Harmonica for Kids

Spring Term 2026 Enrolment

Richard

Calling all Harmonica Parents and Carers!

We very much hope you can join us for our 10 week music making programme this Spring Term. Please let us know your plans right away! Details on how to sign up can be found in our recent emails (check spam and junk folders if you can’t spot these in your inbox) and in the How to Pay menu here on our website. We also hope to organise more fun Harmonica Blow Outs at school and in public through the year.

Our Teaching Plan This Term
Our Spring theme is musical diversity. We will be celebrating different cultures and languages represented by our group members, and study pieces will be drawn from the popular World Songs section of our key stage music libraries. You’ll find these in the Learning menu at the top of our homepage. We’ll also be exploring composition, song writing and improvisation.

Structure and Texture
To complement our composition theme, we will be looking more closely at musical structure and texture and how songs are put together. New knowledge and vocabulary will include intro, outro, chorus, verse, bridge, middle 8, solo, ostinato, harmony, chords, round and mash ups.

We look forward to seeing you soon – and please tell all your friends!
We wish you all a Happy New Year 2026 and please help us pass the news about Harp Academy. It’s a fun and accessible way to learn music, which children can enjoy with their best friends. Why not recommend a free taster session to some of your harmonaut’s best friends. A free starter harmonica in their colour of choice is also included!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Richard

Thank you to everyone involved in making Harp Academy happen in 2025! Parents and carers at home, staff colleagues at School, and of course all our wonderful harmonauts who turn up each week to make amazing music.

In a fitting end to the year, this week saw forty of our harmonauts and their grown ups gather at the Royal Alex Children’s Hospital to share their music with children who will remain in critical care throughout the festive season; our love and best wishes go out to each and every one of them and their families.

A huge well done to all our players who represented eight different Primary Schools from Saltdean and Brighton to Hove, Portslade and Shoreham. And well done to all our grown ups who set the time aside to travel to the Royal Alex and show their support. Here’s a message of thanks from the Royal Alex team who helped us put everything together:

Hi Everyone, Thank you all so much for your visit this morning. The children were fantastic! Everyone was so happy and loved hearing the lovely music. Please pass on our thanks to the children and families for their time and the brilliant music. Wishing you all a very happy Christmas!! Best wishes, Katy and the Play Team.

We couldn’t be prouder of you all! We look forward to more music making next term and to our next Blow Out adventure. In the meantime we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2026!

Sample Lesson – When The Saints

Richard

I want to be in that number
It’s time to learn some fun jazz on the harmonica and here’s a song everybody will recognise. It’s called When The Saints Go Marching In and it’s from New Orleans, The song has a long name, so we’ll call it The Saints for short.


The Saints started life as an American gospel hymn and it was sung quite slowly. But once the Jazz Bands of New Orleans got hold of it, they soon gave it some swing! Read more

Harmonica for 4-11 Year Olds

Richard

Would you like to include music-making on the harmonica in your setting?

Here’s Richard presenting Play Harmonica, the theme tune from Harp Academy’s early years harmonica courses for 4-7 year olds. He’s using a 4 hole easy-play Speedy harmonica (available in our Store). Set to the tune of Wind The Bobbin Up/There’s A Dinosaur, the song encourages young players to acquire the following key skills:

∙ Hole location by number – 1 2 3 4
∙ Breath control – Blow and Draw
∙ C Major Arpeggio – C E G C
∙ Musical Alphabet (with Makaton) – A B C D E F G
∙ Progression to C Major Scale – C D E F G A B C
∙ Enjoyment of Rhythm and Rhyme
∙ Follow hand signals for intonation
∙ Read and follow harmonica arrow tab notation

If you would like access to the backing track, harmonica tabs, or further details about music making on the harmonica and running weekly sessions in your Early Years setting, get in touch using the details on our Contact page. Please also visit our Early Years menu for more insight into our Pre-School harmonica activities, or our KS1 for young School Age children.