Harpin’ By The Sea Harmonica Festival.
Here’s a memento for everyone who took part in the children’s workshop at this year’s Harpin’ By The Sea international harmonica festival in 2023.
Thirty children from 4 to 11 years old joined Richard Taylor and Quim Roca for two hours of music and mayhem, culminating in a performance to our grown ups live on stage. It was epic!
Thanks to Matt our Sound Engineer and everyone at The Brunswick for a great morning of fun.
How to Practise Harmonica
It’s noticeable in our weekly school sessions when children have found the time to practise at home and have the support of their grown ups. Confidence levels are high, progress is swift and lessons are fun. Central to this process is parental encouragement, good use of our website, a music diary, a well managed music kit and a specific task or performance to aim at.
Of course some harmonauts tell us they don’t have time to practise, their grown ups won’t let them, or they’ve lost their music. And there was one harmonaut whose dog ate their harmonica – we saw the evidence, complete with bite marks. But practise needn’t be a torture. Here is our take on how to make it a purposeful and enjoyable habit.
Harp Academy Website
Many of our study pieces and exercise have a support page on our website. With help from their grown ups, harmonauts can log in and navigate to the appropriate page. Here they can find click-and-copy buttons to guide them through songs line by line. There is an explanation of what makes the song or music exercise unique, a list of key skills covered and practise tracks. Wider learning items also feature, touching on music theory, general knowledge and performance preparation. Read more
Covid Safe Harmonica
As we resume harmonica teaching in our schools this term, we will inform you by email and school bulletin. For our small groups and club scenarios, we respectfully ask that harmonauts and parents observe the following important safety requirements:
Covid-19 Health Declaration
Please submit a health declaration form prior to your child’s first after-school harmonica club session (after-school harmonica club participants only). General safety guidelines for all our harmonica students and grown-ups are below… Read more
We are the Champions my friends
Well done to Tom Coleman and Callum Shuttlewood, who won their respective categories at this year’s National Harmonica Festival Music Competition in Bristol.
Tom performed Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) by Solomon Linda in the melodic section. Meanwhile, Callum finished the day’s schedule with Avicii’s Wake Me Up. They both showed immense strength of character by delivering two highly entertaining and very musical solo performances.
A big well done also goes to the family members who turned out to support our intrepid harmonauts.
From our testimonial page..
My daughter had a terrible night with a cold and she only went to school due to her harmonica lesson today! She had her first session with Will last week and she is really 
enjoying her introduction to using a harmonica. We have practised her homework for this week, which was Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and logged onto the website to listen to the C Scale notes. I have been practising too; what an enjoyable hobby this is!
After spending all day working on a computer and talking to people, it has been a most relaxing experience – so much so, I’m going to get a harmonica myself. I would encourage people of all ages to give this hobby a try. It’s most enjoyable to hear a tune that you can smile about. I’m trying When The Saints Go 
Marching In! Richard was most helpful in discussing the various payment options and details of my daughter’s taster session. He’s a most accommodating person who certainly has the people skills to manage anyone’s expectations. A superb start to a fascinating musical instrument.