Carnatic vocalist Prachotan Devulapalli opens up about music being more than food for the soul

Music beyond artistic value
Prachotan Devulapalli
Prachotan Devulapalli

For some, music is etched onto their souls. So much so, that it pours out onto everything they touch. Such is the story of Hyderabad-based Carnatic vocalist Prachotan Devulapalli, who combined his love for music and math to create a curriculum that is proving to be successful in better understanding of concepts. The Limca Book of Record holder speaks to CE about the importance of methodological learning — music, math and otherwise.

Prachotan was named a child prodigy by the Limca Book of Records when he was just 3 years old, for recognising 144 ragas! Since then, he says, his journey has been an absolute rollercoaster. “I’ve been performing all across the country at several prestigious venues. I was fortunate to have performed for the biggest of celebrities and won several accolades. It has been pretty enthralling and a huge value addition on a personal level,” he shares.

Apart from being a musician, Prachotan is also an entrepreneur, co-founder of a math ed-tech company — Bhanzu. Back in 2018 a team, spearheaded by Neelakantha Bhanu, did a few social projects, collaborated with a few governments, and even went into international territories to spread the word and understand how people are perceiving math and the results, he says, have been slightly appalling, and some, pleasantly surprising.

Talking about his music career and company, the 23-year-old shares, “It all started when the founding team got together back in 2017-18. We were very keen on doing some math research together and understanding how every student actually learns the subject the right way and how they perceive math in an individual capacity. We wanted to do something about it because this was a hurting problem that math phobia was so prevalent across the world.” The shift from being a social altruistic firm to being an ed-tech startup has been fascinating for the musician. He adds, “Putting various hats on every day and doing everything right from teaching and talking to people to understanding operational complexities — it’s been a huge business learning.” 

The musician in him never sleeps — Prachotan combined math with music to create a segment in the course called, you guessed it right, Math in Music! Explaining how the elements of math and music come together, he says, “There is a lot of math that people deserve to know when it comes to an artistic point of view — when they are either listening to music, looking at some art, or even learning art forms. There are mathematical elements that are quite understated and from personal experience, when I was a performing artist, looking at my art form in a very specific mathematical way re-wired my thought process in ways that impacted me positively.” Even if they’re not well into art forms, he believes it’s always good to give a unique perspective about how students can look at the world around them. “Art is something that individuals perceive every day — whether or not they realise it. So now, I’m making students think that the math they know has direct implications on the way they look at music and other art forms,” he tells CE. 

We ask him to break it down to us and he says, “After we count to 10, a cycle repeats, now if you make the number 7 the last one, calling it a seven-based number system, the cycle repeats — that is literally how musical notes are visualised. Math and music are far more intertwined than people make it to be. More importantly, there are a lot of fundamental mathematical concepts that are related to the kind of music that people regularly listen to.” 

Prachotan says his students have responded well to such a curriculum and explains why: “The element of surprise is what makes them curious about what’s more. It’s also a good gateway to get into art forms. I’ve spoken to a couple of parents after my classes who said, ‘Maybe it’s not a bad idea that I put my child in some art form.’ So the response has been quite positive and it’s great that math can be taught and is relevant in fields beyond the STEM realm (science, technology engineering and mathematics).” 

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