ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the constraints and contradictions that emerged in the nationalist initiative on music education, and thereafter, in the context of post-independence efforts, its reception among the educated elite and its intersection with the ongoing debate on cultural reform and regeneration. In any case, the newly emerging sensibilities and solidarities associated with music listening and related activity, fed directly into emerging nationalist consciousness wherein music figured prominently. The relocation of music from gurukulavasam to university generated new imperatives of teaching and reproduction that invariably, and continually, raised issues of standards and authenticity in classical music. The lines on which the gurukulavasam was organized facilitated a particular mode of pedagogic transaction that was complete and stressed an experiential approach. Gurukulavasam referred to method of teaching and learning in which the shishya or disciple lives with the guru, learning music by a process of slow absorption and serving the guru as a member of his household.
