Success Beyond The Score

Time is always scarce. The more something matters to us, the more it feels like everything else gets in the way. Days are just too short. Or are they?

Look at your typical schedule for the week. There are some fixed things that you can't skip if you want to stay alive: sleeping and resting, eating, hygiene routines, physical activity. Block those out. There are also unskippable commitments, like work or study —with their respective commute time— house chores, and family logistics (for example, getting your kids ready for school). Finally, there are things that enrich and give meaning to your life, like the nurturing and enjoyment of your relationships, or your spiritual journey, religious or not. Once you block those out as well, you will see the time you really have for yourself, and can decide how to best use it.

At this stage, it's a matter of priorities. What do you want to achieve? What are the most important steps towards achieving it? A to-do list will be very handy, as it wil...

Success Beyond the Score is a project born from Millicent's willingness to support men and women in their music journey. Through her podcast, mentoring, courses and resources, she has already helped people at different stages of their careers to achieve their goals.

Last month, she talked about the what, why, how, when and where of creating and achieving your vision in music. The only question left to answer is "with whom". We aren't born knowing! Having mentors or teachers is an essential part of taking our craft to where we want it to be. That's why Millicent is putting together a new way to guide and support singers and musicians in their journey. In order to assist with that, we are currently conducting a survey to assess the topics of greatest interest among our audience, and how you'd like to learn about them.

Click here to start the survey.

It will take you at most five minutes, and you will get a gift to thank you for your time at the end. Your contribution will help us unde...

There's a saying in Germany that translates to something like, "there is no bad weather, only wrong clothing". If you are a gigging musician willing to perform outdoors, you better remember this bit of wisdom!

A few months ago, I was booked to play at a women's conference. I was directed to the garden of the building, so attendants could listen to my music while enjoying some fresh air. Now, you must know that I keep my receiver, microphone and other equipment in a hard case that protects it from collisions and the weather. Once I set up, though, my PA system is as exposed to the elements as I am. That day, once we were done and had all the equipment out, it started to drizzle. Of course, panic ensued! You just can't allow electric devices to get rained over, unless they are made waterproof (and even so, it's better not to risk it).

It was stressful, but fortunately, the light rain passed, and at the end, I could perform. Soon after, I started looking into acquiring some specialised ...

First, we defined the what, then, the why. After that, we looked at the how, and that defined almost everything for us. Now, we just need to make the time and space to execute our plan, and we will achieve our vision.

This sounds easy, and it would be in a world less congested, noisy and stressful than the one we live in. We have responsibilities with our family, friend and community. We have jobs and maintain a home. The technology that's supposed to assist us more often than not becomes an addictive distraction, bombarding us with notifications that demand our attention 24/7. It's challenging to catch a breath and have time for ourselves. 

Despite all this, it's possible to make time and space for our vision by working smarter, not harder. Don't sacrifice sleep or overexert yourself, that will only lead to health issues and burnout. Instead, keep your priorities at the forefront of your mind, and use them to take decisions. You are the owner of your attention, your energy and your ...

Large Language Models (LLMs) have experienced a massive boom in the last couple of years. Their use has spread across all industries, creating a surge of multimedia content generated through Artificial Intelligence (genAI). After the initial wave of excitement, more and more institutions and organisations have come forward to denounce the negative impact of this technology in multiple aspects.

One of them has to do with creative ownership. In order to function, LLMs must be fed gigantic amounts of data. So far, there has not been adequate regulation about the origin of said data, nor how the human creators of it should be recognised and compensated. In the case of music, this has resulted in the work of hundreds of thousands of composers and recording artists being fed to LLMs without consent. To aggravate things, the musical output generated by LLMs is fast to produce and cheap to sell, which has degraded or outright eliminated jobs for musicians.

Updating the existing legislation o...

In the first article of this series, we thought about what we want to achieve. Then, in the second entry, we reflected a little deeper to understand why we want what we want. So far, the most practical part of this exercise has been to write ideas down, you haven't had to stand up from the couch just yet.

Now, however, we have arrived to the point where the vast majority of people get stuck: the how. How can we get to where we want to get? What do we need? Where and how to start? The questions and the uncertainty can easily overwhelm you.

The first thing that we need to do is to step back, breathe, and focus on the elements of our vision. What is there that you need to acquire? What do you need to do in order to acquire those things? You'll be surprised by how frequently a daunting task becomes simple and easy just by paying no mind to anxiety, considering instead the logical steps needed to execute it.

Let's say that your goal is to play at open mics in the next year. What do you n...

The podcast Success Beyond The Score was one of the foundational initiatives of the website full of resources that you know today. While the first season is already a few years old, it contains valuable information and perspectives that are still helpful. If you got a moment, why not revisit some of the episodes? Perhaps something in there will be relevant to where you currently are in your music journey.

For your consideration, here are the three first episodes of season 1:

1. Introduction

The what, why and by whom of the podcast Success Beyond The Score.

2. Is age a number?

Is your age important to what you do? Does it elevate or decimate your music? 

3. Who's going to make your music happen?

Who do you need to contact to make your music career happen, get you gigs and help you move forward?

If you have any comments, questions or observations about the content of these chapters, we would love to know!

Last time, I talked about my thought process when I decided to move on from being a hobbyist and become an established musician. I explained how I started cementing my vision by writing down what I wanted to achieve, condensing my beautiful dreams into describable goals. I also invited you to do the same, so you had your own material to follow along this series.

Now that you have the what, the next question is why. What is the reason behind your wish to reach something? What is the purpose that your goals serve to yourself? If you don't understand why you are doing what you do, or you lose sight of it with time, your motivation will dwindle. You need energy to overcome the challenges and obstacles that you will inevitably find on your way, and this energy, this drive that you need, can be fuelled by your reasons.

Just as we wrote down our whats to solidify them, we need to document our whys. Going back to them now and then to remind ourselves of our purpose keeps us focused and pushi...

If you ask an unsuspecting person what preparing for a music gig entails, they are probably going to mention things like rehearsing the songs or making sure the instruments are in good condition. These are, of course, very important parts of the process, but they are not even remotely the only ones. 

An independent gigging musician is frequently their own agent, manager, producer, technician and stylist. Things like figuring out transportation to and from the venue are as much our responsibility as knowing how to play the songs of our set list. After all, it doesn't matter how good you are as a musician if you never arrive to your performance and no one can hear you!

A good example of this happened last Wednesday, when I took part of the civic flag raising ceremony that the Association of Jamaican Nationals Birmingham put together to commemorate the anniversary of the independence of Jamaica. I needed to bring my PA system for the event, which meant I had to use my car. Now, if you'v...

I wasn’t born a full-time award-winning musician. In fact, I spent the first couple of decades of my adult life working in a completely different field. During those years, music was a hobby, a fulfilling one that I loved, but nothing more than that. Whilst I did catch the attention of a record label or two, it never came to anything.

At 42, I attended a concert by a friend. Seeing him shining on stage, being aware of his achievements and career, made me realise that I wanted that too. With my children in secondary and primary school, I was at a point when I finally had time for myself. The conditions were there, I could give professional music a shot! I hesitated for a long time, but finally, I decided to try.

I gave myself a timeframe, which was of five years, and sat to write down all the things I wanted to achieve during that period. At that point, I didn't know how to get there, but that didn't matter. The first step towards reaching a goal is to know what the goal is. Then, in ...