IF YOU have ever wanted to learn the piano or wished you hadn’t ducked out of those lessons, then here’s your chance to get back to the keyboard.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF) has obtained funding to get adults playing the piano.

They will be running a series of workshops for beginners and for lapsed players.

The project is aimed at both adults who have learned a musical instrument in the past but have stopped playing and those who would like to learn but have not had the opportunity.

Its organisers are particularly keen to target those living in areas of social and economic deprivation.

The project offers weekly beginners’ piano workshops and monthly keyboard surgeries for lapsed players.

If you are a beginner, workshops will focus on both piano technique and the creation of original music. At the end of it all is a public performance next March. At the evening keyboard surgeries, Huddersfield University staff will provide teaching tailored to each player. It is hoped that these sessions will be a starting point for budding pianists to form their own informal groups of piano learners.

And still more exciting –or is that scary – is the prospect that learners from both groups will be invited to become some of the 50 pianists who will perform Piano Phasing on 25 massed pianos at HCMF in just a few weeks time.

The festival has received funding for the project from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Transformation Fund.

The creative keyboard workshops are being held each Thursday at the Out Of The Blue Creative space at Hoot, Bates Mill, on Milford Street from 6pm to 8pm. You can join them at any time.

The piano surgeries are at the university’s Creative Arts building once a month on Mondays between 5pm and 8pm. If you want to get involved you have to make a 30 minute appointment.

There is also an online element to the project which will feature a series of learning resources that will not only support people taking part in the workshops and surgeries, but also remote learners wishing to play in the Piano Phasing performance.

The web material will include multimedia demonstrations by both tutors and learners, podcast interviews with composers and pianists, exercises and games, downloadable parts for Piano Phasing and information and links about new music for piano.

These resources will available online from the HCMF website at the start of November.

The final part of the project will be the Keyboard Choreography Collection, a week-long music and dance project for both adults and children, led by local musician and composer Hugh Nankivell and scheduled for next February.

For more information about the project or if you would like to take part in the performance of Piano Phasing, please contact Heidi Johnson on 01484 471116 or email her at h.johnson@hud.ac.uk.