Harp Academy

Live at Five moves to Easter Saturday next week!

We’re delighted that our Live at Five broadcasts have become so popular, and we will continue to bring you our weekly musical shenanigans unabated. We just need to let you know about a couple of small change.

It’s extremely important that our team works as safely as possible, and also that they don’t jeopardise the safety of others. Consequently, our broadcasts will go ‘solo’ for the time being, with either Richard or Will at the helm, but not both at the same time. The content will be the same however, with a focus on music-making, competitions, prizes and fun!

Also please note that with Good Friday just a week away, we will be broadcasting on Easter Saturday 11th April, not Good Friday:

•  Easter Live at Five: Sat 11th April 5pm to 6pm

After this we will return to our normal Friday evening slot. Thank you for your patience and remember; stay home, pick up your harp, and play like no one’s listening!

You can tune a harmonica, but you can’t tuna sandwich

Thanks to everyone who tuned in for more Friday night frolics last week. If you missed out, you can check out all the shenanigans by clicking the link below. We’ll send another link this week, so keep an eye on your emails.

Live at Five No.2

We made our own harmonicas, Will showed us how to mimic a train on our ten hole harps, and we discovered our grown-ups’ middle names. And following our unbiased and totally democratic online vote, it was Will’s turn to get pied!

Thank you for your lovely comments

Hi, Mayari enjoyed watching your Live At 5 again this week. Thanks for all your amazing efforts keeping the lessons going. Genea

Hi, Tom loved joining in with Live at 5 and hearing his name on YouTube. It was excellent. Good to see you both and glad to see you are well. Have a lovely weekend! Jenni

Thank you so much, Daisy really did enjoy Live at 5! She voted for Richard (sorry!) but she laughed so much at Will getting the pie! It was great for my husband and I to see/hear what the lessons are all about and how much she gets from it. We are incredibly pleased she can continue her lessons and engage over the internet with you, huge thanks for all your hard work to make it happen. Look forward to next week! Janie & Daisy

Operation Overblow – online harmonica lessons at home
We have now delivered all remaining Spring sessions in pre-recorded format via YouTube, so that parents and students can access their lessons in safety at home. This has been the first phase of Operation Overblow. If you have not spotted our email, please check spam and junk folders, and if you still have any outstanding queries please let us know.

No doubt your home schooling and distance learning programmes are taking shape at home. Harp Academy is happy to remain a part of your routine and, for those who wish, we will bring our harmonica music-making to you via the internet throughout the Summer Term, or until Schools resume. Let’s look at this more closely.

Summer Term harmonica sessions
Many of you are asking about harmonica sessions this Summer, and this is where phase two of Operation Overblow kicks in. We are pre-recording courses of ten half-hour lessons for KS1 and KS2 subscribers respectively, which we will roll out week by week via YouTube in line with our published Summer schedule. Using our weekly link, subscribers can download and complete each lesson in one go, or work through in bite size chunks, and they can re-use the link as many times as they need. This system continue while lockdown measures are in place and our Summer schedule is live. Once schools re-open, we will return to the classroom to complete our programme in person. You can find the Summer schedule for your School in the My School menu.

How and when do I sign up for the Summer lessons?
In the usual way, and right now! Thank you to everyone who has already signed up. If you have not already done so, please go ahead and organise your subscription as normal. You can pay for the whole term in advance, or else through monthly instalments in advance. If you already have a monthly standing order arranged, simply let this tick over. Detailed subscription instructions are set out on our How To Pay page.

And much more there shall be
In addition to our prerecorded courses, Will Wilde and Richard Taylor will go Live at Five each Friday on YouTube with their interactive programme of musical mayhem. This is when you can ask all your burning questions, add comments and suggestions, and enjoy top tips straight from our Jedi harmonica masters. Check out our Live at Five posts below, with links to our previous pie-tastic broadcasts.

May the force be with you
Welcome to the Treble Alliance and thank you for your support. We look forward to sharing happy sounds in cloudy times with as many children as possible.

Music and mayhem Live at Five

Thanks to everybody who joined our pilot YouTube broadcast. Although we experienced a technical hiccup ten minutes in, we did manage to get up and running again. For anyone who didn’t catch the full broadcast, you can click the links below.

And here’s our first Live at Five Rogues Gallery. From our Moments of Mischief, George is pulling a magnificent monkey face, while Atti is cocking a snook and blowing a raspberry. A proper pair of cheeky chipolatas.

For the uninitiated, our first two Moments of Mischief involved pulling faces and blowing raspberries at your harmonica teacher. Unlike sessions at School, you can’t be seen by the teacher during our broadcast, and it’s something every harmonaut would love to do!

So to the grand finale enjoyed by all; even Will. A custard pie in the mush for Richard! A Moment of Mischief if ever there was one. Ida certainly thought so!

Keep an eye out for the next YouTube code, which we’ll be emailing you this week. If you missed our pilot broadcast, here are the links. We hope you enjoy them and we look forward to seeing you for more music and mayhem on Live at Five No.2!

Part 1      Part 2

Harp Academy Live, 5pm-6pm every Friday on YouTube

Following our pilot broadcast on Fri 20th March 2020, Richard and Will will be going Live at Five on YouTube for you every Friday evening as part of Operation Overblow. Overblow is our programme for online harmonica music-making during the Corona virus lockdown. Further details are published here on our homepage.

To join us, simply click the link we email you each week.

School may be out, the nation may be in lock down, but we’ll be here to blow away the Corona blues. Come and say hello, post your comments and questions, and we’ll share top tips, great songs for 4 hole and 10 hole harmonicas and our regular Moments of Mischief.

While we are live, and with safeguarding in mind, please note:

•  We will be broadcasting direct from Harp Academy HQ
•  This is a private link only available to Harp Academy subscribers
•   Make sure an adult is present while you are watching our stream
•   We won’t be able to see you, so pull as many faces as you like
•   Richard and Will have full DBS and safeguarding training
•   We’ll be finished in time for Crackerjack. 

See you online Live at Five!