WHEN it comes to music, I’m more of a listener than a performer. Some have said I play a pretty mean air guitar and my singing in the shower, I reckon, could give some of the contestants on the X Factor a run for their money.

However, since our family acquired a piano more than a year ago, I have given it a wide berth.

That changed last month after I heard about a new scheme taking place at Slack Space, in Colchester, encouraging people to play the piano.

Entitled Piano Fridays, the Queen Street arts venue wheels out an old George Howarth piano every Friday so people, whatever their musical skill, can play.

The idea came from Ki Siner-Cheverst, 15, from Colchester, who regularly performs at Slack Space and thought it would be a good way of getting more people in.

He says: “Because it’s so large, I thought it would be good for Slack Space to have a full-time piano for events and clubs, but also so people could use it for practice.

“Piano Fridays was a bit of an offshoot of that – to make the piano available to everyone on a certain day, whether they want to use it for practice or just to play something in their lunch hour.”

Ki’s mother, Abigail Cheverst, is one of the organisers of Slack Space.

She says: “It was the success of our folk club and the introduction of a new jazz session, called Slack Jazz, which led us to acquiring the piano. There are about four or five young people involved in Slack Jazz and hopefully this will encourage more young people to take part.”

There were far too many young people for my liking when I went along to try out the basic piano piece my wife had been trying to teach me for the past few weeks.

Sitting down, I clicked my fingers (I had seen Jamie Cullum do this once and thought it looked cool) and began the first few bars of Hallelujah, written by Leonard Cohen, but later covered by Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright and, recently, Alexandra Burke.

After some painful stretching of fingers for the first chord, I quickly raced through the first few notes with my right index finger, only making two mistakes.

But while I was pleased with my modest effort, the young crowd looked less than impressed.

Within seconds of getting up from my seat, Oliver Clarke, 16, from Colchester, nipped in and blew us all away with a jazzed-up, improvised version of the Muse track, Undisclosed Desires.

Afterwards I congratulated him on his piece and asked him what he thought of Piano Fridays.

He says: “I think it’s a great idea, especially for people who don’t have a piano. I’m really lucky because I have one at home, but it’s also good for trying things out in front of people.”

As if to demonstrate, he and Ki, who had never met before, sat down together and jammed out a brilliant, improvised jazz piece.

Like Oliver, fellow performers William Hobson and Louie Bell, both 11, also from Colchester, were discovering Piano Fridays for the first time.

William, who played a super cool version of Coldplay’s the Scientist, said: “There was a similar thing in London last year when they left pianos all over the city for people to play.

“There was one at Liverpool Street station, which was packed, but I managed to get on the one outside the Royal Exchange.

“I think it’s great that Colchester has got its own project like that and I would imagine lots of people would like to get involved.”

Louie, who played a more than respectable Simpsons theme tune, adds: “I like it in here. It has a relaxed atmosphere, which means there’s no pressure.”

Slack Space has requested donations for music books and money to get the piano tuned. To help, e-mail colchesterslackers@gmail.com