The children huddled around Ranjini and enjoyed the sessions with her. She would bring our attention to listening by patiently tuning the tanpura at the start of the session. Asking the children to listen and participate by telling her if the notes of the string sounded lower or higher. This naturally lead to conversations and questions about the instrument, the tension in the string and sounds that are soothing.
For most part of the session we were learning the Sarali varisai, the fundamental sequences. This allowed us to get a feel for the melody and the rhythm. The sequences follow a logical order – ascending and descending, up to the 7th varisai. We learnt with her the first three patterns and sang them at different speeds.
Together with the older children (Malhar and Bihag groups) Ranjani probed into the many aspects of music through pitch, rhythm, tune and lyrics. She also helped them find the same in many of their favourite tunes. How thrilled they were to discover, for instance, a Ta-ka-dhi-mi in a ‘Ajab tera kanoon dekha Khudaya’ or even a ‘Why this Kolaveri di’, just as easily evident as it was in a song she taught; ‘Aananda kandha Gopala, Govinda’! They learnt another song in the Ta-ki-ta rhythm ‘Santatam paahimam’
