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Published: August 31st 2009
It’s time to put some organization into my project. The domain is music education. I’ve found so far that the system here tends to be tiered, with the highest level of music education available for those who want to become professional musicians, the mid-level for those who want to be amateurs or hobbyists and include music as part of a well-rounded education, and the low-level for quick instruction for tourists or short-term Nepali students. I will therefore organize my project along these lines—studying each level of music education as it applies to its niche of music students. The top level includes instruction organized around the guru-shishya system (intense, disciplined, devoted instruction from a master teacher to his ‘disciples’), instruction at private music schools, and in some cases university instruction. The mid level includes music in public schools, open music classes, institutionalized private lessons, and most other ongoing music education programs. The low level mostly involves music education available in Thamel; the Gandharba association arranges classes and lessons in traditional Nepali music available for tourists for one week to a month, taught by the street musicians.
I’ve come up with some interview question lists for students, teachers, and institutions; please look them over and tell me if you have any suggestions for other possible questions.
For Students:
How long have you been studying music?
How did you get started learning music?
What motivates you to learn music?
What do you want to do in the future?
What do you expect/want to do with your music skills?
How much time per day do you spend learning or practicing music?
How valuable is your music learning?
What kind of music do you play, or are you learning to play?
Do you learn in classes or individual lessons?
How did you find your music teacher/teachers?
How much money do you spend on music instruction?
How many music teachers do you have, or have you had?
Do you ever perform your music?
Do you feel like you compete with your classmates?
Do you compete against students at other schools?
What kind of music do you listen to?
Do you have any music students?
For Teachers:
What motivates you to teach music?
How long have you been teaching?
How many students do you have, or have you had?
How old are your students?
How long do you keep your students?
How often do you instruct your students?
Do you teach classes, lessons, both?
What kind of music do you teach (genre, instruments, theory)?
To what skill level do you teach?
At what skill level do your students start?
Is teaching your only job?
Do you perform music?
Do you teach at more than one school?
How long were you a student before you started teaching?
What do you expect from your students (proficiency-wise, career-wise)?
What kind of music do you listen to?
How much do you enjoy teaching music?
Do you wish to continue teaching in the future?
How many other music teachers do you know?
How hard is it to become a music teacher (get a job)?
How do you attract your students?
How do you develop lesson plans?
Is your curriculum prescribed?
For Institutions:
How do you attract students?
How many teachers do you employ?
What types of music do you teach?
What qualifications do you offer your students?
How do you stay in business?
Are you overseen by the government or another institution?
How do you develop curriculum?
How do you arrange music instruction?
How much do you interact with other institutions?
What are your specific goals?
What qualifications/characteristics do you look for when hiring music teachers?
On Saturday morning I spoke with my original project affiliate—the man who wrote a letter to the Fulbright organization last year saying that he would help me out if I’m awarded the grant. He’s a well-respected and well-connected professional sitar player and professor at Tribhuvan University, and together we formed a plan of attack for getting my questions answered. He agreed to take me to ten different music teaching institutions in the city, introduce me around, and arrange for me to interview some teachers and students at each one. He will email me soon with the list of institutions, and we’ll make a schedule to visit them, starting this Sunday.
The places he will take me will generally fall into the top-tier and upper mid-tier of music education (by upper mid I mean older students): music schools and universities. My madal teacher will take me to mid-tier institutions for younger students. I’ll be able to arrange interviews with places that cater to tourists on my own; I just need to put on a bewildered facial expression and walk around Thamel for a few minutes—they’ll find me.
Speaking with my madal instructor, I’ve learned that there is no prescribed music education curriculum for grade school. I’ll ask him again, but this leads me to believe that music truly is treated as extra-curricular; the schools don’t seem to be under any threat of official consequences for teaching or not teaching music. The schools can freely choose whether or not to teach music, and then the music teacher can freely choose what music to teach and how. In the US we get the idea that music education in schools is somewhat protected and sustained by state curriculum standards, so it will be interesting to see how institutional music education works here without such protection.
Obviously music is a big part of culture, people tend to like to learn music, professional musicians do make money, and musicians tend to get opportunities that other professionals might not (traveling, working with foreigners); however, music learning is expensive, takes a lot of time and work, and the job prospects for professional musicians are minimal, highly competitive, and not reliable. Music, then, is an attractive and risky thing to learn. I’m eager to find out how these forces shape the face and process of music education here in Kathmandu.
Saturday after my productive meeting with Dr. music professor (I don’t want to use names—I haven’t gotten permission to broadcast other people’s doings all over the internet), I took a walk around Kathmandu and found myself in Ratna Park, a small central park area with waterproof watch sellers (I know they’re waterproof because they’re displayed in shallow tubs of water), ice cream sellers, gum and candy sellers, all crowding the walkways, and with some park benches, and kids running around, and trees and bushes, and a little bit of trash thrown about. It’s a pleasant area where it’s possible to get a short way away from the noise and smell of street traffic. I then wandered to the Durbar Square, Kathmandu’s famous area full of old and massive temples, shrines, and pagodas. Festival season is coming up, and the area is busy with preparation. I then slowly walked back to my apartment, waving away all of the street sellers who come up and talk to me and are my best friend for ten minutes before they ask for money for something. “Hello, my friend” they say, and I have to wave my hand around my ear and say “No, paisa chaina, tourist hoina”. Sometimes I talk to them, but it’s always uncomfortable and a little bit frustrating when the money request comes. It wears me out after a while.
Saturday night I played a gig with a singer/songwriter from Tennessee who lives here now; we played at the New Orleans restaurant in Patan, and we were joined by a big group of friends, both Nepali and foreign. He sang and played guitar, and I took occasional clarinet solos. It was a nice, expensive restaurant, and we played and ate outdoors in a garden area. The restaurant owner played a little bit of guitar with us, and at the end of the night gave us our food as a gift for playing. It’s great to have a group of friends from the US, the UK, New Zealand, Germany, Holland, and Nepal, and it will be sad when it’s time for people to move away.
Yesterday, Sunday, was a lazy day of rest. I had a madal lesson in the morning, then came home and crashed. I woke up again for a little bit, went to a café for lunch, watched a ridiculous Nepali movie in hopes of studying language, read some of the ethnomusicology book, then fell asleep again. That’s all.
This week I have Nepali language lessons every day, some madal lessons, I may start tabla lessons, and I have some festivals to go to. Auntie Ann, please tell Big G that I love her and hope she starts feeling better.
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Chaser
non-member comment
I was wondering, is there a specific word for "music" in Nepali that is roughly equivalent to our word, or is concepualization about what is "music" and what is not different from our own?