Teenager hitting the right notes

WE’VE all explored different ways of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Harvey Jenkyn-Taylor, learning piano provided solace during periods of home learning in primary school. Two years later and now 15-years-old, he’s not giving up any time soon.

“In 2020 I was just playing around, and I originally started playing on the iPad because I was interested, then I moved on to playing with the computer keyboard,” he said.

“Then I thought, because I can see the keys on the screen, what if I transferred it onto an actual keyboard.”

Then, Harvey started playing on the family’s keyboard, which belonged to his late grandmother.

“I turned it on and surprisingly it still had batteries, and I started to try learn Bohemian Rhapsody,” he said.

Harvey credits the Freddie Mercury biopic with providing inspiration to learn the instrument, and he now has a whole selection of Queen songs in his personal song bank.

With no prior piano experience, the young performer used online video tutorials to teach himself chords and can now pick up progressions and melodies without ever having learned to read sheet music.

“I search up songs and read the chords,” he said. “I still can’t read sheet music, but I can just read the name of the chords and I know how to play them.”

He said his teachers at both Golden Square Primary School and Crusoe College helped guide his talent and encouraged him to seize any opportunities to play.

“I did a massive performance in front of the whole school, over 900 people including staff,” he said.

“I was very nervous… I went up and did a medley of Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen and Bicycle Race. They all enjoyed it and applauded, there were even people screaming.”

Since he was younger, Harvey has had a passion for entertaining people. Having realised his love of music, he said he’s found the perfect creative outlet.

“It makes me feel very happy about myself,” he said. “I’ve always been the type of person who wants to try do something to help out and make people feel happy.

“Connecting with music, I started feeling like that’s a way I can make people happy. Looking at everyone’s faces after performing at school, they were so happy, and it looked like they wanted more.”