7 minute read
Newsdesk
Barry Elms Editor
Editor’s welcome
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Welcome to the Winter 2021/2022 Issue of Harmonica World. Big change continues to happen within HarmonicaUK, in an effort to be more sustainable as an organisation and to move forward, reaching out and promoting the harmonica to a new generation of musicians. You will already have received your first HarmonicaUK Newsletter. These will be arriving in your inbox monthly, keeping you up to date with the latest HarmonicaUK news and events, and news from the wider harmonica community. This is complemented by regular Newsdesk items on our shiny new website, www.harmonica.uk – more on the other benefits of the new website later. With the increase in communications from us via the new newsletter, and to take the pressure off the dedicated volunteers on our editorial team, we are trialling producing the print magazine quarterly, rather than bi-monthly – so rather than just six print magazines, you will be receiving 12 newsletters, four print magazines, and access to the newsdesk page (www.harmonica. uk/pages/Newsdesk) which is updated weekly. We believe this will enable us to reach you with current news more quickly (from six up to 16 major communications from us each year), will be more sustainable for us as an organisation in the long term, and better for the environment, so a win all around. We will, of course, still be making the print magazine available in accessible and digital ISSUU versions (https://issuu.com/HarmonicaUK). Finally, after 14 months and seven fantastic issues as editor of
Harmonica World magazine, I am moving on from the hot-seat of magazine editor. At the October AGM I was voted in as Head of Communications and Vice-Chair of HarmonicaUK, so, moving forward, I will have responsibility for all communications from
HarmonicaUK, including the magazine, website, social media and newsletters.
I’d like to welcome Dave ‘Dogfish’ Colclough as the new magazine editor, starting with the Spring 2022 issue, due on your doorsteps in March. We’ve been working on the editorial team together for much of the last year, and I know Dave will do a great job in continuing to put together a fantastic magazine for all of our members; he already has plans for feature articles and more for the next couple of issues. Good luck Dave! I’d like to thank the whole of the editorial team and contributors for supporting me in creating together a world-class harmonica magazine each and every issue, and I look forward to seeing more of the latest harmonica news making its way to all of you via magazine, newsletter, website and social media in 2022, and into the future.
New online membership system and your membership renewal
HarmonicaUK relies on many hours of time put in by volunteers each month so we can produce magazines and newsletters, keep the web site current, and organise festivals, Saturday Sessions, coffee mornings and other events. We have introduced a new membership system so our volunteers can use their time working on benefits for our members, rather than administration tasks. We would therefore really appreciate as many UK members as possible moving to paying by Direct Debit, as then payments will automatically update our membership system, saving our volunteers hours each week. It’s very easy to get started and set up on our new system, including setting up a direct debit and accessing online member benefits of the system. Our preferred method of communication is email, as it’s better for the environment, and as a charity it costs us less also. If you have a current email address, please email us at memsec@harmonica. uk including your name and address, and we will make sure our system is up to date. Once we have your email address in our system, you will also be able to access the benefits of the membership area of our website. For an overview of the features and benefits our new website and membership system, please see the video at: https://www. harmonica.uk/welcome To access all these new member benefits, please: • Send us your email address to memsec@harmonica.uk – we will confirm receipt • After confirmation, go to https://harmonica.uk • Click ‘Create Account’ in the top right • Fill in your name, email address and a secure password • Check the ‘I’m not a robot’ box • Click register. Our preferred payment method for membership subscriptions is by Direct Debit, which you can cancel at any time. It really helps us if you set up a Direct Debit and cancel or discontinue your existing payment method as follows: • In ‘My Account’, which you have just set up, click ‘Membership’ • Click the ‘Set up a Direct Debit’ button • Fill in the first form with your details and click ‘Set up a Direct
Debit’ • Enter your bank details on the second form • Click confirm on the third screen • You will be sent an email confirming your direct debit.
If you are setting up a Direct Debit and normally pay by standing order, please contact your bank and cancel your standing order. If you pay by recurring PayPal, you can either ask us to cancel it for you, or refer to the information leaflet sent out with the October/ November issue of Harmonica World for how to do it yourself. If you would prefer to continue with your current payment method, you may continue to renew using that method, but still let us have a valid email address if you have one so you can access the member benefits on our website and receive monthly newsletters. Once you have activated your online membership, you will then have access to our website members’ section, where you will find the members’ forum, members’ directory and teachers’ directory. In addition, we plan for all our events to be bookable via the website, and we have more member benefits planned – watch this space!
Recording with the BBC Concert Orchestra Adam Glasser
In October 2021, three of us pro-members of HarmonicaUK,
Phil Hopkins, Philip Achille and myself, recorded with the BBC
Concert Orchestra for a forthcoming album of Fox Musical show tunes. First we rehearsed – along with four flautists playing ocarinas! – at the BBC’s legendary Maida Vale Studios.
A few days later, we travelled to Watford, where the recording took place at the Watford Colosseum with the full orchestra. It was a challenging but extremely enjoyable experience, and a rare treat for three chromatic players to hang out together and talk of course about ... the harmonica! Watch this space for more details of the album and a possible BBC Radio 3 broadcast in 2022.
Volunteers needed
HarmonicaUK is run entirely by volunteers, by our members, for our members. If you have any of the following skills, or others, and would be prepared to offer as little as an hour a month, or maybe more, please get in touch with chair@harmonica.uk • Social media – Do you love social media? Facebook, Instagram and others? We need some help keeping our social media accounts up to date. • Photography – Our busy, vibrant communications team needs help sourcing and managing images and photos. You could even be taking photos at events, or working with Photoshop, preparing images for print, web and social media.
• Events management – Would you like to help out organising or working behind the scenes at virtual and/or physical events such as festivals? If so, please get in touch!
HarmonicaUK October Festival
HarmonicaUK’s 2021 October Virtual Online Festival was a great success this year – all of us volunteering to run the festival enjoyed it enormously, and the feedback from everyone attending has all been very positive. We had some great artists presenting a wide variety of workshops. If you missed some or all of the festival, many of the workshops have now been edited by our patron and archivist Roger Trobridge, and are now available for your viewing pleasure on our YouTube channel, where you will find individual videos, and a festival playlist: www.youtube.com/HarmonicaUK
Festival workshops:
Adam Gussow gave a workshop about comping, the art of playing behind other musicians and singers. Will Wilde gave a high energy rock harmonica performance of the songs from his CD with his new band Bad Luck Friday. Robert Legault performed a foot-tapping set of traditional music from Quebec and talked about playing tremolo harmonica. Antonio Serrano used ‘Toots Blues’ to illustrate Toots’ approach to playing blues on the chromatic harmonica. Phillip Henry discussed country blues, beatbox and beyond, and he illustrated his approach, which blends acoustic beatbox and fox chase and train techniques with modern rhythms. Roni Eytan demonstrated his approach to Middle Eastern and North African music on the chromatic harmonica, covering rhythms and microtonal aspects. Howard Levy took everyone with him on his personal musical journey from the 1970s up to the present time, illustrating it with musical examples drawn from blues, Bach, Chick Corea, jazz, The Flecktones, Balkan rhythms and his own classical compositions. Santiago Alvarez discussed Argentine tango and dance rhythms. Thanks again to all who helped organise the festival, to all our fantastic artists, and to everyone who came to watch and take part!
