Piano no more a rich man's instrument: Ankita Kumar

The piano is no longer just a rich man's instrument but can be accessible to just about anybody with an ear for music, says Ankita Kumar, a filmmaker and budding pianist who runs a school exclusively devoted to the piano here.
"There is a notion that the piano is a rich man's instrument because it is actually a very expensive instrument and there is no school in Delhi which permits you to learn the piano if you don't have one at home," says the daughter of incumbent Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar.
Ankita, 28, recently gave a solo performance titled 'Harmony: Music from across borders on the Piano' at the Indian Institute of Technology here.

Her school Colours of Music, which began in 2012 promises not to teach the piano in a conventional way.
"If you have a casio which has 48 keys you can start learning which is about one tenth or may be even less than what a basic piano costs," says Ankita.
The pianist says she picked up the piano at the age of 12 from celebrated musician Brian Silas, who himself did not undergo any formal training and learnt by relentlessly playing the keys of piano.

"My teacher Brain Silas can't read so it is natural that I teach in the same way that I learnt. I myself don't know how to read music like other piano teachers. So at our school we play by ear and thee focus is to listen to the song and train the mind to recreate the music," Ankita told PTI.

"We teach scales, we teach the basic of the piano, we teach the basics of notation and then we set students free and encourage them to adapt any music they hear and perhaps even compose," says Ankita.
Beginning with just four students Ankita's school now has a modest strength of 14 students.
"The students range from the age group of 6 to 62 years and come from all walks of life they come. We insist on a trail class with children and young men and women. They come and try and figure out if they have an inclination or they have an ear for music and will enjoy learning and most of them we have found take to the music, take to the style of learning and then they enrol," says Ankita.