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Course · Singing
Hindustani vocal training is the slow, certain craft of singing in tune — really in tune — and then making that tuned voice expressive. Students start with the swaras and breath, grow into ragas, and end up able to sing anything from a bandish to a film song with a trained ear.
Voices are personal, and so are our classes: one student, one guru, live. The guru hears exactly where a note sits and nudges it in real time — the kind of correction that group classes and YouTube simply cannot give.
The journey
Every student moves through the same four stages — at their own pace, with their own guru. Here is what each one actually means.
Everything begins with sa. Students learn to breathe from the belly, hold a steady note against the tanpura, and climb the seven swaras until the ear and the voice agree with each other.
The voice is awake; now it learns patterns. Alankars build agility, raga Yaman opens the door to melody, and the first full songs — a bhajan, a film classic — are sung properly in tune, start to finish.
Now the music gets its colour. Students learn the ornaments that make Indian singing unmistakable — meend, kan, light gamak — add new ragas, and begin small improvisations within a bandish.
Advanced students sound like themselves. They hold a small concert repertoire of bandishes, improvise alaap and taans with intent, explore ghazal and geet, and learn the craft of performing — including how to practise the day before a stage.
Inside a class
Every class follows the same quiet structure — the same one a student would get sitting across from the guru in person.
Long notes against the tanpura — the daily tuning of the human instrument, never skipped.
A new alankar, raga phrase or song section, sung line by line, the guru's voice leading and the student's answering.
The student sings alone while the guru listens hard — tuning, breath, expression — and corrects gently, note by note.
This week's riyaaz, written down: which exercises, how long, and what 'good' should sound like.
Getting set up
Less than you'd think. Nothing on this list is needed for the free trial.
The voice comes free. Singing is our lightest course to start — no instrument, no equipment, no excuses.
We set up a free tanpura drone app in the first class and tune it to the student's natural pitch.
Somewhere the student can sing at full voice without embarrassment — shyness, not talent, is the usual beginner's hurdle.
“Every child can sing in tune. I have never met an exception — only children who were told too early that they couldn't. Give me twenty classes and a little daily riyaaz, and you will hear the difference in your own living room.”
The trial is a real 40-minute class with a guru — free, on your clock, no instrument needed.