Donate Your Musical Instruments To Help Disabled Musicians!

A teenager with Williams Syndrome, a rare genetic condition, has called on people around the UK to donate any unwanted musical instruments they might have at home to help encourage more disabled people to take up music lessons.

According to the Norwich Evening News, 16-year-old Charlie Pinner first got involved with charity Electric Guitar last year during lockdown and is now helping support its appeal to collect 1,000 instruments by Christmas.

Electric Umbrella itself collects and adapts secondhand instruments to help make them more accessible for people with disabilities. It was set up five years ago and also puts on concerts, festivals and other events, as well interactive online musical sessions for members to participate in and enjoy.

Charlie, who hails from Hellesdon, had this to say: “Electric Umbrella has encouraged me to sing, dance and make my own music with lots of different instruments. It has meant that I can have conversations and make friends with all sorts of people from all over the world.”

Co-founder of Electric Umbrella Tom Billington made further comments, saying that the aim is to encourage people to think differently about disabled people by empowering them to take centre stage and display their talents.

He said: “By donating your unwanted and unloved musical instruments, you can be part of a movement to change people’s perceptions and make the world a more inclusive place.”

The charity is also putting together a collection of professional musicians to play in the Electric Umbrella house bands, making the members look and sound like the rock stars that they are.

The repertoire includes a lot of standard function music, but there are also two albums of original material that’s used a lot at gigs. The newest album is called Sunflower Avenue and is available on iTunes, as well as on CD!

 

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