Success Beyond The Score

This year at the Time For My Music community group, there have been a series of workshops about amplifying devices, what they do, and how to use them. The goal is to get the women more comfortable with the tech elements involved in their performance.

Why is this important? Well, many times, clients require musicians to bring and set their own public address (PA) system, as there are no professionals who can assist them at the venue. Even when there is a sound engineer or a DJ present, to have the understanding and vocabulary to talk to them empowers musicians and allows them to perform their best. 

At the beginning of this series of workshops, many of the Time For My Music members were limited by their lack of knowledge about this topic. Now, they know what to do or ask for in order to get the sound that they want. Some of them have said that they have improved the quality of the sound set by someone else at the venue. It has been great!

To further spread this useful knowledge, we a...

Here are two more "themed" episodes of the podcast Success Beyond the Score.

Episode 16 is all about the business side of music. It is an essential part of the journey to becoming a professional musician that intimidates many emerging artists, but it doesn't have to be that way! Listen to the guests talk about record labels, contracts, finances, networking, training and education, from their vast experience, and without keeping any secrets.

Episode 17 moves from the professional to the personal. Each guests tells us about their career highs and lows. What have they realised truly matters after decades of experience? What have they learned from difficult times?

As usual, the audio-only version can be found wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

It's August. Time for most people to enjoy the summer break, and for gigging musicians to get really busy. Weddings, festivals, celebrations of all kinds fill our schedule to take the best of the free time and the good weather. During this month alone, many musicians get more money than during the entire first half of the year. It's a great opportunity, of course, which can bring feelings of pressure, anxiety and stress.

It's easy to succumb to the hustle and push ourselves to the max, neglecting our health in order to fit more gigs. Doing so is a mistake that can bring consequences in both the short and long term. Remember that most health issues are easier to prevent than to cure!

Taking care of our health can look a bit different from person to person, but in general terms:

• Protect your sleep times and routine.
• Eat enough! Performing demands a lot of energy, this is not the time for diets or calory deficits (unless your doctors deem it absolutely necessary). Prioritize protein
...

“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily--perhaps not possibly--chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation.”
—Eudora Welty, in ‘One Writer's Beginnings’ (1984) 

‘One Writer's Beginnings’ is a collection of three autobiographical essays titled ‘Listening’, ‘Learning to See’, and ‘Finding a Voice’. In them, the award-winning American author Eudora Welty explores the infinitely intricate connection between her life, particularly her childhood, and her writing. This quote is a beautiful example of this unbreakable bond: time exists as an objective phenomenon, but our subjective experience makes us perceive it and understand it under our own logic, that of the narrative.

There are many angles through which we can approach this quote in relation to our music. Here are some exa...

The second season of the podcast Success Beyond The Score has two distinct parts. So far, we have revisited the first one. For it, Millicent interviewed brilliant people in the music industry about a variety of relevant and interesting themes. Now, it’s time for the second one, in which we propose a new dialogue format: instead of one person talking about many different topics, you will hear all guests’ opinions on a singular topic.

The opening theme of this part of the podcast is family. Listen about how the guests balance work and home life, what their families have meant for their careers, how they have supported their journey, among other things.

The next topic has to do with the ideas associated with the status of celebrity. There is a notion that famous people live a life of applause, lights, and luxury. That they live far above the mundane. The guests will tell you how it really is. They talk about glitz, glamour and the Monday morning musician.

If long interviews are n...

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you."
—B. B. King, blues musician 

Material things come and go. They can be used up, break down, get lost or stolen. Once you learn something, though, it stays with you. Not only that, but the more you use and share knowledge, the more it solidifies and grows. However, the opposite is true: if you don't apply, revisit or otherwise think about what you have learned, you may forget with time. 

•  What are your thoughts about this quote?

•  What are some things you do to retain the skills and knowledge you have learned?

Give it some thought and share your conclusions with us, if you feel like it.

As in every profession, the work of a musician involves legal and social responsibilities. If you want to build a career as a gigging musician, it is essential that you learn and follow the rules that keep the industry running safely. Don't worry, it isn't hard!

In this fragment of Millicent's free webinar, "Legal Know-Hows For Gigging Musicians", she explains two elements that will help you work safely: public liability insurance, and portable appliance testing.

We hope that this information comes in handy for your current projects. And, speaking of projects, we are working in a new, big resource that will teach you how to get your schedule filled with gigs. As part of the development of this product, we are conducting a survey about how you learn best. It takes two minutes to fill, and your input will allow us to cater to your needs in the most efficient way.

Click here to start the survey

It will be open until Sunday 21st June. Please share!

The last individual interview of the podcast Success Beyond The Score had as a guest the outstanding British-Jamaican R&B, Soul and Gospel singer-songwriter Ruby Turner (MBE).

With a music career spanning more than 30 years, Ruby Turner has left an indelible mark in the industry. Her song “It’s Gonna Be Alright’ broke through by hitting number 1 on the US R&B Chart in 1990, and her more than 20 albums and singles are widely known in Europe and North America. She has been a session vocalist for Bryan Ferry, UB40, Steel Pulse, Jools Holland and Mick Jagger. She has written songs for Lulu, Yazz and Maxi Priest.

Ruby is also an actress, and her acting career spans theater, film and TV, including fiction and non-fiction. She has also been a BBC Music Judge for televised choir competitions. Ruby’s awards include an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music.

In the first part of the interview, Ruby and Millicent talk about what it means to be a c...

Throughout the years, Success Beyond The Score has posted resources for emerging and established musicians in all types of formats. Podcasts, booklets, videos, live webinars, in-person workshops; we have made our portfolio as wide and varied as possible, wishing to offer valuable information in ways that suit all kinds of people.

Now, in preparation for our next big resource, we want to know how you learn best. For that, we have put together a two minutes survey. If you could fill it, and also share it with other emerging and established musicians who could be interested in learning how to fill their schedule with gigs, we will be very thankful.

Click here to start the survey

It will be open until Sunday 21st June. After that date, we will put everything together and give you more information as soon as we can. Please, look forward to it!

I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it

—Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Anthon van Rappard about his process for the creation of the painting ‘The Potato Eaters’

This quote is an interesting counterpoint to the last one we shared, written by Friedrich Nietzsche. The only way in which Vincent Van Gogh can figure out how to paint the subjects of his painting is by trying to paint them, the same way that we learn how to play a song by attempting to play it.

Let's use this juxtaposition to think about perfectionism and our fear of failure. It is easy to fall into the trap of procrastination under the guise of "preparing" for something that we don't know how to do. However, we do need a solid technical foundation and/or context knowledge in order to achieve the things that we want to achieve.

• How do you strive to reach this balance in your music?
• Do you have other ways to fight perfectionism off? 

Give these questions some thought, and...