About Ben Hewlett

Ben Hewlett became a musician at the age of ten in 1969 learning the trumpet. He went through the school system of exams and performances, finally escaping the mandatory classical repertoire with the discovery of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. He was a minor third addict at fourteen and still has a passion for jazz and blues. Godfather Dennis Corble gave Ben a harmonica at the age of 7 thus unknowingly sowing the seeds of a lifelong love of this instrument!

Since then he has taught and performed with his harmonica on all 5 continents! (OK, not Antarctica, but let’s be honest, noboby has. Plus there’s only pengins there anyway and it’s hard to get a harmonica in a beak!)

At twenty eight a decade of ‘not much music’ was ended when, after endless screenings of the Blues Brothers film, Ben bought his first harmonica (in the key of E following the music stores’ advice as the best key for Blues) and he resumed work on minor thirds as well as doing extensive research into the origins of the songs recorded by the Blues Brothers Band. He found that he could easily do on the harmonica all the things he had been unsuccessfully trying to do on the trumpet.

He came across some solo Sonny Terry recordings, was listening to lots of recorded blues, and going to see blues bands. One of the first was Paul Lamb’s band, which had a Tuesday night residency at a London Pub near where Ben lived, and after a while he asked Paul Lamb for a lesson or two. Paul’s main advice was to study Sonny Terry to get the rhythm, chugging and tone sorted out –years later he still studies Sonny Terry.

The next significant player Ben met was Brendan Power. This happened through the UK’s National Harmonica League and resulted in him having lessons with Brendan. Ben was now in a blues band (within a year of starting harmonica) doing pub gigs around London, and did so for the next ten years until he left London for the West Country – home. Brendan asked Ben to babysit his harmonica evening class for a night and then for a term and then on a permanent basis, so soon he was teaching five classes a week and had to go to college to learn how to teach music in group workshops.

Two years later he was a qualified Music Workshop Leader and working full time teaching music in different settings – such as with disabled people using music technology; working at day centres for adults with learning difficulties; the harmonica workshops; harmonica lessons in schools; and giving private lessons at home. He met Paul Lennon at one of the colleges where Paul was teaching ‘ear training’ and ‘jazz harmony’.

Since leaving London Ben has gone into full time harmonica teaching. In 2002 he successfully completed the teaching qualification ‘Certificate of Teaching, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music’ (CTABRSM).

In 2006 he had thirty two schools a week to visit with five hundred students – becoming by default the only full-time professional harmonica teacher in the UK.  His teaching business (HarpsCool) had (in 2006) nine harmonica teachers to spread the harmonica word. He has also run a Blues Band workshop for ten years to provide a setting for new harp players to gain band experience, also harmonica night school classes, Saturday ‘learn to play in a day’ courses all over the west of England, and continues to teach many private students.

Fun creations 2000-2003:

Recent study and Harmonica high spots:

The whole ‘CHUGGING’ idea was born and developed as the very best way to get people started on harmonica. Ben based it on Sonny Terry’s way of playing rhythms and his articulations.

It resulted from years of experimentation with different methods of introducing people to playing – many thousands of people in fact. It has proven to be extremely popular and a very successful foundation for playing harmonica as it builds rhythm and breathing skills quickly and painlessly. Only one person didn’t like it and that was Larry Adler!

After the idea of creating a backing track for people to play along with, Ben got together with Paul Lennon and came up with the ideas that have led to a fruitful and exciting partnership.

Paul has amazing musical skills – he is able to play guitar, violin, bass, piano, keyboards and therefore anything through keyboards on the computer - all up to session and concert standard. He has been a professional teacher of all those instruments and more for over twenty years in the world of classical, jazz, blues, and most other styles of music. He is also a composer who owns a very well-equipped recording studio in Kent, UK.

With Paul’s talents and Ben’s drive and passion for teaching the harmonica, they have broken new ground and come up with an excellent method for learning the diatonic harmonica in a progressive way.

In 2003 Bristol University asked Ben to put on a ‘corporate’ team building session in a staff development week. It worked extremely well.

From this was born ‘Blues Jam Factory’. It is now a successful corporate team-building and training operation with a growing client base including DHL, Exel, Lloyds TSB, Sanofi Aventis, University of Singapore, TBL, The Hemsley Fraser Group, Instant Teamwork, Axa, Spice UK and many more in the pipeline including Shell, KPMG, Novartis, Ovum and Centrex. This typically one-hour event is available in all English speaking countries including North America. Contact Ben for a promotional DVD (or watch one at www.BluesJamFactory.com to see how much this amazing program will energize YOUR company/group/social set.

Back to About Us