London, United Kingdom – Digital Giving, innovators in cause related entertainment have launched a free music app, called Hum This! – a fun interactive game of musical charades, that challenges players to hum and guess tunes from thousands of well-known favourites, quite literally humming to transform children’s lives.
Supported by official partners HMV, O2 and Ticketmaster, Hum This! will be actively promoted across their networks. A percentage of the profits will go towards supporting two chosen charities, Nordoff Robbins, which uses music therapy to transform lives, and War Child, which helps children in some of the world’s most dangerous countries.
Players can download the app for free to receive their “virtual notes” and play. The next step is to find team mates, invite friends or random users by email or Facebook, and then choose a song or theme to hum from the thousands of categories and musical genres available, including Rock and Pop, Girl Power and Grunge, even Metal and Motown.
With a truly user-friendly interface, players have ten seconds to record their hum which is then sent to their team mate to name the tune. Players can Hum This whilst out shopping or standing in a queue, whilst waiting for a bus or even whilst hiking to the top of Ben Nevis! With each hum using smart in-app technology, hums can be shared with the rest of the world.
The app gives players the chance to win virtual notes and to win monthly prizes by creating the longest succession of correctly guessed hums in a “Hum Run.” Virtual notes are also available to buy in the ‘note store’ and players with the longest hum runs are listed in a real-time leader board.
Grant Morgan, Co-Founder of Digital Giving Ltd says: “We are delighted to be working on this ground-breaking project with Nordoff Robbins, War Child and the biggest names in music, media and entertainment. Using our knowledge and expertise of the very latest technology, we believe that we can engage the world to play and fundraise, while elevating Cause-Related Entertainment to a new level.”
Jo Carter, Director of Fundraising & Communications for Nordoff Robbins says: “Hum This! is a fun, free, brilliant app that uses music to engage people in a social way. We are delighted to be one of the two charities that will be supported through this innovative game. All funds raised will help us to continue to transform children’s lives through our Nordoff Robbins music therapy work.”
Ben Knowles, Director of Fundraising, War Child says: “From our inception, War Child has always pioneered using the power of music in innovative ways to raise funds for our vital work. We’re proud to partner Hum This! as it offers a fun new way for people to support charities. We’re excited that it’s a way of engaging a whole new audience that traditional charity communications may not reach and we hope as many people as possible download and enjoy the game.”
James Flett, HMV Partnerships Manager, adds: “We’re excited to be partnering with Digital Giving to support Hum This! It’s such an innovative mobile app, which I’m sure people will have great fun with, but at the same time we hope it has the more serious purpose of supporting the wonderful work of both Nordoff Robbins and War Child.”
Shadi Halliwell, Head of Brand at O2 says: “We love bringing exclusive music experiences to our customers and with Hum This! they’ll be experiencing music in a whole new and fun way. We’re proud to have worked with War Child and Nordoff Robbins for many years and hope their Hum This! game helps their great work continue well on into the future.”
Chris Edmonds, MD for Ticketmaster says: “The incredible work Nordoff Robbins does changes the lives of children and adults across the UK through music and we are extremely proud to be supporting them and their fantastic new free Hum This! app. The app says so much about Nordoff Robbins, it uses music to engage with people in a fun and innovative way whilst raising funds to support the amazing charitable work they do.”
Notes to editors – Nordoff Robbins:
* Nordoff Robbins is national specialist music charity, delivering music therapy to a broad range of people in a broad range of places including schools, hospitals, care homes, and prisons across the UK
* We help people who are limited or isolated by their condition including those suffering from autism, dementia, mental health problems including depression, brain injury including a stroke, learning difficulties and learning disabilities, and in some cases our clients have a life-threatening or terminal illness, such as cancer. All of these people have one uniting factor – music dramatically improves their quality of life.
* Nordoff Robbins has 60 therapists providing music therapy services to 100 organisations across the UK, amounting to over 50,000 music therapy sessions every year which are delivered in a variety of settings
* Music therapy is a specialist use of music to help people. Music therapists are trained professionals. They are skilled in using music to help all kinds of people, in all kinds of places. Music therapists believe that everyone responds to music, and everyone has a right to be listened to and have music helping them in their lives
* Music therapy helps people in many different ways. For some it has physical benefits, for others emotional or social ones. It helps people feel more motivated, social and self-confident. It gives people hope when times are more challenging
* Nordoff Robbins also provides other music services which open up our services to larger groups who do not require such intense specialist work, but all of whom can benefit greatly from the power of music, for example, we run groups for people with respiratory problems, to help with their breathing and after school singing clubs for children with autism. Through these broader programmes, we also offer training to other professionals and carers in how they can best use music to help the people they care for and support
* No other organisation uses music to reach so many people, in so many contexts, with such consistently high levels of expertise
* Our new Master of Music Therapy: Music Health, Society is a leading training programme for music therapy in the UK. We’ve been training students since 1974 and are considered an authority in the area
* Our research programme draws from our current work to demonstrate the effectiveness of music therapy. Our thriving department ensures we are always striving to achieve best practice
* We receive no statutory funding. Our annual income is just under 3 million
* Even 25.00 raised pays for half an hour of music therapy for a young child in hospital suffering from terminal cancer, which utterly transforms their day
* Support from the likes of Annie Lennox, Lisa Minnelli, Bono, Paul McCartney, Muse, Bill Wyman, Bill Nighy, Robbie Williams, Rupert Everett and many more means that Nordoff Robbins can continue to build awareness of its services and to transform lives.
Notes to Editors – War Child:
* War Child is an international charity, founded in 1993 in response to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
* A UN award winning charity, War Child works in the world’s most dangerous war zones including Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
* War Child aims to protect children who are hit hardest by war and its consequences including street children, child soldiers and children in prison.
* War Child is a UK registered charity number 1071659.
Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
* Requires iOS 4.0 or later
* Universal app optimized for display on all iOS devices
* 18.8 MB
Pricing and Availability:
Hum This! 0.2 is free and available worldwide through the App Store in the Games category. The Hum This! free app comes with 50 virtual notes with a paid-for app available for the more committed hummers which comes with 1,600 virtual notes. Additional notes can be purchased in-app via the ‘Hum This!’ note store. The app is also available on Google Play.
Digital Giving Ltd
Nordoff Robbins
War Child
Hum This! 0.2
Download from iTunes
Download from Google Play
Digital Giving Ltd is a joint venture partnership between Grant Morgan and Jamie Goldblatt. Goldblatt, a digital media innovator and market-leader in his field, creating mobile content and campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands and agencies, is now working in partnership with Louis Kennedy, Europe’s foremost Cause-Related Marketing agency (over 130 million raised for charities), to originate and deliver global fundraising and mass awareness concepts centred around creative and engaging Cause-Related digital content. Copyright (C) 2012 Digital Giving Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.