Karan Khosla, who moved from Delhi a year and a half ago is a physicist by education and a jazz guitarist by passion; the protégé of jazz pedagogue Matthew Warnock. Being immersed in the jazz music circuit in Delhi through his own instrumental jazz outfit, The Karan Khosla Quintet and his various performing stints as a session guitarist with popular music acts across the country and globally, Karan is clear in his mission to impart world class teaching methods to create next generation artists in Goa and provide them a professional avenue. He shares, “There is very little professional based music education available. Music isn’t just about exams and theory alone. Skills to improve learning to play by ear, understanding the fundamentals that allow students to collaborate improvise and perform together within a structure helps hone confident musicians. ”
As with all things academic, it isn’t a surprise that in India, 90% of music education is exam based. Making a detour from the traditional by providing a curriculum for Jazz, the Goa Jazz Academy offers private instruction and certificate courses in ear training, music theory, improvisation and specialisation courses for ukulele, bass, guitar, drums, piano, vocals and wind/reed. Currently situated in Sangolda, the academy hopes to have a more permanent venue by next year in North Goa. Khosla elucidates, “One of our more successful programmes is our band/ensemble education programmes that teach students about the art and science of playing together. For young musicians, we have the ‘Mini Mozarts’ programme that gets students to build confidence in working together by learning lots of songs. Our adult education programmes especially the Guitar classes have also been doing well.”
Catering to students of varying ages from 7 to 60, the Academy also has a Jazz Ensemble scholarship programme in association with Guitar for Life (GFL), based in the US, which is run by Dr Matt Warnock – one of the leading jazz educators in the world. Khosla is happy to add, “Our first batch of 12 musicians have gone through Level 1 of the scholarship and the response has been so good that GFL has agreed to increase the funding support to include two jazz ensembles.” The Academy will be running this intensive programme again, over a period of two months in October/November 2019 and applications will be accepted in September. This is an easy to access free of cost tuition for participants that would help them build a deep foundation for jazz music and learn the vocabulary that helps students craft their solos better and train their ears to improvise.
It is a fact that Jazz arrived in India through the Gateway in Bombay and then spread to all metro cities. While many western orchestras performed in the hotel’s lobby, homegrown talent came mainly from Goa especially to play the saxophone and clarinet. They contributed greatly to background scores in Hindi movies. Adds Khosla, “Goa has such a rich musical heritage coupled with so many music venues. It’s important to have an organised set up with good musicians to keep the performance culture alive.”
With support from leading Goan musicians and students who have joined the course and been part of the scholarship programme, Khosla confidently says, “It’s important to have the right teacher and pedagogy has to evolve over time to make it interesting for the student.” It isn’t a surprise then that UNESCO has asked the Academy to be the official partner for International Jazz Day 2020.
With experience on his side and humility his armour, Khosla could add an important missing link in providing the right exposure and creating a confident approach for talented next gen Goan musicians.