NEWS     S.R.I.   MeherKaren talks to Shweta Jhaveri : Excerpts from 2008   Spring & Summer Vocal Classes : 1997 to 2017  Karen Sterkin learned ragas from Shweta Jhaveri for twenty years since 1997 in Marin-SF bay area. A pianist, singer and writer she loved ragas and also wrote under MeherKaren. Shweta I first heard you at the Stanford university in early-1990s while I attended the AACM and became your vocal student from 1997 in the Spring & Summer vocal classes. I recently made a recording MeherKaren sings for which I learned ragas from you. Last month I heard you at the Jazz school of Berkeley with Ravi Gutala on the tabla and loved your innovation raga KrishnaBhairavi. Shweta-ji what makes you create and why a new raga when there is so much to perform in the traditions? Thanks Karen. Creation within the traditions happens to me like it does to other musicians. There is so much oxygen in the air that we breathe, why do prãnãyãm or yoga? It keeps me healthy. Vocal music is spiritual and like prãnãyãm. I have never sat down planning to create. When something new or different happens that I like while singing a raga, it evolves with practice or performance. I admire your love for ragas and special efforts for vocal music even though you hardly speak Hindi. As a performer teaching Hindustani vocal music to western students has been different for both, especially while improvising a raga with a lyric. I have attended your Spring & Summer Classes both individual and group classes in Marin since 1997 and later in Berkeley. When I came to you in Marin you were in a vocal session with Ushaji. How do you describe your teaching style for the classes. Is it like a gurukul ? As you know I have loved to perform and teach in the West as in India, I am glad to have admiration from music lovers. I need to explain it a bit here as it is not easy to talk about the gurukul traditions and gharana, to sing it one has to live it. It is learning directly from a Guru atleast for five to ten years and practise it lifelong. This is the way I learned in India twenty years ago doing back and forth from my town to my Guruji's town, completed my gurukul training by my mid-20s and performed as a vocalist-musician. I don't mean to generalise what I say about the traditions. My Spring and Summer vocal classes musically have the qualities of a gurukul but without the living part of it as I do not live with my students devoting long days teaching them as in a gurukul. On the other hand during my hourly or longer vocal classes where you just followed my singing continuously for an hour is like the gurukul traditions and most of my individual students Indian or western have learned it this way. Its not easy for everyone to sit on the floor singing/following for an hour improvising a raga and lyric. I admire them for their love for music and tenacity. They call me Shweta-ji. These days I have students from Japan, Spain, UK and Canada. I teach traditional, mewati or my compositions, vocal forms with raga improvisation and vocal techniques. It is only after one of my real taanpura-s damaged in a car drive I use the taanpura-box for a drone. I am fortunate to have students like Mischa who even brought their own taanpura. BackPage