Are online Carnatic music classes effective for kids?

The world has gotten comfortable with everything online, music lessons included. As a music teacher myself, I think I am in a good position to answer this question with some first hand experience.

Music traditionally has been known to be a ‘Gurumukhi Vidya’ (knowledge transferred verbally from guru to shishya). It’s only in the past 150–200 years or thereabouts that it has started being documented. So the most effective method of imparting classical music classes (both Carnatic as well as Hindustani) is in person from a learned guru.

But these are unprecedented times and our acceptance and opinions about a whole lot of things have changed. In the name of safety, music lessons have also moved online. While it is a great medium to impart knowledge to the learner, it comes with some of its own challenges. For instance: 

1. It is not predictable. On bad day, the better part of the class may get wasted resolving technical issues, such as connectivity, software problems, etc. The software itself is a huge learning curve for many and one of the reasons many have stayed away from trying out this medium of learning.
2. Small children psychologically require the physical presence of a guru, so that the seriousness needed to learn this genre of music is reinforced. Online lessons, dilute this to an extent because effectively the child is either alone in front of the screen, OR in the company of a parent who usually has no clue about the music and is there only to help with tech support. Their very small attention spans make it extremely difficult to make them sit in one place and focus on what is being taught online. The distractions are just too many.
3. Kids are generally not very diligent about practice and it entirely depends upon the parents to ensure that the child is practicing what is being learned.
4. Due to bandwidth issues, when the learner presents what (s)he has learned, it usually not clearly audible. Likewise when an lesson is being imparted, voice may break up and not reach the other side clearly. This usually leads to a lot of confusion and re-work. As a workaround for the lack of sound clarity during the online session, I insist on my students sending me a recording of the assignment on Whats-App or email. This method is much more effecting in assessing how well the student is able to reproduce the lessons.
   

As a best practice, at least once a month, an in-person session should be scheduled with the guru for better connect between guru & shishya and greater exchange of knowledge.

Well those were the points at the top of my head. Can’t think of anything more at this time. Hope this provides some perspective.

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