Success Beyond The Score

It has been some time since we updated and refreshed the website. Whilst it accommodates our needs, we think we can make it clearer and easier to navigate. There are also some resources and pages that we would like to highlight better, so you can get all the benefits of being part of this community.

For this reason, we will be overhauling our page in the upcoming months. If, while using the site, you have thought about something you would like to see adjusted, added or removed, now is the perfect time to let us know. We are also all ears in regard to the kind of content you would like us to provide in addition to what we already have. 

We will seek to address all concerns and ideas forwarded our way. To communicate with us, please send an e-mail to info@millicentstephenson.com.

Thank you, and we hope that you are looking forward to seeing the new look and functionality of Success Beyond The Score!

Signups are open for the FREE webinar, ‘15 ways to promote your music online and offline’. No matter if you do music for a living, as a side job or as a hobby, you can benefit from this knowledge to expand your reach, grow a fan base, and share your art with more people.

Here’s the key information:

• Date: 25.02.2026
• Time: 19:00h UTC+0:00.
  For reference, this is 2:30pm USA EST, 7:30pm UK, and 6:30am of the 26th AEDT
• Platform: Zoom

Click here to sign up

Anyone with an interest in promoting their music can participate. Tell your friends who are also working in music, so more people can benefit!

We are very pleased with the reception of the free webinar, "How to stream your live music performances". Seeing how useful the information was for our participants, we have decided to offer another learning opportunity at no cost.

This time, we are going to talk about how to get more people to learn about what you do. 

This webinar is open to anyone who is up and coming, or established as a singer, producer, musician, music director, songwriter, rapper, or DJ.  Even if your music is done in your spare time, part-time, or full time, understanding promotion will help you with growing your performance opportunities, developing music into an income stream, or growing a fanbase. 

in this free Zoom webinar, Millicent will explain 15 tools you can use to help you move forward.

You will learn:

1. The difference between publicity, marketing and advertising.
2. Seven reality checks for your promotion journey.
3. Fifteen free or low cost tools for promoting your work.

Th...

If you are like me, setting goals and targets is a great way to achieve musical progress. To help with this, in December, I purchased a Christmas present for me: a planner.

It might seem boring, but it's exactly what I need to get organised. I prefer paper and pen, so I can get in touch with the page and my thoughts more easily. Some prefer to use apps, and that is OK, too. 

One thing I like about planners is that many have motivational statements on different pages. They remind me to keep going. Another is how their design makes it intuitive, easy and efficient to organise your thoughts.

Mine has a To-Do page for the month, which is great for listing the title of my monthly targets (e.g. MOT the car. Songs to learn for X gig). Then, there is a month at a view page, which helps me to allocate the tasks of my targets in the month (e.g. the day I will call the mechanic, the day I will practise a particular song). A month at a view also helps me to be more aware of how cluttered my li...

This is a reproduction of the statement posted on Millicent's main website on 20.12.25.

Whilst I am mainly a gigging musician, I have also written and produced music during my career. I have distributed my album Reflective Notes and my single Take Me To The King as physical copies, through the radio, and, as many other musicians, through streamings services, including Spotify.

As one of the largest providers of music streaming services in the world, Spotify was, for many years, the platform every musician wanted to grow in. Their reach is still enormous, yet there are several factors that have pushed me towards the decision of removing my music from it.

The main concern I have is the lack of regulation over music generated with artificial intelligence. In the last year, journalists and even casual listeners have uncovered that multiple “artists” verified by Spotify are not in fact human, but the result of using generative AI platforms like Suno or Udio. Said “artists” are boosted ...

These episodes of the podcast Success Beyond the Score complete the segment about music press kits. If you want to learn more about how to make money from your music and how to promote yourself, be sure to join our mailing list to be notified of our offers on this and other topics.

Have a listen:

19. What should be your killer music track for your press kit?

Sometimes, potential clients ask you for your music instead of your press kit. So, what should be your killer track, the one that gets them thinking you are the one to book? In general terms, what is the client looking for in your music?

20. How to make serious money from your music

Would you like to know how to increase your earning potential through your music? Would you like to earn the money you desire from your music? Millicent shares her experience of making a living from her music in this episode. 

21. What are the top three essential things to have in your music press kit?

Millicent wraps up her series on the Mus

...

It’s always important to let people know when you have been recognised by an external organisation. Grants, awards, honourable mentions, they all help build your reputation and brand as a creative. They are proof that your talents and contributions have been valued and appreciated by peers, fans and society at large. Never downplay such achievements! Share them on social media, include them in your portfolio and press kit, tell potential clients about it. There is no point in getting shy.

In my case, I was recently featured by the F-List, which is the Directory of Female & Gender Diverse Musicians. The e-mail arrived in my inbox surprisingly, I must say. They were highlighting four women in total, from which they had three. They thought that I would fit really well with the others. I felt honoured!

 

 

 

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A post shared by The F List for Music (@theflistmusic)

It quickly became clear during my conversation with them that, albeit I am a me...

One of the things that I learned in the early stages of my music career is the importance of having a sound check.

In the early stages, I would turn in at the start time of the event with my instrument, put it together while I was in my seat, go on stage when my name was called, and play. This made it so I didn't normally get the sound experience I hoped. Fast forward to today, when I arrive 90 to 60 minutes before the starting time of the performance, depending on whether I’m bringing my own PA. I make sure that my sax mic is working, that my setup is correct and that my tracks work. Then, I walk around the stage in order to identify any zones where the signal of the radio mic may drop or stutter, or where feedback could be generated.

This is how I can guarantee a good sound and therefore a good experience for my audience. To illustrate, here is a little clip of me doing a sound check before playing Kingston Town at an event this summer:

Today is World’s Menopause Day, when people around the world raise awareness and share their experiences in regard to this natural stage of human life. For the occasion, this year, the International Menopause Society published the 2025 White Paper, The Role of Lifestyle Medicine in Menopausal Health: A Review of Non-Pharmacologic Interventions. There, they show strong evidence, gathered across multiple studies, that point at how healthy habits in daily life can make a real difference in the well-being of menopausal individuals.

This idea aligns neatly with Millicent's own experience as a menopausal musician. When I joined the Smarter Change 12 weeks programme with Pamela Windle, we focused in making healthy lifestyle changes tailored to the specific needs and workings of my body. That’s why I wore a blood sugar monitor for weeks, in order to learn exactly which foods favour my metabolism, and what is the best time to eat for me. We looked at how to optimise my sleep patterns within th...