Success Beyond The Score

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...

We all have heard about tap dancing, and we also know beatboxing. But have you ever thought about how these two arts could sound together? Well, American dancer Savion Glover and Barbados-born rapper Doug E. Fresh show us how:

This performance happened almost ten years ago, but it's as wonderful as it was the first day. Some times, combinations that should be rather obvious are the ones that surprise us the most. Kudos to the artists!

The COVID-19 pandemic forced artistic venues to close down and all artists across the world face the scary question of how to keep doing our thing when we couldn't even meet with our audiences. After three months of inactivity, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona came up with a solution. On June 2020, they offered a performance to an attentive public that needed no social distancing:

 

 

 

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Shared by im just culture (@imjustculture)

The string quartet in charge of the performance played Giacomo Puccini's "Crisantemi" for a full auditorium of potted plants plus human audiences connected via livestream. Later, the plants were donated, along with a certificate of attendance, to over 2000 healthcare professionals attending the COVID-19 emergency.

The event, a call to reconnect with nature in times of crisis, was the prelude to the Liceu's 2020-2021 season, during which the Spanish authorities permitted the operation of artistic venues and cinem...

After two successful online concerts in 2021 and 2022, the women of Time For My Music are ready for a bigger challenge. We have been discussing the format and features of our next performance for some time now, and we would deeply value your input!

If you have attended any T4MM concert, or you have watched the videos afterwards, please answer this short survey for us. (THE SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED)

If you haven't seen any of our work yet, here are the highlights of the first concert:

And here's the second concert in full:

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!

Here is the transcription of episode 3 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:

It's kind of a strange title, really: "killed by sound". But in my experience going through music and watching other people, the sound system, the PA (public address) system, microphone, stuff like that, really gets in the way of our playing. And let's face it, you put in a lot of time practising. You learn the notes, you learn the chords, you learn the rhythm, you learn what you're gonna say, all that kind of thing. And then, it's just time to go and deliver. And when it's time to deliver, what lets you down is a PA system. 

EARLY EXPERIENCES:

Well, my experience —oh gosh, going back a few years— I sort of started playing, um, certainly for my sax, I was in my late teens, early twenties when I started. And that's sort of back in the eighties. And what I did ...

Creating content for social media is a lot of work, but if you know your tools and platforms, it becomes way easier. To help with that, the course "Mastering YouTube for Musicians" teaches you exactly what is available in YouTube and how to use it.

Guided by Millicent Stephenson, who speaks from experience and in an accessible way, you'll learn:

• How to create your login.
• What is where in your YouTube channel.
• How to upload your videos.
• Security tips.
• What to type in the boxes of the form for your uploaded videos.
• Things to say at your performance or post for attracting subscribers.
• 3 tips for maintaining your channel.
• 9 tips for sharing your videos and getting views.
• 6 tips for growing your subscribers organically.
• 6 ways to get work through your YouTube channel.
• Why some videos are in the thousands and others not so.
• A challenge to help you set up your channel and gain views and subscribers.

Get your course following this link and see how you get a channel up and run...

The Harvard Opportunes is an all genders a-cappella group associated with the University of Harvard. During one of their performances, vocalist Devon Gates knocked it out of the park singing extremely high notes with fantastic accuracy for the song "Hard Place". You can watch the full performance on YouTube, but this Instagram video has a helpful guide of the specific notes she hits:

 

 

 

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Post by I post singers who are underrated. (@underratedsingersvocal)

When we encounter a moment that highlights so well the skill of one member of a group, we tend to focus only on what that person is doing and even feel a bit discouraged, thinking that if we aren't like that, we'll never get to where we want in music. However, there's no need to be an operatic soprano or Mariah Carey to be a great vocalist: everybody has their role. Just pay attention to the other voices of the Opportunes, and how they work together to carry the song and support Ms. Gates. ...

Here is the transcription of episode 2 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:

Today, the topic is: does your music have the juice to pull a crowd? This is so important. I think this is a really, really good topic because, um, I think it was just about a couple of weeks ago, a promoter contacted me and they said: Look, I am looking for someone to headline my show. Do you know anyone? And I was like: What type of musician you're looking for? And they described the kind they were looking for. I thought: Mm interesting. Who do I know -apart from myself- who do I know that they could book, that people would want to see. Because that is what they were looking for, they wanted to put someone on their flyer, someone local, someone in the West Midlands, they didn't want to travel too far. Yes, they could go abroad. Yes, they could go to London. B...

Creativity and innovation are at the core of art. There's always delight at the surprise of getting our expectations subverted, and the more conventional and formal the base context is, the greater the joy.

A good example of this is the famous a cappella group Pentatonix, which always finds way to catch their audience by surprise. In this occasion, they partnered with renowned dancer Lil Buck to give an impressive twist to their Hollywood Bowl show. Link to reel.

 

 

 

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Post by Pentatonix (@ptxofficial)

What do you think? Did you like it? If you're on your own music journey and would like to put on big shows like that one day, be sure to check all the resources Success Beyond The Score has to support your dreams.