A world of musical instruments for budding rock stars and culture vultures

Pick up an affordable, entry-level piece if you're just starting; as you progress over time, your teacher should be able to guide you on buying something more sophisticated and expensive

If music be the food of love, play on. That first line of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night established the potential of music to transform moods and elicit emotions. Frustrated in love, the speaker asks for music and yearns for some “food for the soul”.

Music is a universal language transmitted through generations, according to Asad Lalljee, Senior Vice-President, Essar Group, and CEO of Avid Learning Curator, Royal Opera House, Mumbai. “With time, the process of music making has evolved from prehistoric rhythmic percussive instruments to melodic instruments using wind and strings, further evolving to a more complex systematic pattern in modern