Music taught by ear, from someone who's been the student, the performer, and now the teacher, building musicians ready for today's stage.
TSOM is a Mumbai-based academy founded by Swarupa Ananth, teaching tabla, djembe, darbuka, cajon, vocals and Ableton Live, one-to-one and in small groups, entirely online.
Kids figuring out if music is for them, adults finally making time for it, retired couples picking up something new together, serious students working toward a career on stage. TSOM classes start from wherever you actually are, not where a syllabus assumes you should be.
Six ways in, one method.
Every course starts with the ear, not the page. Notation comes later, once the sound and feel are already in the hands.
Tabla
Vocals
Djembe
Darbuka
Cajon
Ableton Live
For specific kinds of students.
Two ongoing group programmes sit alongside individual instruction, each led personally by Swarupa.
Indian music, for children growing up abroad.
A structured online programme for children of Indian origin growing up outside India. A 12-week foundation phase covers repertoire, sargam and ear training, rhythm, Indian music foundations, and cultural and language context, with milestone reviews along the way. From there, students move into an ongoing journey personalised to their age, background and interests, including performance preparation where they want it.
Group singing, for Indian adults living abroad.
A weekly online group, one hour, for Indian adults living abroad who want to come back to the songs they grew up with, properly. Each month works through a curated set of Bollywood, folk, bhajan and regional songs in groups of up to 10, building real musical understanding, not just melody: sargam and raga flavours, what the lyrics actually mean, and how to make a song feel like your own.
Swarupa Ananth
Swarupa is a tabla and percussion artist mentored by Ustad Allarakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain, and recognised on Forbes India's 30 Under 30. She has performed on over 20 stages worldwide, including Glastonbury, London's Southbank Centre and Germany's Morgenland Festival, and shared the stage with Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves on their 2024 India tour. She is also the founder of Women Who Drum, India's premier all-women percussion ensemble.
She was a student herself long before any of this: then a working performer on stages solo and in collaboration, then a touring artist, then a producer writing and releasing her own music. TSOM is taught from that whole arc, not just the classical foundation, so students come out performance-ready and genuinely current, not just technically correct. She's also a parent to an eight-year-old, which keeps her honest about how kids actually experience a music class, and what makes them want to come back to it.
Music programmes for schools and organisations.
TSOM designs and delivers hands-on music programmes outside the regular class calendar, led personally by a teacher who has performed at Glastonbury, on MTV Unplugged, and on Coke Studio. Every format is built on the same ear-first, deliverable-driven method used in every TSOM class.
Workshops, artist sessions and term-length enrichment
From a single hands-on workshop or artist masterclass to a structured programme that runs across a school term, either as a layer inside your existing music curriculum or as an after-school offering.
- Single workshops and artist sessions
- Curriculum-integrated enrichment, by term
- After-school programmes
Team sessions and ongoing music experiences
Rhythm-based team sessions, artist interactions and recurring music experiences, built for company culture, offsites and employee wellness calendars, no musical background required.
- One-off team sessions and offsites
- Artist interactions and live sets
- Recurring employee music programmes