Finding a teacher
Finding a Carnatic, Hindustani or Western classical teacher
It is the question students ask us most often, and it is harder than it should be. Teachers of these traditions are found by word of mouth, through a sabha or a school, or not at all — and a beginner with nobody to ask has no way in.
What to look for
The things that actually decide whether a teaching relationship works are rarely the things a listing shows.
- Lineage and training. Who they studied under, and for how long. In Carnatic and Hindustani music this says more than a qualification does.
- What they teach, specifically. Vocal and instrumental teaching differ, and so do beginner teaching and preparing someone for an arangetram or a recital.
- Language. Being taught in a language you think in matters more than most beginners expect, particularly for sahitya and for theory.
- Online or in person. Online lessons have made good teaching reachable from anywhere, but a beginner being corrected on posture, breath or hand position is usually better served in a room, at least at first.
- Whether they are taking students at all. Many established teachers are not, and finding that out after three unanswered messages is the common experience.
What to ask at a first conversation
- How do you teach a beginner — what does the first year look like?
- How often are lessons, and how much practice do you expect between them?
- Do you teach in a group or one to one?
- Do your students perform, and do you prepare them for it?
- What do you expect a student to arrive already able to do, if anything?
The Sadhana AI teacher directory
We are building a directory so that this does not depend on knowing the right person to ask. It works on one principle: the page belongs to the teacher. Nobody is listed because we found their name somewhere. A teacher writes their own page, decides what it says, and publishes it themselves — and can take it down at any time.
Teachers with a page so far
- Dr.Karthika Devi Ganesh
Bharathanatyam & Mohini Attam classes, Carnatic vocal classes · Edmonton , Calgary · Taking new students - Lakshmi Ajith
Carnatic Vocal · Canada & India · Taking new students - T S Nandakumar
T S Nandakumar teaches Carnatic percussion and rhythmic arts including Mridangam, Ghatam, Kanjira, Morsing and Konnakol · New Jersey, United States - Xavi Ganjam
Sitar, mohan veena, Audio Production · Alicante · Taking new students
Every page here was written and published by the teacher themselves. Add yours.
What is on a teacher's page
- Their name, city, and whether they teach online, in person, or both.
- The languages they teach in, and how long they have been teaching.
- A line in their own words about what they teach.
- Their lineage and teaching history, if they have filled it in.
- Words from students who have studied with them.
- Whether they are currently taking new students — shown only when they have said so. Silence is not displayed as a yes.
What is deliberately not on the page is a phone number or an e-mail address. Students write to teachers inside the app, which is the point: a teacher can list themselves publicly without publishing their personal contact details to the open web.
If you teach
Nobody has to have written to you first. If you teach Carnatic, Hindustani or Western classical music and would like students to be able to find you, you can add yourself to the directory — it takes a few minutes, costs nothing, and needs no account. Nothing is published from that form: a person reads every request and writes back with a link to the page prepared for you, which you can correct, publish or have removed.
You can create your teaching page in the app, in the Teacher directory section of your profile. It is invisible until you publish it, and publishing it to the directory and putting it on the open web are two separate decisions, each with its own switch. A published page gets a link you can post anywhere — a bio, a WhatsApp group, a sabha noticeboard — which works for people with no account at all.
If we have written to you about a page we drafted from a public listing, that page is not visible to anyone, and it never becomes visible unless you claim it and publish it yourself. You can also delete it outright, without creating an account, and we will not write to you about it again.
Teaching a class is a separate thing — see running a class in Sadhana AI for assignments, submissions and progress.
Practising between lessons
A teacher is half of it. For the week in between, the tanpura and tala, loop practice and pitch measurement on a recorded take are what the app is for. The tradition guides are the place to start: Carnatic, Hindustani and Western classical.