Sunday 2 September 2012

The Final Weeks in Kottayam...


Hello from Constance and Amy at the end of our WAM adventure!
Our last few weeks have been pretty hectic so we haven’t had much chance to blog, but we have lots of stories to tell…

India’s Independence Day was the first of many highlights – we rehearsed the National Anthem with the Seminary students the evening before, and felt privileged to be invited as guests in the morning flag-raising ceremony! There were sweets, other yummy food, and games all day – we both played badminton and volleyball until the sweat just got too much and our arms were bruised and tired…great fun! Just to explain – ACCM is joined to the Indian Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS), where accommodation and food are provided for the college students (and us). There are around a hundred students studying at the seminary, and it was nice to get to know them more personally after the Independence Day. On this note, the student leader of the seminary also invited us to lead their weekly song-practice session on Friday evening. This is when the seminary students learn new Christian songs. Since we had already heard them sing a wide variety of songs in their chapel services, it took us a while to pick some songs that we could share with them. In the end, we brought along an arrangement of Psalm 23, Pass it on, New Day, and 10000 Reasons, of which the last became their new favourite!

We made the most of our only weekend in Kottayam by shopping, going along to a church service on Sunday, and playing with the local children. Since our time here is coming to an end, we thought it would be nice to get our four college students some useful gifts, and we were lucky to find a music shop in town that supplied us with a shoulder rest for Thangboi (our only violinist), and some plectrums for Steve and Priyanka. We were trying to look for some music and/or Western music history books for them, before realizing that these are almost impossible to find here… We re-visited Precious Children after church on Sunday, where we learnt how to play Indian Chess (not sure if the kids were bending the rules to impress us or not!), and had fun on the playground. :)

The week following our Kottayam-weekend was dominated by intensive rehearsals for the upcoming (though not anymore) TV recording. We only taught on Monday and Tuesday mornings, and gave our students (and ourselves) time to practice and rehearse in the afternoon. Abraham came from Trivandrum on Wednesday to hold the final rehearsals for the recording, which were, again, pretty intense; and the students were starting to panic and get nervous. It’s true to say that the standards and musical interests of the students are very diverse, and they are still finding it slightly difficult to accommodate each other’s interests. However, we tried to encourage them to practise and work together in their ensemble pieces - we were surprised that they hadn’t come together to rehearse in their own time. Thus, there were issues in voice-blending, intonation, and pronunciation clashes (two of the students are from Delhi, and two from Nagaland).


This is a video from the day before the recording. Following this, we made the students put their music down, which they weren’t too comfortable with at first. However, singing from memory made such a difference in their appearance, sound, and communication (among them and with the conductor). We didn't get chance to video it the second time, but hopefully the recording will be broadcast online in the next few weeks – watch this space…

Speaking of the recording day at Powervision – a Kerala-based Christian channel that is apparently broadcast nationally – it was pretty exciting! However, the excitement had got to the students a bit too much as the 2 guitarists forgot to bring their instruments, which were originally meant to be used in about half of the program! Anyway, keeping cool, we jotted down the chords and decided to accompany the affected pieces on the piano so that the students still had the opportunity to sing their pieces; but it was a shame that the solo guitar pieces couldn’t be filmed… On arrival, we all (including the guys) had our make-up done! We, as teachers, were both up first to record, to take the pressure off the students; and our recordings went pretty smoothly – with Constance performing Scarlatti’s Sonata in C minor and Chopin’s Third Ballade, and Amy playing Kuhlau’s Rondo and Synding’s Rustles of Spring.  Since we didn’t get time to hold any concerts or recitals here, we found this a nice opportunity to perform to the students (and a small audience of the 15-or-so studio staff…), and it certainly encouraged them to give their best efforts and not worry about mistakes in their own items.

We were proud to watch the students perform confidently to the cameras. Some of the pieces were still not quite up to standard, with tuning being the main issue, but it was fulfilling to see the changes and improvements they had made since the audition session we’d held, when they didn’t even think they could perform anything!  Here are a few pictures of the students loving the studio:



Other than the excitement of the recordings, the day gave us the opportunity to get to know the students even more – we had lots of fun during the breaks and in the changing/make-up room…



…and this wasn’t the only studio visit we made in our last week! Our final weekend in Trivandrum included a recording session, where we created some audio for the aural and history exams that we’d written.  The studio was actually in the home of Jose Thomas - a famous Keralan sitar player! Whilst we there, apart from making ourselves feel professional by putting on our ‘examination voices’, we got to have a go on his Sitar, and also had a few coffee breaks and a delicious home-made breakfast with him and his wife :)

Speaking of exams, the question papers and marking schemes are now finished and ready!



