Music & Art I What will make your kids stand out in the 21st century

0:03 Hello and welcome to KSP TV Today. Joining us we have Sriram Imani, who is the founder of Indian Ranga and an alumnus of IIT and MIT Sloan. Welcome Sriram.

0:14 Thank you. It's great to be here and thanks for having me.

0:16 Great, Sriram. For our audience, what is sum up Indian raga in 140 characters?

0:21 Sure, let's see. So Indian Raga is a new age platform where the best hand picked talent learns to collaborate and produce high quality videos. Awesome.

0:32 You know what was that? You know that point which said inflection point where said I have to do this?

0:38 Sure. So I think I've always been very passionate about the performing arts, but it wasn't until I was taking this class at MIT called Digital Innovations and I wrote the business plan, the first ever business plan. And we've obviously not been doing that now, but the first ever business plan for the company in this class on Digital innovations at mit. And my professor took a look at that, that and he's like, why is this not a company already?

1:00 Tell me from start to finish, how does the program work? So parent signs up, you screenshot students. I mean, how is it as a process for a parent from start to finish?

1:11 Right. So the we do look for right now at the current stage at which we are, we do look for students who had some basic training in their genre. So you come apply online with a very simple homemade video. And we have a creative panel that will look at the applications and they will pick the most promising or the best talent that we have. They'll match them in a group that we think would be very enriching and fun to collaborate with.

1:37 Then we put a very inspiring mentor from our side who's typically young and dynamic and well educated and someone who every parent and kid would also look up to. So they spend some good amount of time learning or being led by that mentor to put the piece together. And then we, you know, give them access to a professional studio to do the audio recording and then the video shoot. And through the process we coach them on how do you do audio recording effectively, how do you present yourself in front of camera and things of that sort.

2:08 And once we do the mixing in the post production, we release it online.

2:11 Have there been any interest or has there been any interest from parents about you also taking the initiative to coach right from start? Right. So at like what age 5, 6 is typically when you start?

2:24 Right. In fact, some of them started age 3 and 4 as well. And yes, we are currently inundated with thousands and Thousands of requests. So we are in the process of launching Indian Raga Academy soon online. In fact, you can go and start signing up to get early access the minute we launch. And I think not only are we going to launch teaching different genres, but what we're going to offer more importantly is how do you decide what genre is best for you and also what kind of a teacher should you be working with, what you can expect from your music or dance or performing arts education and how should you go about it?

2:58 Yes, that brings me to my next question, which is are parents today more especially Asian and Indian parents are very result oriented. So we're always looking at what's at the end of the tunnel and are we headed somewhere there? So does that resonate with Indian parents in the US as well?

3:17 Yeah, I think, I think no matter where you are, if you're Indian or Asian, that's a trade that you see and I think it's pretty delightful because in any case, the world is moving towards measuring everything. Right. Even marketing today is all about like, you know, measuring ROI and everything. So it's healthy to a certain degree. But I would say that we try to offer a balance of both. So at the end of the day we say that there is going to be this amazing video that you're going to have.

3:42 So which is your result, which is, is your goal potentially. But for us, the actual value of the program is in the open sky, brainstorming, the collaboration, the jamming that happens. And that's eye opening for the process. Yeah, the process. And it is, it is the journey that matters and the destination.

4:01 Tell me how different Indian kids in both the geographies and when are you launching in India? That's the bold question which we're asking

4:09 here with regards to the difference in Indian kids. It's interesting. So one thing that like really comes across right, right off the bat is that the use of technology is huge. In the United States. It is not uncommon for kids to just get on Skype hangouts with someone in a different part of the country just to jam. Yeah, like literally that's. There's groups of kids who are like tied in San Jose, New Jersey, Toronto. They're all sort of jamming Carnatic music improvisations and everything on Skype and they're jamming away to club.

4:41 That's something that I don't think has happened in a big way in India yet because of bandwidths and constraints. But I can totally foresee that it's going to happen and we're going to Kind of hopefully ride that wave when it does. The second thing is kids in the Western world in general are trained to be very good at communication. Like they can express what they're looking for, what they want, what their ideas are and everything with a lot.

