Good news for aspiring singers

Chennai: For aspiring singers eager to make a mark in the playback industry here is some good news. Music director Bharadwaj launched the Bharadwaj School of Music here on Tuesday.

Thanks to several television shows promoting young talent, the glamour and excitement quotients of light music as a profession have increased over the years. “However, while many aspiring singers have beautiful voices, they lack knowledge of the basic techniques. This prompted me to develop a course that would equip an aspirant in all aspects of playback singing,” said Mr. Bharadwaj.

The music director, in consultation with the Tamil Nadu Open University (TNOU), has developed a one year diploma course in Applied Music. Besides Mr. Bharadwaj, the panel that framed the curriculum included senior musicians and academicians.

After detailed analysis of the syllabus, the TNOU agreed to accredit the course. It will be offered through distance education. Contact classes would be held in study centres in Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Tirunelveli and Madurai from September.

Multimedia technology has been used to make the modules available on self-instruction mode. Teachers at the centres would primarily facilitate learning. “Art learning is usually teacher-centric. I have consciously made it system-centric to ensure quality and uniformity,” Mr. Bharadwaj said.

The course will cover five subjects. Three subjects will be related to music, namely ‘practical music’, ‘theory of music’ and ‘history’ and ‘basic upkeep of voice’. The two other subjects would be ‘life coping skills’ and ‘communication skills’.

“These skills have become indispensable no matter what profession one is in,” TNOU Vice-Chancellor M.S. Palanichamy said.

The course would cover the basic elements of Carnatic music, styles required for light music, technical aspects (such as positioning of the microphone) and probable business models that students could consider later. With the boom in the FM radio industry, there were good job opportunities, they said. Moreover, the playback industry itself had several openings.

Mr. Bharadwaj has composed about 30 songs exclusively for this course. “These are songs that will help students at different levels learn the finer aspects of playback singing,” said the music director.

Contact classes would be held on Sundays to enable working professionals to enrol. Those who have completed standard XII are eligible to take up the course. Those who have not studied up to standard XII could do a bridge course with TNOU while pursuing this diploma course.

For further details, e-mail bharadwajschoolofmusic@yahoo.com or call 28151615. Bharadwaj is currently working on Thankar Bachan’s ‘Pallikkoodam’. The audio launch could be expected very soon, he said.