Striking the right chord

Shilpa Ramanujam has managed to strike the perfect balance between her academics and music and excelled in both the fields.

 Shilpa has just passed out from National Public School, Indiranagar, and will join the Jindal Global Law School in August. She is someone who believes that every task comes with its own challenges but nothing is impossible.

   The piano had always fascinated her and that’s why she decided to learn it when she was barely six years old. She started training at the Aamod Centre Of Liberal Arts, Whitefield. “I picked up an interest for the piano because I had a keyboard at home. So, I thought it would be quite easy and convenient to learn the instrument,” Shilpa says.

This ‘convenience’ soon transformed into keen interest and now she can play pieces by popular classical composers such as Claude Debussy and Beethoven with ease.

Alongside academics, Shilpa completed several levels of piano lessons with top scores. She received the highest score in her piano practical exam, grade five and took her first music exam when she was ten years old. As a teaching assistant, she has also taught piano to entry level students.

Shilpa also studied Carnatic vocals for a while and has finished the junior level exam, but quit when she decided that she needed time to focus on academics.

 “I gave up when I felt that my talent had reached its limit. However, learning both the genres helped me a lot as they complement each other. It helps fine-tune the runs and develop aural skills,” she says.

 She has studied under various teachers from different countries. “The quality of teaching at Aamod was very professional and held at a conservatory level. The
approach was different and my teachers were very grounded to music and knew their specialisations. This helped me a lot and made a big difference to my learning as well. The approach I took to music was very nuanced and refined because I studied with teachers from different places.”

She has also performed at a number of prestigious places to a packed house. But despite such a welcoming gesture, she feels that Western classical music still has a long way to go when compared to Indian classical music. However, she is confident that the scene will turn conducive because of passionate youngsters taking a deconstructed approach to music rather than studying it superficially.

As she will be starting a course in law, Shilpa knows that her music will take a backseat. Although she will be busy with her studies, she hopes to get back to music in a big way and doesn’t want to give up on it so easily.

“I will play the piano in college at every opportunity I get,” she says. She knows that this a big challenge but wants to give it her best shot and believes that she will  be able to take both music and academics forward.