Huntingdonshire Music School Association - Public

Taster Day, Saturday 23rd May

The music school are holding a taster day on Saturday 23rd May between 09:00 to 13:00 at the Huntingdonshire Regional College in Huntingdon.

Come and find out what happens. Have a try on various instruments and see if we can [pair you up with one. Ever fancied trying and instrument but never quite summoned up the courage? Don’t be put off - don’t let age or anything else stop you - just come and have a chat.

There will be lots of students of all ages and teachers to talk to you. You can listen to a band rehearsing (we’ll be practising for our Norfolk tour this summer). You can find out about the different ways of begging, borrowing, leasing or buying an instrument (and we should have some local suppliers on hand to provide expert advice). Come and see what we get up to when we’re not in the college - either by way of performing outside (e.g. 14th June at the Riverside Park in Huntingdon between 14:30 and 16:30) or travelling elsewhere.

It’s good fun, it’s very sociable and you’re never too old or too young to have a go.

Don’t put it off. This isn’t a dress rehearsal and it’s no good wondering ‘what if’ later on!

Encouragement

• BBC Play It Again - where famous celebrities, not exactly in their first flush of youth, learned to play an instrument and performed in the public eye
• Fun education site - good guide to instruments and learning music

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.