Monday, February 19, 2007

Carnatic and Ingenuity

Somehow, I get the feeling that a person who learns Carnatic music, especially during the early years of life, soars high in educational and academic excellence.

Perhaps this feeling is due to the fact that, off late, I am finding many youth – thanks to internet (orkut, youtube, etc) – who have achieved great feats in terms of education such as MS, PhD, MBA, etc in various fields and have great inkling to the actual science behind Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Psychology, Communication, Aviation and a host of other interesting topics, while at the same time being experts in Carnatic Classic music.

Does Carnatic music have influence in making genius out of a child?

2 comments:

M.Iqbal,Cochin said...

Not only carnatic, but, any classical form of music.
Becuase it is the left hemisphere
which is instrumental for learning skills, and the skill, imagination and talents goes upward, means, total mental,intellectual and spiritual enhancement. Still there are stray examples, like the one of great Yesudas ji, who was not so bright in his class- at the same time was intellectual!

Srikanth said...

Dear Harsha -

You seem to be an accomplished people watcher. Awesome. Way to go!

In addition to the Carnatic element in your argument, people with high educational and academic excellence you are talking about (probably) belong to the following category too - '(Upper) Middle Class South Indian Brahmin Families'. While the rich and elite are busy in their uptown socialite activity; the poor are busy getting two square meals a day. It is this class in between, which has cultivated a taste for things, which they classify as tasteful.This class has been achieving educational and academic excellence, because of fire – in – belly attitude. With the yearning to break away from under privileged rung and transition to higher echelons they strive and hence succeed! – The fact that they are Carnatic savvy is but coincidental. The larger reason for their educational excellence is plain class struggle.

Cheers,
Srikanth

PS: I am not contesting the fact that music has no effect on our overall development – It definitely is useful; but the point I wanna drive is that -- the Orkut (and other Internet) Profiles you are talking about would have completed their educational sojourn with flying colors in spite of not learning Carnatic music.