A two-day intensive piano workshop on our ancient cultural heritage, the traditional old Bihu tunes, which are left to suffer the ignominy of extinction, is being organised under the initiative of the state’s leading music institute Piano Kids among its most experienced and talented students ahead of Bohag Bihu. The workshop, to be conducted on April 10 and 11, will be held at the ‘Jibakrishna’ intimate platform of Piano Kids. Meanwhile, the state’s renowned piano maestro and the Principal of Piano Kids, Kushal Krishna Dev Goswami has converted almost twenty selected old Bihu songs to western staff notation with the aim of preserving these precious tunes. People from around the world who are interested in music in all of its forms can collect these staff notations from the website – pianokids.in , at a fixed nominal cost.
Goswami has made tremendous efforts to recover many of these rare and exquisite traditional melodies before converting them into staff notation so that they can be brought back into the limelight and be given due attention they so rightfully deserve.
He is hopeful that the students of Piano Kids, who will participate in the workshop, will be motivated to work in the field of preservation and promotion of our cultural heritage in the future by meticulously learning these old selected Assamese tunes through staff notation.
And it is in this way that these traditional Assamese Bihu tunes, with their distinctive literary and musical modes, can actually reach the world stage, commented the Principal of Piano Kids. “Because staff notation is the only commonly established system of preserving music,” Goswami added.
After the release of the much appreciated improvised book on western music – ‘Scale Study’ (Activity Book for Level – lll, lV and V), Piano Kids has, more recently, published a new book, compiled by Kushal Krishna Dev Goswami, called ‘Piano Practice Book For Beginners (Level – ll), which is designed to be engaging and fun.
—Prantik Deka
