyaz

Fifteen minutes every day does more than two hours once a week. Pick a time that fits your day and keep it, even when it is only a few long notes on Sa. Musicians call this riyaz, and the habit matters more than the length of any one session.

Keep your teacher's sound in your ear

Listen to the recordings you made in your lessons, if your teacher let you make them, and to great performers in the same raga. Listening is half of learning this music: the shape of a raga is learnt by ear long before it can be put into words.

Practise against Sa

In India every note was heard against the tanpura. Practise with a drone sounding Sa at home too, so that you keep hearing each note in relation to Sa rather than on its own.

Learn the way you learnt there

Your teacher played a phrase and you played it back. That is still the best way to learn, and it is what this site does: listen to a phrase, play or sing it back, and get a score for the notes and the timing, so you know whether you have it without a teacher in the room.

Read the notes, but learn by ear

Written sargam helps you remember what you learnt, but it can't hold the slides and ornaments that give a raga its life. Use the notes to check yourself, and the recording to learn. How to read sargam notation, and a glossary of the words your teacher used.

Keep a teacher if you can

Many teachers in India give lessons online, and there may be one near you. Practice on your own carries you between lessons; it doesn't replace them. Going back to India, or to a workshop nearer home, is easier when the practice in between has kept you going.