everyone should be given the gift of music said oscarwinning composer a r rahman founder and principal of k m music conservatory kmmc speaking at the july 22 edition of mission admission a webinar on careers in music he was joined by adam greig academic coordinator kmmc who also spoke about emerging careers and prospects qa can you describe how you started your journey in the field of music and tell us something about your teachersarr music was in the house as my dad was a musician there was a harmonium a pedal organ a little piano and lots of synthesisers but my music became serious after my father passed away my mother asked me to learn music so that i could do what my father did i learned from dhanraj master who also taught ilaiyaraaja my father and many other musicians jacob john and then a unique teacher named nithyanandam who was a session player taught me how to take notes in those days western classical music was taught by independent teachers who were passionate about it i learned the guitar from divakar master i also learned music from tv gopalakrishnan and gulam mustafa saabi learned carnatic music from dakshinamoorthy swamigal and hindustani from krishnanand i had short lessons with them as i was also working and like all chennai musicians went to musee musicals to do the trinity college of music examinations being in music was my way of life for my mother music was the best profession for our family it was a safe job are there any memorable experiences from those daysarr my father was a student of dhanraj so my mother was like a daughter to teachers like him she knew them well and as they were bachelors so she would cook meals dosa idli and curry for them so the payment for a lesson was just food they wouldnt charge money i remember dhanraj master having a room full of books and a board with diagrams connecting music to astrology did your days as a session musician help you later in your careerarr it gave me huge experience about 10 years of doing recordings every day and different styles of music for other composers is enough experience to last for a lifetime in those days composers used to finish songs in three days it used to be formulaic but did the job and supported a lot of livelihoods sometimes there used to be 20 people at a recording and the facilities were not there a big machine would record one track today we record a multitrack on an iphone what prompted you to establish k m music conservatoryarr when i went abroad i realised that there are many musical requirements for musicians but we dont train them in these officially its always anonymous underground training with which we survive and come up i felt i should start the conservatory and also that there should not be any musical racism in knowledge and in