Pairing to capture their interest
My child didn’t pick up Nātai for a long time. One day, I happened to play a Kathak video which he loved, and asked for and watched repeatedly over the next few days. The audio track happens to be in Jog, a Hindustāni rāgam very close to Nātai. I mentioned this to him. I also emphasized the Ri note (Riśabham), which is an uncommon feature of Nātai, in contrast to the other rāgams he knew at the time. And that is all it took: the very next time I played Nātai, he identified it almost instantly, as “the red-Kathak rāgam!”
This lead me to figure out the principle at work and leverage it for learning. Given children (and adults) learn by association:
Pairing the reference song for a given rāgam with anything else that stands out in any way, creates a powerful association that makes the reference song—and therefore the rāgam—distinct and thus easy to remember.
Ideas of things to pair reference songs for rāgams with:
- dance videos
- music videos (eg: this one)
- music fusion videos (eg: this one also has great visuals, several different instruments, excellent audio quality)
- music videos by children their age (eg: this popular one)
- videos made with kids in mind
- The Baby Rāgās - Carnātic music series. This one has simply fantastic, evocative, cartoon-art, great for kids and adults alike. Vocal and instrumental tracks included
- Cup O’ Carnatic Kids Series
I found there was no need to do this for each rāgam, but rather, for one in for or five works well.
Two additional benefits to this technique immediately become obvious: 1) children get excited by these new types of stimuli, and 2) they end up learning something new (eg: about Kathak or about the saxophone).
It does not have to be visual either: simply pair a rāgam with anything that stimulates the mind, making it distinct and easy to remember. It could be an interesting mythological story, or a scene or setting, or an audio track that has a child’s voice, or one with unfamiliar or uncommon instruments.