Melody Makers Memories

10 April 2018

Stevie Wonder once said music, at its essence, is what gives us memories.  Melody Makers has been a truly memorable experience with collaborators on the project have describing the project as “a great place to flex their creative muscles”.  

The Melody Makers project which ran from 2017 to 2018 enabled people who have a love of either music and/or history to work together to produce new audio recordings inspired by Coventry’s musical past. Participants discovered the musical heritage of the city by visiting Coventry Music Museum and by accessing the city's history via Coventry Archives.  With their newly gained knowledge the groups took part in a creative process. Reflecting on what they learnt about heritage, they decided to record new songs, rather than cover versions, using poetry and their eclectic mix of musical styles. They were given access to a professional recording studio and worked with a professional sound engineer to help them develop their ideas. 

The journey of heritage, discovery, and creativity was documented by our professional media team, Herbert Media:

We put out an open call for anyone who can write, play, beat box, rap or create audio in ways we couldn’t imagine.  It could have been a recipe for creative dispute, but Coventry is a proudly diverse city and that energy ensured our groups fused their ideas into something new, celebrating the musical heritage of the city and using the urban environment as its inspiration. Working with participants hailing from as far afield as Germany and Brazil, our first partnership with Coventry Music Museum has yielded four tracks, a music video and a documentary.  Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, participants have learnt about Coventry’s fantastic musical heritage and have been able to add to that history.  

Jah-man Aggrey sums up our thoughts - “I hope projects like this keep going on, not only for us but for other young, upcoming musicians, to show that you don’t have to live in London that just here in Coventry, you can achieve your dream.”

Watch the documentary: 

The project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund for Engaging Communities in heritage to the value of £10k.