Huntingdonshire Music School Association - Public

Welcome to the Huntingdonshire Music School and Huntingdonshire Music School Association (HUMSA) - one of the Internet’s best kept secrets!

Whilst we may not brag very much, the school is very much a place of musical excellence where adults and children can learn an instrument and play with others in a relaxed and friendly setting.

We have an ‘open door’ policy so why not come in to see us on a Saturday morning and see what a few hundred people get up to in the name of music. We can’t promise that it will make you more attractive to the opposite sex or provide superhuman powers. We can, however, promise you fun and the ability to take up something that might very well change your life.

Sit back, relax and explore…

• Instruments Taught
• Groups, Ensembles & Orchestras
• A Typical Saturday Morning
• Travel with us and have fun

Huntingdon Community Radio has been broadcasting for short periods of time under temporary licenses for 13 years now. In fact during the run up to the Big 4-0 (the 40th anniversary of the Huntingdonshire Music School) two of us were interviewed on air about the music school and the musical daftness we get up to.

They will be applying for full-time license from OFCOM - the last time a full-time license will be advertised for this area for some time. They need support to be able to apply for this additional capability for Huntingdonshire.

There’s a public meeting on Wednesday 1st October 2008 at 7pm at the George Hotel in Huntingdon to try and get support. Please turn up and show support as this benefits not only us in the music school but everyone else in the area covered (St. Neots, St. Ives, Godmanchester and Ramsey). If you can’t attend then you can listen live online through your browser if you point it at the home page for the radio station (below).

See the Huntingdon Community Radio website.

Some of you might have watched the BBC Play It Again TV series on BBC1 on Sunday nights. In this series every week an adult celebrity personality is given the challenge of learning a musical instrument and culminates in a major public performance with professional musicians. The series featured the following:-

• Jo Brand - organ
• Frank Skinner - banjo
• Aled Jones - drums
• Robert Winston - saxophone
• Diane Abbott - piano
• Bill Oddie - electric guitar

As part of the campaign to encourage adult learners the BBC laid on a series of events around the country where anyone could turn up with their instrument of choice and have a go with a professional BBC orchestra at rehearsing and then performing a well known piece.

We were asked to provide a stand at the Cambridge event. We also got a brief listing on the BBC website. Myself and some very good folk spent all day taking to very enthused adults and children during the breaks between rehearsals. Some others from the music school took part in the event itself and learnt ‘Tonight’ from Bernstein’s West Side Story. The final performance involved something like 250 people (see below).

What a day! We had quite a lot of ‘bites’ and a lot of promises to turn up and see things on Saturday mornings. There were something like 600 people there. I think I managed to turn round one lady who wanted someone to coach for singing near her in Newmarket to coming to see us if there’s a possibility to join in with a sing with swing event. I have a definite taker who is coming purely for the theory lesson (but once inside I’m sure she’ll succumb!).

The Oud and Hurdy Gurdy attracted a lot of interest and did their job well - thought we had quite an eye-catching stall (but I would, wouldn’t I!). The soundtracks from the Sing with Swing and Big 4-0 were pretty good (although we did have some stiff competition on the noise front in the afternoon).

There were some strange instruments - concert ukalele, mandela (octave mandolin). Everyone taking part seemed to enjoy themselves and the BBC and the orchestra seemed to do a fantastic job at including and encouraging everyone. It concluded with a performance of ‘Tonight’ from the West Side Story - sounded pretty good from the balcony - see below. It’d be interesting to hear from the performers and also those that took pictures or video or captured sound on their phones.

In fact everyone seemed to be having such a good time that myself and my daughter decided to attend the event at the Watford Colliseum 2 weeks later (and recorded the same for the HUMS Aloud podcast…

External Links

• Play It Again on Wikipedia
• Play It Again with the BBC (Official Website)

Well done to the BBC - well worth the license fee for this one event alone. It was really good to see people so enthusiastic about learning to play an instrument.