The Life and Times of Ben Hewlett

Thinking about doing this interview, I thought maybe I should approach this as if I might hire this guy? So, Ben, I wrote down lots of questions here, let’s start with the last one first.

What started you with music?

I guess I was always interested. For some reason, singing in the school choir. I even remember doing a singing solo in a school musical when I was probably eight or nine - I still have a recording of it. It's fantastic.

So you got bit by the bug?

I thought everybody did it. I thought it was normal. So I was in THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BEN the choir. My parents went to church; I didn’t particularly go along with that stuff, but I had singing and it was good. And then at school, at 10, the head teacher said, “We've got a new boy coming to join the school and he's a trumpet player, so we've HEWLETT engaged a trumpet teacher. Would anybody else like to join?” And my hand went up. I don't know why. Vice President of Harmonica UK That's how I got started. How many years were you trumpet playing? I've still got one over here. I don't play it so much these days. I just Creator and owner had a half-hour lesson once a week and that was it, with two boys of the Harmonica in a class and one teacher. That pretty much defines my trumpet Mastery 90-Day thing. Just half an hour once a week.

Coaching and What kind of harmonica was your first?

Mentoring Program A tremolo. My grandfather used to do a little jig, McNamara's dance. Actually, it's a reel, but he thought it was a jig. So, I figured By Jerry (“Gizmo”) out that if I was breathing out a bit, I could play “My name is Guy McNamara I'm the leader of the……” then I'd have to breathe in to make it work, “......band”. I figured out from age seven that the breathing-in and the breathing-out was like a question and an answer. So, to me, that was obvious - simple and easy with no brains required!

So you didn't see a big challenge in what was going on… a natural?

100% natural! Whereas the trumpet was not. It was really hard. It still is. So I struggled with the trumpet; played, and did my grade exams up to Grade 5. I was learning Haydn's E Flat trumpet concerto, reading the music, which I found very difficult. I didn't really get much help and support from the system, which is why I now like to find the best possible way for people to learn, which is ‘blended learning’. Because that's what I didn't get; I'm now redressing the balance. So now, having training on books and videos and reporting students’ progress back to

some peer groups, and then having one-to-one sessions online, made for blended learning and I can't think of a better way of learning than that.

So ‘blended learning’ kind of defines your Harmonica 90Day Mastery Program?

Yes, it does. I was told by a university lecturer that what I've produced is called ‘blended learning’. I had no idea, I just put it together.

When did your music become a job? Was there a turning point or did this just sneak up on you?

No, there was a precise turning point. I started learning harmonica and enjoying it, and I was having lessons with a guy called Brendan Power in London, in 1990 or thereabouts. He had set up a series of evening classes, I think it may have been five classes. He had to be away for one week, and said, would I take the class on a Wednesday? And I said, “No, you have to be crazy”, and he said, “Just come and watch”. So I did and during the class, he said, “This is Ben, he's taking next week's class”, in a good-natured way, and he said, “As a matter of fact, we're going to split into two groups now. You lot with me, you lot with Ben. Let's go”. So he was a very pragmatic man and he didn’t take prisoners. He pushed me into that and I found to my surprise that, even at that very early stage, I could answer their questions quite well. So a bit later Brendan went on tour with Riverdance for, I don't know, a couple of years; perhaps three years. So he said, “ You’d better take over all my evening classes. I'm done with that stuff now”, so I took over five one-hour classes.

Thus, Ben's Harmonica Teaching/Touring Journey was launched.

Dear reader, I hope you have enjoyed this brief conversation with myself and Ben. The previous words only lead us up to Ben's early entry into the world of harmonica playing and teaching. To dig deeper, the full interview is available by following the link below. You'll learn more about his journey and get information on his latest project: Harmonica Mastery 90 Day Coaching and Mentoring Program, which explores and harnesses the blended teaching approach that was touched on briefly here.

Link to full Interview: https://youtu.be/MFFq3yqn5JE Link to Ben's Harmonica Learning offerings: https://harmonicamastery.com