Written by Shankar Mahadevan Academy Team on 17 June 2025
At Shankar Mahadevan Academy (SMA), we've spent 15 years delivering high-quality music education to students from over 90 countries. We have delivered half a million online virtual classes, much more than any other institution in the world.
SMA offers an extensive progressive curriculum in Carnatic and Hindustani Classical music, upholding all the traditional best practices as well as modernizing it to suit the current methods.
Our curriculum is designed for depth, consistency, and excellence — and we’re proud of the global community we've built.
SMA offers classes to learn different types of music, including classical, movie songs in any language. SMA instituted a teacher training program where our teachers go through intensive training that makes a musician realize what it takes to be a teacher.
We intentionally chose not to offer trial classes. No previews, no samples — just the real experience from day one.
Here’s why:
True to our founder Shankar Mahadevan’s quality and pursuit of excellence in his musical journey, his academy - our beloved SMA, pursues the same virtues of quality, excellence and integrity.
A free trial class usually connects you to someone who will not likely be your teacher when you join. We do not believe in “bait and switch”. A free trial class is usually taken by someone with the sole intention of bringing students into the academy, nothing to do with real learning.
