iChamps at The MuSoc Takeover

Music now has two new iChamps, Harry Matthews and Anna Kent-Muller, who are helping to spread new digital skills in the department.  Harry went to last week’s jazz and pop gig at Talking Heads to get started on the work:

Last Thursday MuSoc (the student music society) ran a night of live music performed by Southampton music students. The night’s music ranged from acoustic acts and jazz trios to funk/rock bands with large brass sections. A large audience (including lecturers) surfaced at Talking Heads , to watch the bands’ material. As iChamps, we wanted to put our new-found training to good use, come along and take ‘professional’ standard photos of the event. Our job role is to encourage digital literacies in students and staff in the Music department. We wanted to see how the music students run their events and what promotion they use, and whether they could benefit from furthering their digital skills to bring in a wider audience to their performances.

We spoke to a few of the bands after the performance:

‘Nine Ace Deck are a funk rock band with a six-piece brass setup and rhythm section. The band is made up entirely of first year music students, and our repertoire consists mostly of original material, with a few cover songs. You can find us on Facebook and also on Twitter, where you can keep up to date with what we’re up to, and gigs we have coming soon.’

‘Muteight are an 8-piece jazz/funk collective based in Southampton. Their catalogue of unique arrangements include funk tunes such as Mr. Clean, Skate U and Pete’s Crusade. You can find our band on Facebook.’

As innovation and digital literacies champions (iChamps), we will be holding workshops for staff and students looking to increase their online presence and digital promotion. We will be working with students to increase their online portfolios, helping to increase their employability. Some examples of the platforms we are on, which you should check out if you haven’t already, are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud, PathBrite and Storify. To find out a bit more about iChamps, check out our website and Twitter @iChampsS. To contact either of us tweet @Anna_93 and @harrymatthews22.