5:06 And they're a lot more forthcoming about that than I've seen, you know, some of the kids in India who I think still need to be coaxed a little bit simply because there is this aura here that, you know, you have to respect the teacher and the process, which you do. You do have to respect it. But being respectful doesn't mean you don't express. Yes, you can always express and kind of like bring your own spin to something, which I think I see a little bit of a difference still.

5:31 And I think the third thing which I, which I'm sure is not news to anyone is that there is sort of tends to be a fascination in India for the west and in the west for like all the things back home.

5:47 So tell me, has there been, you know, challenges in the Indian sector now that you're launching in India? Tell us a little bit more about that.

5:55 We are firstly bringing the Indian Rama Fellowship to India. The Fellowship is basically a forum for the best, most prodigious and most highly talented and acclaimed performers across the country to apply and come together in one city. And then we work with them over 10 days to produce more than 50 videos which we then release and they go viral on social media and everything. So that's something that we're launching later this year. Applications will start very soon.

6:22 We're also launching something called Raga Labs which is basically the same collaboration experience, but at a city level. So that will be the best talent in Bombay comes together. Best talent in Pune comes together. Launching that across Bombay, Bangalore, Pune, Delhi and hopefully Hyderabad as well. So that's the other thing that I'm working on launching. The Indian Raga certification is already open. It's completely online. You can sign in from anywhere to get certified. And when you get certified, not only do you get a certificate, but you also get very detailed timestamp based feedback which is unique.

6:56 So we won't tell you that you have a three on five on pitch. What does that even mean?

7:01 Right?

7:01 Yeah, what, what we say is that at timestamp 1 minute and 30 seconds in your video, you have a slight flat note which means you haven't hit the note that you should. Or at 2 minutes 45 seconds, like the way you did that trill, like, you know, not all the notes were landing Properly. So we give you the ability to then go back and actually know what you did wrong. So that's a quick summary of like all of the projects we're launching in India that we're really excited about.

7:26 And we pretty much entering a wait list phase. So anyone interested should sign up.

7:31 Get yourself on that list soon. So Shreeta, what's the gap that Indian Radha is filling?

7:37 I think the gap that we're filling literally is the difference between theory and application. So you could be training in an art form for a very long time, but how do you learn how to apply it in a way that's relevant

7:51 and that comes from your IIT background?

7:53 It absolutely does. And the first time I heard about this distinction I'm like, that makes sense. And that's probably what the performance arts are missing right now, that you might be training in one art form like say Kannadi classical music. Apart from just giving your kacheris or concerts to like a core niche audience, how can you actually apply that to someone who is training in a different genre or someone who doesn't even understand your genre as an audience member?

8:16 So we come in to help you understand how to collaborate with other genres and then also like audio video production, which I think is something that today's digital kids absolutely need to know. So how to present yourself and how to express and how to create something through the arts. So that's the gap that we're filling. A slightly ancillary version that I believe really is. When I look back upon my life, I think every single transferable skill that I have developed has come to me through my performing arts training.

8:44 Like the first time I was on stage, the first time I worked in a team, the first time I really worked hard on perfecting something, the first time I had to deal with a subjective matter, like a dilemma on a subjective issue. Like anything that you know in today's modern corporate workplaces you kind of like encounter on a daily basis. I didn't read it in a book or I didn't like write about it in an exam.

9:06 So I think through the arts without dumbing it down too much, developing these skills to make you a well rounded personality who can express, interact effectively and be a leader is something that we are really aspiring to. Have we done it yet? Not sure. But we are on track to providing opportunities for students to develop those skills.

9:26 I'm going to ask you this and something I just suddenly thought of, which was India's fascination for Bollywood. Would you at any point think of getting some Sort of the traditional Indian playback or classical singers as part of Indian drama or to mentor, coach, give feedback.

9:47 Absolutely. In fact, did you know that most of the leading playback singers in Bollywood are very highly classically trained? And my personal passion is to place classical training and pedagogy at the core. Not separate, not see, that is different and this is different. But classical is the core. The way you learn grammar, the way you learn the Alphabet, the ABCs with which you make sentences. Then you can choose to write an essay which is academic. You can choose to write like corporate presentations, but the core is the same.

10:16 What was your inspiration? To cheat Choja. How did this awesome version come about?

10:21 So I was always looking to find easy entry points for classical music for young kids because I think it's impossible. It's like asking a five year old to read the Bhagavad Gita and explain the meaning to it, right. It's tough to take them to a three hour concert and just be like, oh, now you need to like this. In fact, if you guys know till the age of six in most auditoriums, kids are not even. So what's the way in which you can draw their curiosity?

