A lot of us dream of studying music, getting on stage and being a rock star, a DJ or a music producer. And, Music education in the country, is no longer a tough call as an academic pursuit. One of the few music schools that has laid the foundation of what modern day music production schools in India should be like is I Love Music Academy.
The brainchild of brothers -- Nakul and Arjun Vagale -- the Academy is at the forefront of electronic music education with a focus on music production, audio engineering and DJing. While the Academy is currently based in Gurgaon, NCR Delhi, it was started in 2009 as a small two-room academy in Bengaluru. Seven years later, it trains over 300 students a year.
Recalling what led to the Academy’s formation, Nakul says back in 2009 he used to run an entertainment and event management company. “We saw there were youngsters interested in DJing but most of them were self-taught. That means they were susceptible to trail and error when it came to this art. My brother Arjun is also a DJ and a producer. He also went through a similar process where he had to learn things by watching videos and reading magazines. The Internet back then wasn’t really great. There was a lot of misinformation on the net since people were still trying to get their hands at it. There was no one to tell them what was right and wrong. The problem is once you learn something, it’s difficult to unlearn it.”
He adds: “We needed DJs for our company, so we started training people. Then we realised we can train them separately as another facility itself. Rather than do it internally for our own purposes, we decided to train people professionally. That’s how it started.”
Nakul points out there was a lot of interest also in production that time.
“There were a few institutes dabbling in sound engineering, but not really music production. Almost everyone who wanted to do sound engineering wanted to make music out of it and not become studio engineers. So that’s what made us step up and start the Academy.”
How has the journey been? Nakul affirms it had some ups and downs.
“We’ve made mistakes and learnt from them. Most importantly, we’ve managed to evolve the education in the industry. I don’t think anyone took electronic music education seriously. When we say we’re an electronic music school, we’re exactly that. Not a studio which doubles as a school, or failed musicians making ends meet. We have a clear purpose – to train people professionally in the field. That has seen us grow from strength to strength”
He adds that they also figured out right in the beginning that “We need to have people currently in the industry who are also performers. They should have created a name for themselves in some form so they can teach and inspire youngsters. We’re lucky to have the team that we have today. They share our vision of giving electronic music education in a way not given before.”
We also hope to inspire more people to enter this industry and strive to provide the same kind of education, he emphasises. “There is room for growth in this industry. We don’t need to dominate the space.”
The ultimate takeaway for their students is their courses are technical in nature.
“We are not genre-specific in any way. When our students come in, we want them to learn the technical inputs from our end, but what they do with it is purely up to them.” Nakul adds they will be taught everything technical to be successful in the industry. “Beyond that, it’s up to their capacity, talent and ability to progress. Their hard work will benefit them. They will be in the industry because we trained them, but they’ll be up there on stage because of their own effort,” he sums up.
Apart from being associated with talent management agencies and getting applications from all over the country, they host a scholarship programme and financial aid.
Visit www.ilovemusic.edu.in for details.
