Increasing access to South Asian musical traditions with students and educators throughout NYC is an essential component of Brooklyn Raga Massive’s mission. BRM’s educational programming brings exciting world class performance artists to the classroom with an accessible approach to understanding the history, geography, instruments, and music theory behind raga music. We are currently building our new educational offering, and are excited to share it with you all soon!
The artists of Brooklyn Raga Massive represent a wide spectrum of instruments and musical traditions. If you are looking to deepen your practice of Hindustani or Carnatic classical Indian music or lay the foundations of the sitar, violin, or global percussion, our experienced teachers can customize a plan for you to reach your educational goals.
We invite you to explore our Artist page to learn more about the instruments and lessons available from our community. You may also contact us (hyperlink to contact page) directly to let us know your goals and we can suggest teachers to help meet your needs. Whether you want to learn a particular instrument or explore a theoretical or cultural aspect of music, we’ll help connect you to the right teacher.
As a Teaching Artist, working with Brooklyn Raga Massive continues to help me develop insight into the needs and interests of young learners and encourages me to grow as both tutor and mentor to students.”
Raga Kids exposes our youngest raga enthusiasts to the sounds of Indian classical instruments such as the sitar and the tabla, along with instruments they may already know like the guitar and violin. Through multilingual sing-alongs, students learn about raga music and train their ears to embrace this non-Western form. Led by Brooklyn based music educators and performers Sameer Gupta (tabla), Trina Basu (violin) and Neel Murgai (sitar), Raga Kids is a unique offering and an incredible way to begin exploring the music of India and America! Raga Kids is geared towards children ages 3 months – 5 years old. In our classes, children get the opportunity to listen to Indian Classical instruments like Sitar and Tabla, learn about Indian music, and sing songs based in ragas and tals. Raga Kids explore folk songs from around the world and the children engage in singing, interactive movement and musical play. Fun for kids of all ages and nationalities.
Brooklyn Violin House is run by Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy, both versatile violinists and educators based in New York City. They offer a unique musical experience and a holistic approach for violin students and professionals of all ages. They specialize in Western and Indian Classical music, Suzuki, and creative improvisation. Classes and workshops are held in Brooklyn, New York City and New Jersey.
Increasing access to South Asian musical traditions with students and educators throughout NYC is an essential component of Brooklyn Raga Massive’s mission. BRM’s educational programming brings exciting world class performance artists to the classroom with an accessible approach to understanding the history, geography, instruments, and music theory behind raga music.
Introduction to South Asian Classical Music and Traditions: This 4-week residency program brings BRM artists into the classroom for a participatory and engaging introduction to raga music, instruments, and history. Students will learn about raga scales, the difference between northern Hindustani and southern Carnatic sounds, the unique correlation between ragas and the time of day, and the role of improvisation and mindfulness in music making. Students will develop general musical skills through rhythm and vocal exercises, body percussion, and interactive performances. Teaching artists also employ storytelling and journaling as a vehicle to further appreciate and understand the music, but also to develop students’ literacy skills across the curriculum.
Download a flyer for this program here.
If you’d like to customize a BRM experience for your classroom, please get in touch!
Brooklyn Raga Massive were splendid. The students and teachers were enthralled by their beautiful music. We hung on every word of explanation about the instruments and about the meaning of Diwali. We appreciated the way the musicians spoke so eloquently and emotionally about their music and how they play together as an ensemble. It was especially helpful to learn how the Indian scale correlates with our Solfege notes while allowing for improvisation and ornamentation.”
I had so much fun performing for the BRM weekly virtual series and felt encouraged to play in a space that celebrates the intersection between music tradition and creative freedom.”
Engaging Brooklyn Raga Massive artists in the classroom is a great way to create new access points to your curriculum with a global arts experience. Our artists can cover everything from a lecture on history and music theory of South Asian traditions to high level masterclasses and workshops for advanced students.
For presenters bringing BRM ensembles to your campus, we are excited to deepen our connection to your community beyond the stage with interactive demonstrations, workshops, lectures, and masterclasses that can be customized to all experience levels. Each of our ensembles can cover a depth of topics that can span courses related to History, Geography, Music Theory, South Asian Studies, Cross Cultural Communication, Performance, and more. To bring BRM to your campus, get in touch here!
As a Teaching Artist, working with Brooklyn Raga Massive continues to help me develop insight into the needs and interests of young learners and encourages me to grow as both tutor and mentor to students.”
For BRM, education and performance often go hand in hand. We view our concerts and public programming as spaces to increase understanding of our celebrated art forms and constantly feature workshops as part of our weekly event series for all to enjoy and learn from. For more advanced musicians, we also hold specialized masterclasses with touring artists and artists from different traditions. We’re excited to introduce more humanities-focused sessions to advance critical knowledge of the history and current debates of this field which we have begun to approach in our Social Justice Series (hyperlink to SJS page). View our past performances and workshops on our Youtube here.
Music Therapy Certification Course: BRM currently offers one certificate course focused on the clinical application of mindfulness techniques in music therapy. This is an approved course by Certification Board for Music Therapist (CBMT) for 3 CMTE credits.In this virtual on-demand course taught by Aaron Shragge, MA, MT-BC, LCAT and Eric Fraser, MA, MT-BC, LCAT, participants will identify mindfulness practices as they are applied to clinical situations in music therapy; will develop tools to improve the therapeutic relationship by being fully present and authentic while understanding the contra-indications of music centered mindfulness work; will apply unique tunings from the tradition of Indian classical music, as well as how raga scales can be used modally for mindfulness based on clinical improvisation and composition; will also develop active listening skills to hear subtleties in harmonic tuning and practice employing mindfulness and relaxation techniques to accessible and clinically relevant music making. Learn more here.
