Dielle Pillay highlights her journey from learning music when she was a child to opening up her own music academy
Dielle Pillay, who first started playing the piano at the age of two, runs the Amplified Music Academy. By the age of six, she began learning the classical piano, music theory and answering exams from Trinity College of London. After completing her Bachelors of Business, she decided to join Hillsong College (Sydney) to secure a Diploma in music learning skills, to bring music/ vocal performance and song writing to a professional worldclass level. While interning with a leading music composer at Hillsong Channel, Clement Barbu, she studied and worked with Logic Pro X, Mainstage and vocal production. Dielle went on to train under vocal trainer IVA vocal coach Lara Ten Hoorn who is a celebrity vocal coach in Sydney. While studying, she got the opportunity to work with one of Sydney’s biggest music school ‘Maxx Music’, which brought in important skills like, the workings of a music school, working with children and adults from different cultures, genres and teaching techniques while working with the Australian Music Examination Board.
Dielle elaborates on what got her interested in music. “I loved music as a child, my parents bought me a small toy keyboard as a christmas gift, I remember spending hours with the keyboard and eventually started playing nursery rhymes by ear, and thereafter I started piano classes. I started playing and singing at church which inspired me and I was interested to grow and learn more about music. I loved listening to the radio growing up, that opened up my music world and ear to many artists and genres of music. I would not just listen but also break down and study every instrument that I heard in the song and draw my inspiration from it.”
At Amplified Music
Dielle Pillay highlights her journey from learning music when she Rhythm Divine was a child to opening up her own music academy Academy, Dielle and her team are bringing in a new age of music lessons, music technology and innovation to launch one into their own musical journey, be it as a career path or just a hobby. “We help you to choose the best path for your musical journey and tailor-make the classes to your liking. We aim to provide high quality music classes, track your progress, meet your goals and requirements and the list goes on. We make sure to choose the best music teacher for you, someone with the right skills and qualifications, on a day and time that works best for you.”
As part of the academy’s curriculum, every student has their own customised curriculum depending on what their goals in music are – for example, some want to learn music just as a hobby, answer exams, start or join a band, compose or become a song writer. “At AMA we make sure to tailor make a curriculum designed specifically for you so that you are learning music in a way that would directly help and add value to your musical journey. If you choose to answer exams, we help you train for the Trinity College of London exams, if your focus is to join a band, we teach you how to craft your skills to a performance level, teach you band techniques that could be used even at an international level, and if your main focus is to be a composer or songwriter, we would take you down the road of Logic Pro X/Mainstage which is a music production software. We also teach people who have no knowledge or prior experience,” adds Dielle.
The academy offers instruments like the piano, electronic keyboard, guitar, drums, vocals and music theory. Dielle explains that her team comprises of teachers who have a music qualification, in form of certification, diplomas/ degrees, have prior teaching and performing experience, and have been in the music industry for a while. All the teachers are also trained in a child safety program before they are inducted.
When it comes to music Dielle explains that growing up; she has been inspired by all kinds of genres. “Ranging from pop to rock, I find every genre of music beautifully complex in their own way, but in the last few years, while interning as a music composer at Hillsong Channel, I worked with a lot of orchestral music. I started listening to a lot of film scores for inspiration, my favourite being the Game of Thrones score by Ramin Djawadi. Ólafur Arnalds and Ludovico Einaudi have been another few of my inspirations.”
Dielle believes that in order to achieve anything in life, there is hard work and sacrifice involved. “I think having an end goal is very important. In the competitive world of music, it takes hard work more than talent to develop your skills, learn more, and keep yourself updated with technology. Learning music is a slow but beautiful learning process, just like everything else that is good, good things take time, but along the road it got difficult to pursue music due to studies, work commitments etc, but for me I loved music and knew I wanted to be a musician professionally, so I worked towards it, time management and learning how to balance studying and music played a big part. When I went to Hillsong College, I was exposed to a whole new world of music technology, and being a classical pianist, it was very new to me and might I add, quite intimidating, but I did not let that stop me, I eventually began loving music technology and learning more about it, I then also found a way to incorporate my classical music training into it.”
When she started teaching in Sydney, Dielle explains that it was an entirely new experience teaching children from different cultures etc, but it was amazing to see how everyone’s love for music overcame cultural barriers, making it interactive, learning about what music is like in a different culture. It really helped propel her into a whole new teaching experience and develop her skills as a teacher.
Dielle has big plans for her academy. “We want to incorporate new ideas and fun ways of teaching music, adding more instruments to our list, more branches as well. We are looking at bringing in new technology that make your traditional music class more fun, knowledgeable, practical and using equipment that is used in the music industry nationally and internationally. I am also looking at eventually executing music certification courses that are not easily available, for example, in film scoring, game music designing, composition, arranging, orchestration, recording, digital audio and post-production, recording engineer, studio work and song writing.”
Dielle signs off with a message to aspiring musicians. “Follow your dreams, if you want to be a full time or part time musician, work hard towards it; don’t give up on your dream just because it might seem like a long and narrow road. The world of music is very competitive and you will always find someone who you think is better and more talented than you; but remember that you bring something unique to the table that no one else can. You need to find what that is and grow and develop it. As Goans, we are born with music in our blood and our State has some of the best musicians there is music in all of us, it is up to us if we want to just let it waste away or if we want to let it grow into
something beautiful. Nothing is impossible, you might surprise yourself with how talented you are, do what makes you happy and dream big”
