The Wonderland of WCM learning!
No doubt it was a struggle, but those practical learnings gave me a lot of happiest moments also when I succeed in playing those small bits and pieces!
Believe me, all I am talking about was very small songs only of Grade-1 and 2 level stuff, like learning about the melody line, the chord supports, combination of these in each hands, the staccato type songs, the counterpoint example, the different form of music like minuet, bourree etc etc!
However, it also opened my eyes that I cannot cross that ocean. Even 24 hours a day practice would not have been sufficient, whereas, I was only having a borrowed half-an hour per day.
But I utilized all the other available time in my control for the theory learning, and thus within the very first year I could finish upto Grade-4 level exercise books.
This encouraged Ms Mitra to recommend me straight away for level-4 theory exam of Associated Board.
When I finished that, again double jump to Grade-6 exam. Till that it was always 90 plus marks!
But the Grade-7 and Grade-8 (final) preparations took some considerable time and efforts of mine, having to do a lot of study stuff on form of music, history, etc etc and above all the Harmony theory. There I struggled a lot and exam was also not easy walk-over. Still with 70 plus I had to remain satisfied!
So in nutshell, for three and half years, it was a roller coaster ride from Grade-1 scratch to Grade-8 final on theory side!
And Nil show on practical side!
[It was a great anamoly and funny thing to happen and nobody would have been allowed like this in the DSM history. Somehow luck favoured in my pursuit, that's all I can say.
Honestly, even I would not have recommend anybody to do that, as theory and practical must go hand in hand!]
But finally when Mitra planned to put me on Grade-3 practical directly, I was already enough exhausted and enough frightened about practical exams.
That was further compounded by my office situation with threats looming about likely transfer to Himachal.
Finally when Penny shifted her job and her house was vacated, the whole dream episode came to a logical end!
Those practical (though left in half-way, and now in the final self-analysis, convinced me that, these were not worthy claiming), and the theory learnings still taught me a lot!
Learning never begins or ends ! It’s there with us all the time.
Only point is certain things we consciously, systematically do and other things unconsciously go on inside, within us, as and when we see or encounter!
Anybody who even blindly following IR songs and involved deeply for years, can easily be claimed to have already acquired many of these basic knowledge of WCM, though un-consciously.
You don’t know the terms all right, but you have already felt that and have registered in your mind and got it mixed in your blood.
What you are trying to do with such learnings is to systematically unravel it, assimilate it and consolidate the “skills” acquired.
Simple to say, but when you unravel mystery of IR, you end up awe-struck!
Singing a poem on moon is one thing, but if you travel in a spaceship and land on a moon and see around the universe, what you will feel is something beyond words!
This is what I felt about IR, during and after my learning of WCM.
Its simple, but not simple;
Its Small, but not Small;
You jump of joy of seeing it, but you cry of not getting it….!
It has started, but it goes on, it expands and expands….!
Think of the example of “Sevili” character from the film “Mudhal Mariyaadhai” who goes on running and running to reach and touch the horizon and gasping for breath..!
Through out the learning period, my position was like that !
When you thought of unfolding Raaja, he is again at a distant with his size further growing exponentially!
May be exactly the same thing IR might have also felt when he learned the WCM and Carnatic systematically and realized/felt the new opportunity of expanded infinite scope available before him when one wants to do the fusion of best of both world of WCM and CCM!
It is really the BIG.. BIG…BIG….. picture!
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