The club, which hasn’t officially met yet, aims to unite students that share music as a common interest. First-year and Carolina Jams founder Zachary Gonzalez said students of all musical capabilities are welcome.
“Carolina Jams is a general music club for all Carolina students no matter their musical ability,” Gonzalez said.
The idea for Carolina Jams began in the fall semester, when Gonzalez and a group of friends attended FallFest and didn’t find a musical niche they would fit into among the numerous clubs advertised.
“During FallFest, I was looking around for a music club, and all I saw was a cappella group after a cappella group with the exception of some more philanthropic clubs. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, I felt that there was a significant lack of an outlet for musicians on campus,” first-year and Carolina Jams member J.P. Rickabaugh said.
“Like, if I were to want to go jam with someone, or get a group together, there wasn’t really a method to do that that had sort of streamlining or structure to it. It would be an entirely personal initiative. But with Carolina Jams, our sort of goal is to provide the framework for people to achieve what they want musically here.”
The club was approved by the University just before spring break and plans to begin publicizing itself soon. The members’ plans for the club’s future span a broad range of activities from entertainment to philanthropy.
“We want to have open mic nights at our club meetings, we’d like to, then kinda, once we get more established, more people, start doing kind-of charity events,” Gonzalez said. “So we want to have concerts or benefits, one of the things I’ve heard that is pretty interesting is musicians going to hospitals and playing for children and stuff like that.”
The club plans on hosting jam sessions, as well as offering music lessons to less-experienced members. Gonzalez taught himself guitar during high school, the difficulty of which helped him come up with the idea of guitar lessons.
