MUMBAI: A first of its kind music school that imparts working knowledge and musical skills to meet the demands of the music industry will start its first session from September. Launched by two music professionals, music composer Ashutosh Phathak and sound engineer Nitin Chandy, ‘The True School of Music (TSM) will offer a number of music courses to both professional musicians and amateurs. Its campus, located at the city’s south-central, Lower Parel will house its international faculty members from the Manhattan School of Music (MSM), New York.
TSM’s contemporary western music curriculum has been designed by multi-award winning saxophonist and flautist David Leibman while singer Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan designed the contemporized Indian music course. The DJ mixing and sound engineering courses have been designed by Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM), UK. TSM will give certification which will be vouched by MSM.
The course will have two primary departments- the Professional course will include modules on five music instruments, music production including composition, DJ and Live sound recording. The Foundation course will have classes for five Western music instruments and five Indian instruments which will be based on Trinity College 8-Grade Rock & Pop curriculum.
“India’s music has mushroomed now and there are many career opportunities now. That’s where our thoughts process was- it needed rounding up. If a professional musician goes through a one-year course he can create at a much higher level. If a rock musician takes up a course in (say) funk and R & B from our institute he will create more variety of music. We expect people of around 35 years of age- who would have decided to take music as a career and also young 13-14 year old for the foundation courses. We will also have an outreach programme,” TSM founder & CEO Ashutosh Phathak said.
TSM’s foundation course fee will be Rs 5,000 per month which include four one-hour classes on any musical instrument per week and an opportunity to be part of the institute’s ensemble. They will also have access to the institute’s facilities and activities like library and workshops. The professional courses start from Rs 6 lakhs and can go up to Rs 10 lakhs. The course will have 8-10 modules of 11 weeks each. Established musicians can also take up a module at Rs 8,000 per module.
TSM’s teacher to student ratio will be 1:10 with each teacher having an assistant.
The institute will also provide internernship and placement opportunities for students under film music directors and ad agencies.
TSM’s will also initiate a cross- media marketing campaign including pilot programmes across schools, six city live music tour by a Manhattan band, participating in upcoming Music Expo to be held in Mumbai and organizing a music as a career conference with parents.
“We are trying to attract musicians and students from other parts of the country including the north-east and later beyond India. We shall also be introducing music business courses in the future. The biggest challenge is to change mind sets. Indians have always taken the ‘road most-travelled’ from being doctors to engineers. Its time we took up niche careers- you don’t have to be a rock star to be a successful musician. People are not aware of the intricacies of the music industry like royalties, jingles- we need to educate,” TSM founder & MD Nitin Chandy said.