Back to CDMS, it was classroom time..  Abraham had scheduled us to hold workshops for aural and viva voce elements for the exam students, and the classes went well!  We started with Grades 1 and 2 – Amy holding the former class and Constance holding the latter, both consisting of around 20 students.  Being for lower grades, and knowing that a lot of the students were lacking in basic musical knowledge, we started from the beginning.  We began the workshops by getting the students to imagine that we were writing a piece of music together, and thus we would need a stave, clef, key signature, time signature, tempo, notes, note values, dynamics etc. – explaining and discussing each as we went along. We followed this structure even with the grade 5 and 6 students, some of whom struggled to identify note names and values…  For the aural training, the students particularly liked the conducting and singing parts; and being in groups made this more interactive and fun.

There were only 5 students at our final pop singing workshop, as a lot of families were on holiday for ‘Onam’, a Keralan festival/holiday that was going on.  It was an interesting one – again we had 2 new students (among the 5), so just decided to sing some catchy, fun tunes. We began by asking the students what their favourite songs were, and after hearing them sing them, used snippets of them as warm-ups. A power-cut made the workshop more interesting – one of the songs we’d planned to sing was ironically titled ‘Power in Me’, which we asked them to sing extra loud to generate some electricity!



And then, somehow, it was our final week! En route back to Kottayam, we stopped off at Varkala – a touristy beach and shopping area which the train passes by.  Here, as part of the Onam festival mentioned above, there were a few interesting Hindu ceremonies occurring on the beach, including the laying-down of bird food…  After we’d sat down for a bit of sunbathing, one family decided to perform their bird food ceremony a few meters away from us, which resulted in a mass of pigeons feasting around us… It was fascinating to watch, but we had to move a few times…

Back in Kottayam, we’ve held final revision and practice classes; composition presentations; and also the practical examinations! For the latter, some of our students amazed us again with their confidence in performing, but we were also slightly disappointed with some underprepared performances.  For each exam, the students played/sung 2 or 3 pieces on their first instrument, a short piece on their second instrument, technical exercises, sight reading, sol-fa sight-singing, and an ensemble/duet piece.  Without Abraham’s presence, we felt very authoritative to be conducting and marking the exams – we created graded-style marking sheets, a ‘Quiet, Examination in Progress’ door sign, and sight-reading/singing templates!  We’re in the process of consolidating marks and comments for these…

For the composition presentations, the students all performed their pieces in front of the class and spent a few minutes afterwards discussing their source of lyrics and how, if at all, they had applied any compositional devices (intentionally!) to their pieces.  These were all impressive, though we realised that some of them had failed to notate their compositions accurately ( - we had collected in their written scores beforehand to analyse them).

Steve presenting his composition ' I have Jesus within me'.

Again, we’re in the process of marking these…

And that was it! We’ve finally completed the semester with the ACCM students! As a well-deserved reward and to give them a proper farewell, we spent the afternoon snacking on Indian treats and fruits, presenting them with their gifts, and letting them all wind down and relax…

We’re actually quite upset that it’s time to leave. We’ve learnt so much from this wonderful experience, from the teaching; through the people we’ve met; and from the extraordinary, eye-opening cultural encounters.  On this note, we thought we’d finish with a list of things that we have adapted to and improved upon whilst being in India:

1.      Crossing the roads – seen as the rules of the road are simply non-existent, we’ve learnt, from pedestrian experiences with Abraham particularly, that it’s quite easy to walk out into a busy road of traffic…
2.      Standing next to the door on buses – there’s no need for roller-coasters in India, as there are buses – so as long as you hold on tight, it’s (arguably) quite safe to stand next to the door; and the other passengers, in their claustrophobic fashion, should keep you held upright anyway…
3.      Sleeping on trains – we quite enjoyed taking an adventurous nap on the ‘Superfast Express’ bunk beds on our final train ride back to Kottayam :)
4.      Eating more and more Chilli! Our taste-buds have most definitely adapted to the spice…we’re worried about the blandness of British dishes when we return!
5.      Developing our head-shakes!  We now agree with each other, and say yes to things by giving the ‘Indian shake’ – it’s quite catchy!
6.      Negotiating for the bargains at shops.  Every Indian shop-owner knows they can charge the ‘foreigners’ the extra rupees, but are usually happy to take some off if you’re nice to them/pretend you only have so much to spend…
7.      Making sure we take our umbrellas out – otherwise you either get soaked, or sunburnt.
8.      Not being too afraid of the ‘public’ – and when we say public, we mean the wildlife that roams the streets, as well as the people! We saw a troop of elephants being ‘walked’ on one of our journeys, and have also come into close contact with snakes, goats, cows, bison, etc.


It’s time to say Goodbye…we really have had an awesome time and have many memories to take away from our WAM-summer!

Our 'farewell' picture with the students
Yathrayayapu! (Farewell in Malayalam)