Indian classical music is a very refined art which is quite different from the film industry songs that you hear. There are probably only about 5 to 10 percent of the public who understand all the nuances and intrcacies of it. Mehdi Hassan introduced the semi classical style of ghazals and brought the classical music as well into prominence as a result of it. Although we can appreciate why the taditional relationship between the master and his disciple was quite rigid, the times have changed and if we want to have future generations appreciate the beauty of the Indo_Pak classical music, we will have to make it much less secretive and more accessible to them.

This is the age of the ipad and itouch and instant answers. However, there are many talented singers coming up but they still need a faster method of appreciation and understaning of the Indian music. It is surprising how many really good singers are totally unaware of which thaat or raag they are playing! It is true that it is not necessary to know that but it certainly would make their own experience so much more enjoyable if they did know a bit more. The method of teaching Indian music is partly to blame for this as they made it so difficult and nobody these days has the patience to spend years and years for somethng which should come naturally and with fun. People like Sohail Rana are very rare as he could read Western notes as well as the classical Indian method. He taught three generatoins of children and youth and his method is never devoid of fun. Even though his knowledge is very extensive, he methodology has always to reduce it to its basic essential.

I was fortunate to be with the company of some of the greatest Indian classical composers, musicians and singers but interestingly, a lot of my knowledge came from people like the harmonium player of Mehdi Hassan, where II would spend a few minutes with these unassuming musicians in between breaks and it is surprising how much knowledge they had. I used this knowledge along with the Western methods of teaching and combined the two and have tried to make it very simple for everyone to grasp the essence of it.

Indian method of singing is based on phonetics just like the operatic singers in the West but the music notation of the West is missing in the Indian method. This is not a problem at all but knowing just the notes on the keyboard (after all there are only 12 notes which are speated over and over again in the piano!) will make it very easy to play the Indian classical music. We will explain this is more detail as we go along but this is what the learning section of this site is about.

We have divided the sections into SIngers, Musicans and Composers although in some cases they overlap. We welcome all suggestions and if you have any nice pictures of famous classical singers, we would love to showcase them here.