formerly- The National Harmonica League HarmonicaUK Registered Charity (England and Wales) No. 1131484 http://www.harmonica.co.uk - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chairman Ben Hewlett +447973 284366 [email protected] Treasurer Phil Leiwy +447979 648007 [email protected] Membership Secretary David Hambley [email protected] 7 Ingleborough Way, Leyland, Lancs, PR25 4ZS, UK +447757 215047 Editor Dave Taylor +44797 901 1106 [email protected] Chromatic Davina Brazier Education Dick Powell / Eva Hurt Publicity Sam Wilkinson Secretary Dave Taylor Tremolo Simon Joy Health Rollen Flood Archivist Roger Trobridge +44771 2671940 [email protected] President Paul Jones Patrons Lee Sankey, Brendan Power, Adam Glasser US Vice President (vacancy) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Harmonica World is published every two months, and is the magazine for members of HarmonicaUK ( formerly- National Harmonica League ). Any views expressed might not be the o!cial views of HarmonicaUK. All material in this magazine is copyrighted, and may not be reproduced without the prior consent of the Editor. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cover: Apr - May 2020 design by Dave Taylor Welcome to HARMONICA WORLD Magazine... _____________________________________________________________________________-_______________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS - - - APR / MAY 2020 4 HarmonicaUK News - - - 5 From The Chair -Ben Hewlett 6 Publicity –Sam Wilkinson - - - 7 The Editor -Dave Taylor 8 Dave Taylor -Welcome To The Fun Issue …let’s have some Fun! 13 Neil Warren -Chromatic Weekend 20-21 Jun –Preview ...fun! 15 Birmingham Harmonica Festival 9-11 Oct –New Guests ...big fun! 16 Ed Hopwood -A Strategy For Practise ...and Fun! 18 Jim Davies -A Harmonica Goes Back To Germany ...a fun trip! 20 Eva Hurt -50 Years Of Trio Con Brio ..and they had a good time! 25 Ian Boyle -My Harmonica Journey, Part 2 -Bending Notes ...fun?!? 28 Tony Eyers -Their First Harmonica Lesson ...enjoyed it 30 Bill Eborn -Review of Antonio Serrano Gig ...that was fun too! 32 News And Events Listings - - - What’s Goin’ On ...?nd the fun! 36 Reviews by Norman Darwen - - - Will Jacobs + Marcos Coll / Richard Ray Farrell / Liam Ward + Malcolm Thorne / Sir Oliver Mally + Hubert Hoffherr / Tomislav Goluban / Eva Hurt 40 Eva Hurt -Interviewed by Norman Darwen 42 Phil Leiwy -Review of Gecko Harmonica Holder 44 Notice Board/ Musicians/ For Sale/ Wanted/ Teachers/ Repairers 47 ‘The Last Word’ - - - Gerry Ezard -Join A Band! ...and it’s fun! ________________________________________________________________ Would you like to write for us? Please contact the Editor- see page 2. Published 1st Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, and Dec. All material due in to Editor by the 1st of the preceding month, thank you. HarmonicaUK NEWS PAGE HarmonicaUK - is our new name The Charity Commission have now ocially conrmed our change of name. HarmonicaUK Committee News We are busy planning the Chromatic Weekend June 19-21 - please see page 13; and Birmingham UK Harmonica Festival Oct 9-11 – please see page 15. Both of these events will be held at Hillscourt, Rednal, Birmingham B45 8RS. Democracy and HarmonicaUK The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of HarmonicaUK is held at the UK Harmonica Festival (this year in Birmingham, in October). The Committee report back to members, and answer any questions. Members may contact the Secretary (Dave Taylor) in advance, to put any proposals on the AGM Agenda for discussion. The Committee are always glad to hear any other thoughts- please see page 2, for how you can contact us. R.I.P. Ray Rees Dave Hambley writes: “ Norman Wootton telephoned me with the sad news, that his friend Ray Rees, passed away in Dec 2019 aged 92. A long-standing NHL member, Ray was also a judo black belt and instructor. The NHL had a 'Seniors' competition in the 90's and Ray won it several times. He played Chromatic.” Dave Taylor reports, it was nice to get a telephone call From Janet Tyler…. Janet kindly forwarded us a membership request from Malaysia, which came because of a link to her late husband John Tyler. John passed away 25 years ago, but had been instrumental in keeping the NHL going. Thank you John. Congratulations to Reading Harmonica Group A keen group got together for the rst meeting, and they plan to meet every month, at ‘Great Expectations’. Page 28 has Neil’s telephone number, for dates and all details. page 4 FROM THE CHAIR ...Ben Hewlett writes Star Guests announced… The rst three, of our six exciting Star Guests, are conrmed for Birmingham UK Harmonica Festival, 9-11 Oct 2020 ~ The Murphys - a few years ago in Galway, I was thrilled to see an astonishing performance of Traditional Irish Music by Pip and John Murphy. You will be blown away by what the brothers can do with their harmonicas! There are many videos