10:45 Right. More than anything else. So I wanted to take something which is a really, really good popular western song and then have like a classical spin to show what Indian classical music

10:55 can do today, you know. And coming back to our conversation where we're saying that kids are, you know, and parents especially are very resilient, result oriented. Is it, is it hard for you to convince parents to, to collaborate or to be part of extracurriculars? You know, like when you and me were probably growing up, it was like, okay, academics. It is what your ICSE or your SSC score is. I mean, 10 standard marks is what will define you.

11:20 Or like make or make or break anything. You know, increasingly number crunching, data analytics, Anything that is repetitive is being taken away from humans and being given to algorithms and robots. Right? So you cannot in today's day and age say that my child is just going to focus on math and analytical ability. You have to focus on skills that are built that machines can't at least now replace, which include being creative, you know, being impromptu, improvising, leading, inspiring, motivating.

11:51 These are all skills that are going to be increasingly in demand in both corporations, corporate workplaces and otherwise. So when we talk to parents, we see two clear segments. One set of parents are already sensitized to this, who are kind of seeing it in their own workplaces. They latch onto our projects immediately. So we kind of work with them even in Bombay. Like, we're working with a few parents and we're launching our first project soon. And the parents immediately see the value, so we launch with them and then we use that as an example to convince other parents who are still, still not sensitized to the idea.

12:23 You also mentor and, you know, advisor for kids who want to get into, say, Ivy League schools or look at, you know, education, you know, globally. So tell me, how do you. How do you help children find the differentiator? Because, like you rightly said that, you know, now in today's times, gone are times when you could do something better or faster than something, somebody. How do you not. Or make. Make every child stand out instead of looking at clothes.

12:53 Looking like clothes.

12:54 Yeah. And I think one of the first things I tell people is that finding your passion at a young age is probably the most important thing that already sets you apart, because once you do that, you're giving in your 150% to it, and your effort is evident through whatever you do. So that's one of the first things I try and tell parents is. And students about it that don't do something because that's the norm. In fact, this is the age of breaking norms.

13:20 And something that might be considered esoteric or exotic might actually be incredibly valuable. So that's the first thing I kind of try when I. So I also work. I'm in close contact with a lot of admissions directors at top universities. I do advise a lot of parents and have resources to connect on, you know, getting into the top school and everything. But these schools are. They're not an end in themselves. They're a means to an end.

13:45 They're an accelerator program.

13:47 Right.

13:48 So we talk to students about, like, you know, finding their passion, like the right way to go about pursuing an art form, what to expect from it, what level do you need to reach and how do you go about that and what interesting things you can do with that to kind of, you know, set yourself apart. So those are, those are some of the aspects we focus on and that, you know, kind of mentor kids on

14:07 and on the evaluations bit.

14:08 Right.

14:09 So we discussed this earlier. Right. How do you, you know, in terms of, you know, the child's performing hours, how do you evaluate performing arts?

14:17 Right. And that's, that's, it's, it's a great question to ask because it's like traditional

14:21 conventional exams that stand for.

14:24 Right.

14:24 What they stand for.

14:26 But so we are introducing interesting, different kinds of metrics that, that we are constantly vetting both with the experts as well as with like new age folks. So there's definitely, you know, pitch, rhythm, diction, pronunciation, which are easy to fix because, like, you know, if you've sung at a certain pitch, you're either correct or you're not correct. But then comes the emotional impact. And sometimes, you know, these kind of things you get as group feedback. You can't have one person evaluating and say, this didn't emotionally appeal to me, maybe not to you, maybe to someone else.

14:57 So that's where this idea of like releasing videos online, watching people's comments, I mean, along with 10 million views, we also have millions of comments. And people have literally told people that, you know, your emotional expression, like, is great in a certain fashion, this needs to be developed a certain way. So that's part and parcel of today's evaluation metrics.

15:15 So that's get affected by the number of views, comments, likes.

15:19 Well, I think when you're trained to in an art form, to the degree that our fellows are trained in, you can only do that if you have a level of humility. So I think they're all taking it really well. I haven't at least seen anyone who kind of like develops a chip on the shoulder, and I hope it stays that way.

