Child then studied Kamatic music in Madras, India for one year on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. In 1978 he won a fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he studied under Jacob Druckman. In 1981 he received his PhD in musical composition from Brandeis University, where his teachers included Arthur Berger, Martin Boykan, and Seymour Shifrin.
This individual then spent a year studying Kamatic music in Madras, India on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Two years later, he was awarded a fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center in Massachusetts, where he studied under Jacob Druckman. He eventually earned his PhD in composition from Brandeis University in 1981, with notable instructors such as Arthur Berger, Martin Boykan, and Seymour Shifrin.