Success Beyond The Score

On Wednesday 30th March, 7.30pm until 9pm on Zoom, Millicent Stephenson will be running a Zoom webinar called ‘Mastering YouTube for Musicians – Part 1’. The session is directed towards musicians who want to increase their reach online through YouTube, but aren't sure of how to navigate the platform and use its tools to their favour.

The content of the session will be:

• How to login
• Understanding your Channel layout
• Steps to upload your videos
• What to put in the boxes (fields) and what tags to use
• How to share your video to get views
• How to grow your subscribers organically

Interested? The course fee is £35 and you can book your place following this link. 

Are you interested in setting up your own YouTube channel to widen your music reach, but are not sure what to do? Do you worry about breaking it, and feel step-by-step instructions by a musician would help you to understand the screens and get it working?

Perhaps you have put videos up but have had zero or one or two views. This may also be the case with your subscriber count. Would you like to know how to increase both things without paying for advertising?

On Wednesday 30th March, 7.30pm until 9pm on Zoom, Millicent Stephenson will be running a Zoom webinar called ‘Mastering YouTube for Musicians – Part 1’ to address all these concerns and answer your questions.

The content of the session will be:

• How to login
• Understanding your Channel layout
• Steps to upload your videos
• What to put in the boxes (fields) and what tags to use
• How to share your video to get views
• How to grow your subscribers organically

Millicent will talk from the experience she's got...

Last time, I mentioned that we get work through our connections. I hope my words helped you identify the people who do that for you.  But how do you maintain the work you get through your connections? Today, I want to discuss one aspect of that.  

In the early days of my music, I was on my own. I arrived to gigs on my own, I set up and pulled down on my own, I handled my gig enquiries on my own and sorted out my tax return on my own. I did everything myself, making decisions and only seeking advice when needed. Does that sound familiar?

This way of working was fine for some time, but as my music grew, it became unwieldy. I couldn’t keep up with everything. I worked long days and into the night to balance family commitments and work. I felt stressed with missed deadlines, keeping up with admin requirements was a nightmare and personal practise on my instrument was deteriorating. I felt like I was on burnout.  It dawned on me that, in order to advance, I...

As we are close to the end of the year, this episode of the podcast "Success Beyond The Score" is dedicated to reflection, in particular about the critical event that marked 2020 and 2021: the coronavirus pandemic.

How did it affect the music industry? Specifically, how did it impact musicians? Today you will hear true stories from Anna Brooks, Tony Bean, Louise Dengate, Dan Whitehouse, Abigail Kelly and Ruby Turner MBE, in which they will tell us about their hardships, opportunities, the good and the bad.

Find the video of the episode on YouTube and choose your favourite podcast platform to listen to the audio version on this list.

Recently, I’ve been binge watching ‘Race To The Center of the Earth’.  It has adventure, dizzy heights even from my sofa, a little drama, great scenery and of course teams competing for the prize of one million dollars. I love shows like these because  I find them inspiring, a little scary (when someone gets hurt or they have to climb up a super high cliff face) but also interesting.

How does this relate to music? Last time, I mentioned I would share with you one of the things I still do now to keep me moving and growing as a musician.  On reflection, there are 3 things, but today I’ll illustrate the first one through the Race.

Each of the racers in the Team have a goal.  A goal to win the million-dollar prize.  They are focused on that goal and all roads lead to that goal.  They train for that goal; they strategize towards that goal and at the end they will know if they achieve the goal.

This is something I do.  No,...

Welcome to a new episode of Millicent's podcast, Success Beyond The Score. This episode is a juicy one, as the guests will talk about the essence of the business side of music. Record labels, contracts, financial planning, education and training, networking, all that is going to be covered by the brilliant Ruby Turner MBE, Dan Whitehouse, Anna Brooks, Abigail Kelly, Louise Dengate and Tony Bean.

Give it a watch on Youtube, or visit this page to see all the podcast platforms where Success Beyond The Score is available.

I’ve been thinking about ways to help you with your music development and the thought occurred to me, how do I know if you are standing still, going backwards or moving forwards with your music?

I thought about this because many people look at me and think I have it made, or that I don’t have a clue about what-what’s because I was born that way.  But, I can tell you that although I’m moving forward there were times when my music stood still and when it went a way back!

In my 20s, I was gigging a lot, mainly in the Gospel circuit.  I was well known in my circuit and then I fell in love, got married and moved to the North of England. 

Now, in those days there was no internet or mobile phones, just letters, landlines and call boxes on the streets. Lol! The Gospel music circuit in the North was not as developed as the Midlands or South, so I had to travel back often. I didn’t have role models who commuted, also work...

The Skylark Collective defines itself as a sisterhood for women in podcasting. As part of their efforts to break barriers in the podcast production world, they created the International Women’s Podcast Awards, which had its first edition this year.

The ceremony took place on Thursday, September 23rd, on a London venue. The podcast Success Beyond The Score, which you can find in all podcast platforms and YouTube through our list, was shortlisted for the category of “badass business advice”, so Millicent attended the ceremony.

Unfortunately, Success Beyond The Score did not win in its category, but Millicent was happy to share time with wonderful women who create podcasts for a variety of themes and audiences. The full list of nominees and winners, plus some photos, can be found on the Instagram account of the Skylark Collective.

Check Millicent’s photos and thoughts on her own Instagram account.

I wrote an article for the Musicians Union in recognition of World Menopause Day, which is today because I struggled to find information on how it impacts women carrying out their music when my symptoms began a few years ago.  

I hope my views will help men to understand what the women in their life are going through, and for women to feel they are not alone.

You can view the article The Journey of a menopausal musician on the Musicians Union website or read it below.  I only ask that if you find it interesting...or not, I would love to hear your views.  Please leave them in the comments section below this post.

Kind regards

ms
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It was during an MU Committee meeting where we were informed that temperature checks would be part of COVID testing for musicians entering rehearsal rooms and Studios, that I laughingly said, “What about us women of a certain age? We do...