With only minutes to go before class, five little boys rush in to The Guitar School, impatient for the lesson to start. For the first 30 minutes, they surround their instructor, Abid Khan, and rehearse the songs they learnt in the last class, like ‘Beat it’ by Michael Jackson, ‘My heart will go on’ from Titanic, and the theme songs from Iron Man, Mission Impossible and The Simpsons.
If they lose track of the notes, the students are taught to raise their arm and say, “I messed up. Let’s start over.” Khan tells them to focus on the “4 Ps” – patience, practice, passion and persistence – to master the instrument. For the next 30 minutes, they interact with one another. More advanced students train new admits, while Khan teaches the other students new songs.
Seven-year-old Riyaan already acts like a rock star. He carries himself with confidence and dismisses criticism from his fellow students. Wali Shah, who is accompanied to the class by his mother, is admired by the other kids for his ability to pick up new tunes by ear. Hassan, also aged 7, is the only kid wanting to learn Pakistani songs on his guitar. Maaz, 11, joined recently after taking Khan’s guitar class at the Lahore Grammar School.
When Khan was growing up in Lahore, there was nothing like The Guitar School. There wasn’t even a place to buy guitar strings.
He learnt by listening to records and jamming with friends, and has been part of several bands like EP and Rubber Band. Now he and other teachers at TGS are training the next generation of this city’s pop and rock musicians, and they are finding that interest in the industry is getting stronger and stronger. In turn, the lessons give musicians like Khan the chance to make a living outside the unpredictable business of playing concerts.
The school was opened in June 2009 and has enrolled over 400 students, around half of them aged between 9 and 12, says the school’s founder Hamza Jafri, who is also guitarist and vocalist for co-Ven. TGS doesn’t just offer guitar lessons. There are song writing and music theory courses, and classes on keyboards, percussion and audio production. There are also plans for dance and boxing classes.
Beginner guitar sessions for teenagers and adults are held separately for Rs6,000 per month. Ten students aged between 10 and 13 are enrolled in intermediate classes. Thirty-seven study music theory. “We allow children and parents to visit and interact with students and teachers before signing up,” says Jafri.
One TGS instructor teaches at the Lahore College of Arts and Sciences, while Abid recently started holding guitar lessons at two LGS branches. A guitar club has been formed at a girl’s LGS branch with the youngest student aged four. The oldest are a few O level students, aged 13 or 14, Khan says. Steve, another faculty member, gives lessons at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
The school also set up a small jam room where children can rehearse. The space is also used for regular concerts where students can hear young bands from Lahore and other parts of the country, as well as play themselves to get used to performing on stage as their parents and teachers look on.
The impact is evident in The Others, who claim to be Pakistan’s youngest rock band. They’ve already scored gigs opening for popular artists like Jal and Strings as well as independent concerts like the last LGS Halloween event.
Zoya Sultan, 15, lead singer and guitarist for The Others, and her brother Ali, 8, percussionist, took song writing and music theory lessons at TGS. Their father and band manager, Uzair Sultan, says the experience helped his children a great deal. “They really encourage creativity and producing new and fresh music,” Sultan says. “Zoya is now determined to go to the Berklee College of Music in Boston after her A Levels.”
Non-Western music
The Guitar School is not the only place in town where you can learn to play the instrument. The Lahore Arts Council holds two-hour weekly sessions for just Rs300 per lesson focussing on folk, Sufi and classical music, says Shahid Tafoo, who teaches the class.
He says there has been an upturn in interest in the guitar. Previously, he says, his students taking guitar lessons during the summers would quit as soon as their schools restarted. This year, most of his students continued with their lessons.
Lahore Chitrkaar used to offer guitar lessons too, but the centre had to be closed because of financial constraints. Its instructors included Tafoo and Foaad Nizam, who has also taught at The Guitar School.
They both give private tuition as well. Nizam has students as young as five, though he says interest in the guitar is not just restricted to kids. His oldest student is aged 82.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 14th, 2011.
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