of them playing great music on Youtube. ~ Giles Robson - is extremely highly regarded worldwide - "Blues Giant, absolute master of the form, passion, originality, amazing energy and sweat; above all he plays with feeling from the toes up.” [Alligator Records, Chicago] Read more at http://www.gilesrobson.com/ ~ Beata Kossowska - is a well known Suzuki artist. She is a Harmonica player, singer and composer with many musical projects underway. She also passes on her extensive musical ability to her numerous students in adult education and workshop. Read more at http://www.beata-kossowska.de/ A great opportunity for all of us to meet and hang out with, the nest international harmonica stars at the top of their game. They will be doing workshops and joining sessions, as well as performing in the Saturday night Concert. So I think we are really lucky to capture these guys for a whole weekend – don’t miss it! More news soon- It’s lining up to be the best festival yet! Go well, blow well, Ben. PS- Have you Renewed your Membership yet? Please renew as soon as possible- it means less work for our hard-working Membership Secretary, and above all it helps keep our costs down, so that we can spend more money on lovely activities for you ;-) page 5 Sam Wilkinson is the rst Committee member to have the specic role of Co-ordinating all Publicity for HarmonicaUK... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FROM PUBLICITY ...Sam Wilkinson writes What have Judas Priest, Ke$ha and classical concertos got in common? Well… I’ll reveal all later… Firstly, I’d like to introduce myself as HarmonicaUK’s new Committee Member for Publicity. I have overall responsibility for how HarmonicaUK communicates with members and the outside world. We need consistency across all our communications including the website and social media. Many of you have noticed the new website, which I developed over the last six months (mainly thanks to time o* work due to a planned operation). Starting from scratch I concentrated on stripping the content right back to give a simple and uncluttered vibe. This will always be a work in progress and further developments will be happening in the future. Membership, ticketing and the giglist will still be hosted on the old website for the foreseeable future. HarmonicaUK has been active on Facebook and Twitter for a good while but hasn’t done much with Instagram. An account was set up by Sam Spranger, who did a great job getting out of the starting blocks but was unable to continue. I picked up the reins, and I’m pleased with how things have gone. From mid-January, I posted at least daily. The main subject, is wishing famous harmonica players Happy Birthday. Usually I provide little snippets of information that aren’t so well known. I post about songs that feature harmonica, and something about the artist or harmonica player. Our IG Followers have trebled, to over 500, with many positive comments. Our username is @HarmonicaUK_ And therein lies the answer to my opening question… you guessed it… all of these have been included in my Instagram posts! The Instagram account is linked to the Twitter account, so the same posts will be posted there too. In addition, the six latest Instagram posts are shown on the new website homepage. Nifty, eh? Feedback and ideas always welcome – please email me at [email protected] page 6 The Award Winning Music Shop The UK’s Largest Harmonica Specialist Eagle Music Shop are proud to carry the largest stock WORLD in the UK for SEYDEL , HOHNER & SUZUKI CLASS HARMONICAS Harmonicas Banjos Ukuleles ...plus much much more in our Guitars Melodeons shop and our huge website Books Mandolins Worldwide #1 Deering Banjo Dealer Tanglewo od #1 Independ ent Dealership Accessories for all Martin Guitars Heritage Cent re Free Premier Instrument Set up Thousands of 5 Star Reviews Starter Packs for many Instruments BANJOS USA View our full range of instruments & accessories at www .eaglemusicshop.com Visit our shop at Armitage Bridge, Huddersfield Open 9:30am to 5pm Mon to F ri, 10am to 4pm Sat Call 01484 661460 FROM THE EDITOR ...Dave Taylor writes PLEASE- I NEED ANOTHER EDITOR ... yes, I need another / extra / Associate / Assistant Editor … -We could be an equal Editorial Collective -a team of two, or more. -Or I can take the responsibility as main Editor, with you helping. -Or I can be YOUR assistant, and YOU take the lead as Editor yourself. There is too much work for one person to do. And I do not have enough time, to get all that work done- let alone, to be able to develop all the great new extra ideas that could improve your magazine even more. So, what does the Editorial Team do? Generate 40+ pages of fresh new material each issue, with articles that try to cover every type of harmonica music, balanced to make varied and interesting reading. Each article needs to be discussed with authors, and very often rewritten until it is ready.