My apprenticeship experience at Brighter Sound
Joe Clegg blogs about developing skills, learning on the job and zooming full speed ahead in his Digital Marketing Apprenticeship at Brighter Sound…
Since joining Brighter Sound I feel like my life has been kicked into gear and sent zooming full speed ahead! Very quickly I discovered that I’d barely even scratched the surface of the vast world of social media and digital marketing. There is so much involved in promoting a business online that I hadn’t even considered and to this day I’m still coming across brand new tools and techniques that further develop my own skills. It’s incredible how much you can learn in the space of a couple of months. And it’s difficult to keep up with all this knowledge pouring in left, right and centre but thankfully Brighter Sound have a fantastic team of professionals glad to offer a hand wherever possible. It’s been a privilege to have been brought into this company with open arms and to have been given the right training to allow me to do my job well.
I did my research beforehand. Brighter Sound is huge. They’d put on so much before I’d even heard of them: the Chaos To Order residency featuring Everything Everything and a number of fantastic Wall of Sounds residencies featuring guest musicians such as Beth Orton, DJ Yoda and Snarky Puppy to name a few. They’ve even begun to make themselves known internationally for instance through their EIGHT project with HOME in China! This was a hell of a lot to take in. I was actually going to be working for this company who’d done so much and had so much more coming? I was blown away. It was daunting to think I’d be promoting similar events in the future, events I thought I’d never get a chance to experience. But I’ve loved each and every one of them.
The Sing City masterclasses with Field Music, Blossoms and Barry Hyde and workshops with Project Jam Sandwich I thought were, for lack of a more formal word, awesome! It’s great to see a company providing these opportunities for young musicians and helping them progress at their own pace, something I wish I’d been offered when I was younger. I saw this aspect of Brighter Sound shine once again during their Young Musicians Week which featured some great workshops and 1-to-1s from the likes of Natalie McCool, Jenna G and Elbow’s own drummer Richard Jupp. But Brighter Sound’s outreach doesn’t stop with young people. Their Creative Music Programmeoffers more great opportunities for all ages whether it be young or elderly, including babies!
Brighter Sound is also incredibly passionate about females being represented in the music industry, an issue they’ve worked hard to tackle with their Here Come The Grrrls programme which is designed to celebrate, profile and inspire female musicians. Recently Brighter Sound was a part of Manchester’s Wonder Women festival in celebration of International Women’s Day. One of their parts in this included a fantastic Here Come The Grrrls Showcase, reuniting the musicians that worked with Beth Orton a year earlier. They also collaborated with Manchester Jewish Museum to deliver Written in the Margins, an event that consisted of live poetry readings, music from Serafina Steer and Natalie Sharp and a discussion panel on “Gender As A Genre”.
As you can see I could talk about the work Brighter Sound does all day. I haven’t even mentioned the I Live Hip Hop event with Kendrick Lamar! Have a look HERE!
Brighter Sound have done so much for so many people, exactly what a charity should do. Without a doubt I see them becoming a major player in the world of the music industry and music education. What they’ve done so far is incredible and I’m delighted to be a part of it. It’s been an experience I’ll remember forever and I’m not even halfway through my apprenticeship yet!
Joe is completing a Creative Pioneers apprenticeship with Brighter Sound and The White Room. Creative Pioneers™ is an award winning nationwide campaign to find the next generation of advertising, creative and digital media talent by providing brilliant Apprenticeship opportunities across the Creative and Digital industries. Find out more…