Success Beyond The Score

Fair Score is a joint campaign between the Musicians’ Union and The Ivors Academy, which seeks to ensure fair commissioning in media composition. It fights against coercive buyouts, opaque pitching processes, and deals that violate composers’ rights.

In a first survey conducted during 2019, the predecessor of Fair Score found that 35% of the surveyed media composers had accepted buyouts or work-for-hire deals. This means that, instead of receiving a commissioning fee upfront and royalties over time, they got a one-off fee and nothing else. This endangers the livelihood of composers, as they are deprived of long term income sources.

The same survey revealed that 41% of the surveyed composers gave up more mechanical rights than they wanted to, and 64% affirmed they believed the commissioning environment is coercive. This is unsustainable and harmful for the industry, even more now that commissioners count on the threat of generative AI to put pressure on media composers.

It’s importan...

Time is always scarce. The more something matters to us, the more it feels like everything else gets in the way. Days are just too short. Or are they?

Look at your typical schedule for the week. There are some fixed things that you can't skip if you want to stay alive: sleeping and resting, eating, hygiene routines, physical activity. Block those out. There are also unskippable commitments, like work or study —with their respective commute time— house chores, and family logistics (for example, getting your kids ready for school). Finally, there are things that enrich and give meaning to your life, like the nurturing and enjoyment of your relationships, or your spiritual journey, religious or not. Once you block those out as well, you will see the time you really have for yourself, and can decide how to best use it.

At this stage, it's a matter of priorities. What do you want to achieve? What are the most important steps towards achieving it? A to-do list will be very handy, as it wil...

Success Beyond the Score is a project born from Millicent's willingness to support men and women in their music journey. Through her podcast, mentoring, courses and resources, she has already helped people at different stages of their careers to achieve their goals.

Last month, she talked about the what, why, how, when and where of creating and achieving your vision in music. The only question left to answer is "with whom". We aren't born knowing! Having mentors or teachers is an essential part of taking our craft to where we want it to be. That's why Millicent is putting together a new way to guide and support singers and musicians in their journey. In order to assist with that, we are currently conducting a survey to assess the topics of greatest interest among our audience, and how you'd like to learn about them.

Click here to start the survey.

It will take you at most five minutes, and you will get a gift to thank you for your time at the end. Your contribution will help us unde...

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...

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:

One year ago today, the talented women from Time For My Music got together for their second online concert on YouTube. They showcased their fantastic skills, old and new, and raised money for charity. We also paid tribute to our dear former member Carlene, who sadly passed away a few weeks before the concert.

It was a great experience and we definitely want to go back to the stage in 2023. In order to improve our show, we have put together a quick survey. If you have attended or watched a Time For My Music concert before, we’d be very thankful if you could take a few minutes to fill it out.   (THE SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED)

Remember that you can revisit the concert on YouTube at any time:

Thank you so much for your input. We hope to see you in our next big show!

Help Musicians UK and Musicians Union have helped funding the PiPA (Parents in Performing Arts) Classical Music Survey, which aims to identify patterns in job and working environments in relation to work-life balance, and develop practical strategies and resources for Classical Music organisations to better support parents and carers, and the wider workforce.

You can take the survey clicking here.

The survey was developed in partnership with Association of British Orchestras, Liverpool Philharmonic, SWAP’ra, Black Lives in Music and UK Music. It will investigate the impact of caring responsibilities on career progression as well as wider worklife balance and wellbeing challenges in Classical Music.

The survey will provide data driven insights to enable PiPA to develop a range of strategies and resources for the Classical Music sector to empower organisations to better support parents, carers and the wider workforce.

PiPA wants to hear from people from all backgrounds and circumstan...