Success Beyond The Score

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!

Here is the transcription of episode 10 of season 3 of the podcast "Success Beyond The Score". Happy reading!

- Watch the video of the episode here: YouTube

- Listen to the audio of the episode here: Kajabi

INTRO:

Hi! I hope you are well. Let me just do my little buttons here, and hopefully you can hear me. If you can, please put a message in the chat. That would be really, really good. Oh dear. Okay, so I'm going to crack on as I wait for those replies. Hi Gary! Good to see you. Lovely to see you there.

Today, I've got a topic about putting on your own show. Actually, before I dive in, let me do a proper welcome. This is my 10th episode live. If you've been with me from the first one, I said that I'm here for 11 days on YouTube, and my 11th is going to be [on] Monday. It's just great. It's just gone really, really quickly. But I want to thank you so much for showing up, for liking, subscribing and sharing and just commenting. Thank you. Thank you so much. It means a lot that ...

Labour Day is an opportunity for workers across the globe to pause. Whether you use the day to rest and recover, to reconnect with others, or to think about ways to improve the conditions of your trade, the day is about having a breath and look at the reality of labour without the rush of the race for success (or survival).

In a landscape where 71% of music makers and professionals are freelance, however, the date can easily be dismissed and pass unnoticed. This is highly detrimental, given that freelancing is a particularly hostile and challenging model of work. The specificities of freelancing make plenty of room for abuse, exploitation and intimidation. It's vital that we push together for increased standards of protection for freelancers all across our sector, and for that, we need information and perspective.

Last year, Black Lives in Music worked to inform the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) report on Misogyny in Music, which found wide-scale issues that pointed to an ‘end...

Nominations for the Musicians' Union Executive and Regional committees 2024-2025 are open until midday of Wednesday 27th September, 2023.

The Executive committee is the governing body of the union and it's in charge of taking major decisions that affect the working conditions of musicians across the country. The Regional committees are in charge of day-to-day management and perception of local concerns. If you, or someone you know, have a passion for social work and political change, consider submitting your or their name for a nomination. You could make a big difference! 

Click here to read all the information on what the positions entail and what are the requisites to apply. If you have specific questions about the role you'd have in a committee, you can contact our director Millicent Stephenson at [email protected] and ask about her experience. She was part of the Executive Committee for a few years, and she's currently part of the Regional Committee for the Midlands.

Here is the transcription of episode 5 of season 3 of the podcast "Success Beyond The Score". Happy reading!

- Watch the video of the episode here: YouTube

- Listen to the audio of the episode here: Kajabi

PODCAST INTRO:

I'm going to be diving into the three reasons why you should be charging for your music starting today! It's really, really warm weather and in fact, I've got a gig later on as well, but I thought I'd come on and speak with you and share some nuggets. And I would love to hear from you too. If you've got a story to tell about getting paid, put that in the comments; I'd love to read it out, give you some tips on that. And if you've got any questions, please do that.

Getting paid is a real vital thing for musicians. I said in episode one, on Monday, that I believe every musician should be paid their worth. I a 100% believe it, believe it, believe it. Of course, it's a journey, and for some of you, you're probably not charging at all —that's why you're here today....

We know what you first thought was: Is there someone campaigning in favour of female mediocrity?! What's that supposed to mean?!

 In an article posted by the Musicians' Union as part of their guest blogs, Christine Anderson explains her point. This viola player, who's a member of Her Ensemble, as well as an orchestral and chamber musician, shares her experiences and thoughts on women and diversity within the classical music industry in a thought provoking article that starts like this:

The classical music industry is changing. Admittedly, the pace could generously be described as glacial: according to Donne - Women in Music, in the 2021-22 season, across 111 orchestras in 31 countries, just 7.7% of pieces played were by women, of which 5.5% were white (while 27.5% of pieces were by the same ten historical, white European men).

But this is at least a slight improvement on the previous year, where just 5% of compositions were by women. And out with the big, established orchestras, the...

The Musicians’ Census is a joint project by the Musicians’ Union and Help Musicians to get a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be a musician in 2023. The more participants there are in this census, the better these institutions will understand the work and life conditions of musicians in the UK. This will allow them to take more precise action to address our concerns and talk with the government in order to be able to offer:

-Organised support for musicians, regardless of their background.
-Information, advise and training on pay conditions.
-Union services.
-Promotion of equality, diversity and inclusion.
-A steady campaign for a fairer and safer industry.
-Social and legal recognition of musicians' work and importance within the industry.

You can participate following this link: https://www.musicianscensus.co.uk/

Don't forget to share this information with your musician friends in the United Kingdom!

Gigs! I’ve had the opportunity to play so many this year that I can’t do nothing but feel blessed (and a bit exhausted, haha!). No matter if big of small, I bring everything to the stage and I have the time of my life, as you can see in the header photo of this post. It was taken during the Birmingham 2022 Festival by Laurence Stephenson. The event was incredible! If you want some specifics on how it went, I wrote a little recap on my personal website.

Such occasions would not be possible if I was not confident in my ability to pull a crowd and make the experience unforgettable for them. It is incredibly rewarding, and that’s why I want you to be able to do the same: to appear confident and get people’s attention, to make them remember you, look you up after the gig and talk to their friends about you. For this reason, I put together a course called “Showtime! The best ingredients for giving a great performance“, in which you can learn:

• How to get comfortable with your music and pe
...