How has the mindset towards music education changed over the last decade?

The mindset towards music education changed among people, here's how.


During the last decade, careers in music and music education began to receive broader visibility among India’s burgeoning young population, who are increasingly keen to break the norm and embrace alternate careers that are fulfilling and rewarding. The hugely popular TV reality shows centered around music and dance perhaps played a key role in pushing some “behind the scenes” roles to the foreground for the masses.

Youtube then opened up a global window to experience and showcase musical talent, from concerts and individual performances to music production and everything else that gets the wheels of music rolling, including the benefits of music education among children.


The digital revolution driven by the super penetration of the widely affordable mobile internet in India brought accessibility to music, entertainment, and education previously unimaginable to large segments of our population. A simple Google search for sound engineering, music production, or music business now brings up a plethora of learning options if one looks out for learning music professionally.

The last decade saw a number of Indian educational institutions adding music to their curriculum and this is seen across the spectrum from schools to higher education. Many private and international schools in India now provide well-structured music education as part of their standard curriculum, and there are several dedicated institutes of higher learning that offer internationally benchmarked professional music education at the tertiary level.


The improving visibility of the music and entertainment industry and its somewhat transparent economic indicators have led to a slow but encouraging acceptance of careers in music as viable. A 2020 Goldman Sachs estimate puts the combined global music industry’s revenue to increase from $62 billion in 2017 to $131 billion in 2030.

The present scope of the Indian music market is estimated at approximately $443 million. India ranked 15 in the 2018 ifpi global music market rankings and is still not in the top 10 as of today. Given the potential size of the Indian market and in comparison to the global music revenues, India’s music industry has immense potential to continue to grow for several years to come.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) 2020 Jobs and Benefits analysis found that in 2018 the music industry contributed $170 billion in value to the U.S, while directly or indirectly supporting 2.47 million American jobs. While acknowledging the lack of such comparable data in India at the moment, one could extrapolate India's potential by looking at these global figures.


The aspirations of our younger generation are the key driver of music education in India today. A career in music is now viewed well beyond the singer, whose voice only resonated in the cinemas we watched and later in All India Radio. Almost everything we experience today, whether in person or in the digital world, has some connection to music, and that means opportunities.

Our young learners are now better informed, goal-oriented and are ready to take on the challenge of charting their path to success as creative professionals. They see a deep sense of purpose in pursuing careers that allow them to nurture, grow and express their creativity through products and services that connect emotionally with tens of millions of people.

Indian educational institutions have now stepped in to provide a bouquet of internationally recognised professional degrees in music, which were only available to those who could afford a foreign education until recently. Some of these programmes take a multidisciplinary approach that combines music, business, law, and data science, etc. with a clear goal of grooming mumpreneurs who can drive innovation and enterprise, and we need that to become one of the top 10 music markets in the world.

Article by Nilesh Thomas, Dean, True School of Music, Vijaybhoomi University.

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