Huntingdonshire Music School Association - Public

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.

Hunts Post Article

Huntingdonshire Music School celebrates its 40th year next year. Over 400 musicians range from a guitarist, aged four to a sax player, aged 83. The school is one of Huntingdon’s best kept secrets. Report by ANGELA SINGER.

WHEN Derrick Baughan, aged 50, joined the woodwind ensemble at Hums - Huntingdonshire Music School - and sat down with his saxophone, the 12-year-old next to him said: “Don’t worry, don’t be nervous, everyone is when they start, it’ll be fine.”

The music school has 464 pupils The youngest is Max Sayer, from Papworth, a guitarist aged four and the oldest is Fred Cracknell from Upwood, a sax player aged 83. Fred is joined in the school by his son Vernon, 51, another saxophonist and two grandchildren Emillie, 12, on trumpet and Mariette, 11, on clarinet. He says: “I’ve been playing the saxophone since 1935. I played in all the local big bands including the Anglian Jazz Orchestra and the Priory Big Band in St Neots. I started playing at the music school when one of the teachers, who also played in the Priory Big Band brought me in because he needed a baritone sax. “I play in Hums to keep myself and my fingers going. I’ll play in any band that wants me. You need a mixture of experienced people, plus the younger people because they have the energy.”

The music school meets on Saturday mornings and weekday evenings at Huntingdonshire Regional College. Though director, Gary Seiling, an organist and harpsichord player, worries that “people don’t know we’re here” at the beginning of term last week, there were 78 messages on his voice mail, mostly from people wanting to become students.

Elvira, mum of Max, who will be five in November, said: “As a baby he enjoyed musical toys. His grandfather plays the accordian by ear and we had the impression that he had picked up that talent and we wanted to foster it. He chose the guitar because his dad is into that. It’s a good exercise for him to sit down and concentrate on the teacher and focus on one thing. He started in February when he was at pre-school and now he has started school it has all been helpful.” Max is one of 283 pupils under 16. There are 39 youngsters aged 16-18 and 142 over 19.

Says Sieling: “We are not short of students, Our fees are competitive, they include theory lessons in classes and there is plenty of scope for playing in ensembles and performance.” The ensembles include a swing band, two rock bands, three concert bands, an orchestra and junior string band. Sieling pledges that the school will teach any instrument. “If we don’t already have a teacher, we will find one.” Students are prepared for exams with over a 98 per cent pass rate of exams last year, with several distinctions and merits. Only one student failed an exam.

Despite it merits, the school was only just able to survive a recent funding crisis. In the midst of a national crisis in the funding of music education, Hums was obliged to increase its fees. To head off future financial trouble, Hums has formed Humsa, the Huntingdonshire Music School Association. The association is applying for charitable status so it can raise funds. Says Sieling: “We are now charging market rates and the music school is more secure than it was. If we get charitable status, it will attract extra funding to fight off further fee increases. Ideally we might even reduce them.

Humsa chairman is sax player, Derek Baughan, an engineering consultant from Brampton who says: “We want to form a pressure group and also raise awareness that we are here. It’s time we made a noise about our music.”

Source

Article Copyright Hunts Post :  published by the Hunts Post on 22nd September 2004.See Hunts Post website .

At present, individual tuition is offered on the following instruments -

• Acoustic Guitar
• Banjo
• Bassoon
• Cello
• Clarinet
• Classical Guitar
• Cor Anglais
• Cornet
• Double Bass
• Drum Kit
• Electric Guitar
• Euphonium
• Flugel Horn
• Flute
• French Horn
• Harpsichord
• Horn
• Keyboard
• Eb Bass
• Oboe
• Orchestral Percussion
• Organ
• Piano
• Piccolo
• Recorder
• Saxophones (all)
• Singing
• Tenor Horn
• Trombone
• Trumpet
• Tuba
• Viola
• Violin

Tuition for any other instrument can be arranged. If you want to learn the steel drums or mongolian nose flute you have but to ask