 His musical prowess was detected early when he enrolled in 1935 at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique as a child prodigy, below the official minimum age of nine.Monod attended the Paris Conservatoire intermittently but remained registered for nearly 20 years, obtaining his Certificat de Récompense in 1958.Monod's teachers at the Conservatoire were Yves Nat and Olivier Messiaen; including master classes under the visiting conductor, Herbert von Karajan; he also studied with his godfather, Paul-Silva Hérard, the organist at Paris's St. Ambroise Church.