Just a quick update on my Merthyr Music project.

Well, over the last couple of months, with the help of community members, I have put together the beginnings of a community archive of popular music memorabilia, in addition to a Facebook site. I have also started the process of capturing a few memories, some of which have been captured in the project’s Sound Cloud site – I have placed a few examples below for reference.

As I go about interviewing some key members of the Merthyr Music scene of the 1955 – 1965 period, The next stage of the project will hopefully involve one of my student groups from The ATriuM engaging with the project to focus on things such as

1. Carry out some research in order to recreate concerts from the past (such as the 1967 Pink Floyd and Love Affair gigs in Merthyr) in an attempt to understand the broader context that this music making took place in. What equipment did the band use, what did the stage set up look like, what do audience members who attended the original concerts remember?
2. Recreate exact and reworked versions of songs by artists such as The Man and The Bystanders.
3. Consider technologies such as ibeacons to disseminate the archive, concert materials and recorded footage to the general pubic
4. Provide a training programme that encourages the community to record their memories remotely – using appropriate technologies.
5. Devise school/college workshops that help students engage with their local history
6. Compose GPS based compositions of the town using apps such as sonic maps. For an example of this, click here.

So watch this space. In the meantime, watch the trailer of the project above.