A pioneering new service has been launched to provide professional online lessons and fun music challenges for children in North Wales to ensure they don’t miss out because of the coronavirus restrictions.

The platform, totally-music.com, has been created in record time by the North Wales Music Co-operative whose peripatetic teachers would normally tour the region providing singing and instrumental lessons to individuals and groups of pupils in different schools.

From a standing start once the lockdown was imposed, it took just eight weeks to set up the online service with backing from the Welsh Government, Denbighshire and Wrexham county councils.

The hope is that schools and parents will get firmly behind totally-music.com and encourage pupils of all ages and skills levels to sign up.

Professional guitarist Wyn Pearson, the artistic lead of the new website who is also one of the tutors, said: “Totally Music is a brand new resource for teachers and parents and guardians aimed at ensuring the wellbeing of children of all ages.

“It’s a fun-filled website packed with video tutorials to promote the musical development of our youngsters.

“A project like this would normally have taken several months to complete, if not longer. But we have managed to get it up and running within weeks which is a real achievement.

“We’re all extremely proud of the service and the opportunities it offers to children who may not otherwise have access to music lessons. The aim is to provide access to high quality music resources, with a focus on fun.”

According to Rachel Piggott, the mother of one gifted young singer from Denbighshire, the service was a Godsend, preventing her son Henry, nine, from falling seriously behind in his music studies.

Rachel said: “It’s so beneficial. If it were not for this there was a real danger that Henry could have fallen back a grade on his singing. That would have been a desperate shame as he works very hard and puts so much energy into his music.

“The lessons follow the same principles that they would do in school but the only difference is Henry is here singing at home. It’s quite nice as we can all hear the latest songs he’s learning.”

Henry, a pupil of Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch said: “It’s just like having my teacher come into our home only it’s via the screen.

“I can talk to her live, go through exercises and she tells me how I’m doing and what to practice between lessons. It’s really helpful and enjoyable too.”

“What’s really good is that it helps me focus and it slows my brain down. It helps me relax and stops me worrying so much about the coronavirus crisis and all the news headlines.”

Heather Powell, the head of service in Denbighshire and Wrexham, said plans were already underway to launch an online platform when the Coronavirus epidemic struck and that made the need for it all the more urgent.

She said: “We really had to act quickly to get things moving and make the service widely available to ensure the wellbeing of children of all ages.

“As well as lessons we put together a fun-filled package of online music challenges and games for children.

“For instance, we have a beat-box challenge with well-known Welsh Beatboxer Mr Ed Holden aka Mr Phormula. In this challenge we teach the children the basics of beatboxing and how the sounds are made.

“Children need no equipment to be able to do many of our sessions thus making it very accessible when in lockdown and at home’’

“We are adding more content to it all the time and every Monday we will send out the programme timetable to schools so they can send details out to kids learning at home or use as a quality resource in class.

“It is bilingual, too, so children can have lessons and enjoy music related activities in either English or Welsh.”

Heather added: “This is a service which we hope will continue to be widely used long after the lockdown is eased and social distancing measures are hopefully reduced.

“We see it as a valuable addition to our existing services, making music lessons more easily accessible to children of all ages. Learning to play an instrument out of school in the less pressured environment of their home is something children truly enjoy.”

The chairman of Denbighshire Music Co-operative, Councillor Mark Young, said he was hugely impressed with the quality of the service and the speed with which it built from a purely ideas stage into reality.

He said: “I witnessed one session where a teacher even taught a pupil how to restring their guitar online. This is an online generation and through initiatives like these children – and adults – have the potential to learn new and exciting skills no matter where they are based.

“Music is a vital part of all our lives, it has the potential to change our mood, and bring communities together like no other medium, which is why I feel privileged to be a part of something so tremendous. A lot of hard work, time, effort and resources have gone into creating this online service which I wholeheartedly commend.

“I call on everyone, schools, families and individuals to support it and keep Wales’s long famed love story with music at the heart of our communities.”

To find out more about the online service or to book lessons go to www.totally-music.com