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In harmony with harmonica

Blues magic
Last Updated 05 August 2015, 18:35 IST

As a harmonica player, Vasudev Prabhu is well-known in India’s blues scene. Ever since he took to music as a hobby 15 years ago, he has played in numerous bands including the electric ‘Barracuda Blues’ and ‘B2Blues’. He blends both traditional blues standards and modern tunes into a sound that is famous among blues afficionados in the City.

On top of his musical endeavours, Vasudev enjoyed a successful, 22-year-old corporate career in the advertising and creative sectors. Just a year ago, he was a creative director at Hewlett-Packard, when a request from his supervisor turned him to a new endeavour that combined his musical exercise with his corporate experience.

His supervisor asked him to think of some good employee engagement programmes. Vasudev was familiar with traditional team-building exercises. However, he thought that his team needed more than a fun activity. The wheels began to turn in his head as he imagined unique sessions that brought the music he loved to the corporate world. “Music is always something that brings people together. I wondered, how  could I use the power of music to impact the corporate sector,” Vasudev explains.

 touch with your creativity, and have fun,” he says. He settled on workshops where he taught participants to play the harmonica and then engaged in various team-building exercises. When a trial session was a success, Vasudev decided to take the next step: in 2014, he left the company to start ‘Harmonica Huddle’. Along the way, he realised the workshops needed refining. One challenge he faced was that roughly 95 per cent of the participants had no musical training, and he wanted to teach them to play an instrument that he has honed over the last 15 years. “I had to simplify it into the most basic parts so that even non-musical people could learn. The goal is not to make them musicians, but teach them to learn quickly,” he says.

Vasudev also spent months studying famous teams across all sectors. From his research, he distilled several core values. To effectively transmit these values, ‘Harmonica Huddle’ workshops are tailored to the profiles of individual companies.

“A lot of people think they are not creative and they doubt their own abilities. But here, they learn to throw their limitations out the window,” he laughs. That often involves participants indulging in child-like fun while simultaneously bonding over their shared learning experience.

Vasudev splits a group into teams and gives them a musical challenge. For example, their challenge might be to pitch an advertising song. Teams must then delegate responsibilities, brainstorm, and innovate to discover a solution with limited time; a similar process occurs in the workplace. As he points out, the process is much more fun when the harmonica is involved.

“It’s important to engage your head, hands, and heart in one thing.” He ensures that every participant is included in the final solution. To more effectively communicate team-building values, Vasudev designed thematic modules, which are sets of activities and values built around core themes.

Since he runs ‘Harmonica Huddle’ as a one man show, Vasudev is kept busy planning, teaching, and performing. “But I’m doing what I love, and so I’m
happy.”

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(Published 05 August 2015, 16:07 IST)

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