Company history

Contemporary music education has tended to be a very “hit and miss” affair with thousands of students not realising their potential as musicians or even worse, would-be musicians not getting the chance to learn at all.

Gigajam Interactive Music School was founded to provide a structured curriculum and recognised standard in the teaching and learning of contemporary music using the primary contemporary instruments; guitar, keyboards, bass and drums.

Brian Greene founded Interactive Music School Ltd. (company no. 03942302) and first developed the drum school in Buckinghamshire, England in March 2000. John Hillier and Rob Oldham joined Gigajam in 2002 to develop the company both geographically and in the breadth and depth of its services. Considerable investment has since been made in developing course curricula, multimedia support, software and IT infrastructure. In addition to drums, Gigajam has now grown to include guitar, bass and keyboard schools. E-commerce functionality was added to the Gigajam website in November 2003 providing private students the opportunity of downloading lessons for self-teach purposes or face-to-face lessons (currently only for UK based students) via an ever growing UK network of Gigajam Approved Tutors.

Gigajam for Schools was launched in Spring 2004, creating considerable interest from many globally respected evangelists involved in e-Learning policy making, helping schools and education policy bodies to provide an affordable solution to entitlement and inclusion for all students in learning to play a musical instrument. Gigajam’s high quality content achieved UK Government Curriculum Online status enabling schools to purchase Gigajam products with e-learning credits.

During the Summer of 2004 a television series of Gigajam’s Essential Skills courses for guitar, keyboards, bass and drums was produced in conjunction with Musicians Channel (Sky channel 475) to further support Gigajam’s philosophy of bringing affordable, quality contemporary musical instrument tuition within the reach of more people. Broadcasts across Europe in September 2004 the 45 show series ran through to the Summer of 2005.

In January 2005 Gigajam was awarded the winners prize in the Learning and Skills, Software, Hardware, Content and Tools category of the prestigious BETT Awards, signaling Gigajam’s acceptance as an innovator in the UK education market.

Having become established in both e-learning and music education in the UK Gigajam spent 2005 and 2006 broadening its client base and developing its product range by refreshing existing content and building new products. Gigajam now includes Songbooks, Gigajam Orchestra, Gigajam Junior for drums, together with versions of the Gigajam course that are available on CD, across Local Area Networks and delivered via Virtual Learning Environments.

2007 begun with feverish activity as Gigajam presented the UK Government with their vision for an e-learning offering in response to the second report from the DCFS/DCMS Music Manifesto. Gigajam now steer the proposal as a consortium which includes: Yamaha, National Education Network, The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance and NUMU. Contributions have been made by Rockschool, OCNCredit4learning, Music Industry Association, UKTI and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

Gigajam’s Essential Skills Course became nationally accredited as a pathway of study in July 2007. The Open College Network Credit4Learning, one of the UK’s national accreditation services for learning and skills, accredited Gigajam’s Essential Skills Courses for the guitar, bass, keyboards and drums so that Gigajam’s courses can now be studied to earn credits to gain entry into further and higher education courses.

Gigajam continue to grow from strength to strength with clients including 5 of the 10 English Regional Broadband Consortia, (The London Grid for Learning, South West Grid for Learning, West Midlands Net, Northern Grid for Learning and East of England Broadband Network). Gigajam won the online music tender for Scotland (November 2006) and early Gigajam content is available to all Scottish Schools via Scottish School Digital Network (Glow).

Gigajam work in partnership with Local Authorities providing services to their schools and music services. Direct LA clients include; City of Salford, City of Sunderland, Buckinghamshire County Council, Cheshire County Council, West Berkshire LA, The Highland Council.

Outside the formal education sector Gigajam are developing their retail brand and presence launched after The Independent Newspaper ‘Learn to play the keyboard’ series in April 2007. Gigajam developed, designed and produced the promotion for The Independent newspaper with over 400,000 CDROMs and 500,000 worksheets distributed with the newspaper over the 5 day promotion.

Gigajam has over 10,000 worldwide private users (2007).