15:35 If you don't come from a musical family background or lineage or by offense and are very, you know, musically inclined or oriented, how do you pick these students? Or what is the, you know, what's the roadmap for a parent who thinks or doesn't or is not sure that my child has it or doesn't have it? Maybe this is the right forum or I platform. How does the parent develop?

15:59 Yeah, and we were discussing earlier that I spent about a year and a half being nomadic and traveling every four days to a new city, spending time being hosted by a new set of parents, literally to kind of delve into their lives and understand what sets them. The prodigy is apart and, you know, from the others. And one thing I'd like to tell all the parents out there is that your child doesn't have to find that one thing or that one instrument at the get go.

16:25 The idea is to just develop an interest in the arts in general. Most parents who've had like child prodigies, they've developed it by just, you know, having an instrument lying around. When the child is a toddler, like just have like a wiener lying around or like a, you know, katam or like a Mridangam lying around, the child just goes like hammer something on it and just is like, fascinating. Like, what is this thing lying here? And I pluck something and kind of makes the sound.

16:50 So doing that and then developing your own intimate relationship with that instrument has what, that's what's encouraged that child to then go and pursue it, right? That's how they start. They start that and then after a point comes, you know, they'll suddenly discover, say, the cello, which they're probably not seeing because it's impossible for a parent to like, expose a child to every single instrument, right? So, but once you have your basic foundational music or dance or anything ready, then you can very easily kind of switch to something else later on if you are so crazily passionate about it.

17:23 So don't feel like if the child, if the cello is the instrument, then he has to discover that at the age of four. So just like, start with whatever you have access to. And the second most important thing is the role of the teacher, right? The teacher is the one who basically motivates a child to want to do music or dance or a performing art or not. So, like, being understanding, like, you know, being considerate of the child's, like, learning speed and abilities and breaking it down for them, making them feel encouraged, but at the same time challenged.

17:54 I mean, it's, it's a skill, it's an art.

17:56 Is music, is it passion, talent? Is it black or white or there is a gray?

18:05 Yeah, but like, with anything you have

18:06 it, you don't have it. Or if you have it, you don't necessarily need to be the best at it. But it's either you have it or you don't have it.

18:13 But it's like nature versus nurture, like, it's always a combination of both. I think you do have something artistic about you, which you can nurture and then kind of like bring it out effectively. I am yet to see someone who has, like, zero talent. And everyone who says I'm tone deaf and like, I'm musically not gifted just probably hasn't found the right teacher who can break it down to them, you know, So I, I, that's, that's my personal belief.

18:38 So I think anyone can, you know, sing or play something or dance or whatever else it is, but you just need to. Some people kind of take it very quickly, you know, because, like, they probably have, you know, they realize pitch much quicker. Some people might take some little bit more time, but everyone can do it.

18:56 You spoke of the role of the teacher being so prominent. What about the role of the parent? Because I feel like it's a lot of commitment for a family.

19:06 Good point. Because a lot of parents have completely clueless what to do with the child's education and artistic arts training. So one thing that they need to keep in mind is that practice in between sessions has to be deliberate, effective practice. Just because you're making the child sit down and play, you know, a veena or a violin like, you know, over and over again can sometimes actually be counterproductive because if the child is not practicing that effectively, if they're playing the same mistake over and over again, they will learn the mistake as well.

19:35 Over and over again.

19:36 Right.

19:38 So practice has to happen under the presence of someone who can point, point out if there are mistakes. So either invest in the teacher spending some time with them or find a very good peer group. I mean, going back, I couldn't have cleared the IIT Jee without my peer group of like three friends who every single day we like sat and worked things out amongst ourselves. It was not my parent pushing me to do it. Yeah, I would not even do it then.

20:02 But it was more about finding a good peer group. And this is what I'm seeing across all our Indian Raga fellows across the world. They all are part of peer groups where they find like minded people who can like point out mistakes, like help them, help them keep motivated. You always do things in social groups, right? So that you can keep doing that. I think that is more critical than the parents sitting down like literally forcing them to do things all the time.

20:25 This is like practicing effectively and everything. But having an incentive or a goal always does half the job. The minute a child knows the they're going to be recorded and someone's going to watch them perform, you see how they practice.

20:38 Thank you so much and wish you all the success with Indian Raga and the launch of Indian Raga in India.