Music Lessons!

At the beginning of this week, there has been a program to where devotees can learn how to play musical instruments for Krishna such as the kartals, harmonium, and the mrdanga drum.  I've always wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument, but my mother never allowed me to. She claimed that I never finish what I've started. But she always took guitar lessons, and had her own guitar. So now living in a temple I have a chance to learn how to play a musical instrument and I can learn how to play it for Krishna.

The first instrument we started to learn is the Kartals which are cymbols. There is a certain beat and angle one must do in order to play them. The beat is a one two three beat and you have to play the kartals at a slight angle to get a nice ring to the kartals. You can just bang on them like a toy. But I've got the hang of playing the kartals. I just have to try and practice singing and playing the kartals at the same time as that can be very tricky. But Im getting there.

Then this past Friday we learned a bit how to play the harmionium. That is even harder to play than kartals. I know one tune or melody now on the harmonium. It was a little tricky first but once you get the feel of it it's easy. You have to hit the key at a certain time otherwise you'll sound completely off key while you play the harmonium. It will take some time to learn.

Im sure the next instrument we'll learn on Monday is the mrdanga drum. Out of all the instruments I think the harmonium is the most difficult to play. But I think once I get practice in i'll be good with it. I know this will make my guru Maharaj very very pleased and then maybe I can really lead mangal aarti or the other Aartis with playing an instrument.