Higher Education and Live Music in Wales: Future Developments

Well, I am coming toward the end of the research into the relationships between live music and higher education in Wales. With the report due at the end of this month, I thought I would provide some comments below. Very happy to receive any comments, preferably before the end of the month – I could include them in the report then!

From a music industry perspective, the recent acquisition by Live Nation, of data entertainment firm Big Champagne,[1] could be considered indicative of how the global live music industry is changing, and the financial emphasis that is being placed upon it. According to Hypebot.Com’s Bruce Houghton, the takeover represents the essential next step to drive a transformation of live music based on data rather than the antiquated assumptions of the old guard music industry (Houghton, 2012b). However, if we regard this purchase more cynically, it clearly follows the paradigm that is pervasive throughout the history of recorded music: the purchase the smaller innovative companies by a dominant wealthy few (ironically, what Houghton describes as the antiquated “old guard”) – an oligopoly that facilitates the capitalist society both Higher Education and the Music Industry operate in.

Equally so, the Higher Education sector is going through a period of great change, with “New Universities” in particular having to face up to issues such as employability, the influx of private providers, and validation powers in Further Education Colleges, not to mention the unknown impact that increased student fees may have on the entire sector. In Wales of course there is also the question of impeding university mergers, and although the exact details are not known yet, the Welsh Higher Education sector of the future will look very different to what it does today.

The question for Welsh Higher Education music departments engaged in live music, is how to negotiate these two independent, powerful forces. How do we engage with both the national and international live music scenes from a pedagogical and research perspective, ensuring our students gain an industrially relevant and academically challenging experience, while undergoing the changes to Higher Education and the live sector as outlined above?

It is apparent from the report for the Higher Education Academy, in addition to previous investigations undertaken, that the Welsh music industry requires far more research into its various infrastructures. Although not an exhaustive list, issues such as why bands bypass Wales when touring; transport issues to and from venues; publicity infrastructures in the capital and throughout Wales (Do audiences feel informed? What community and local Council activities are already taking place?); working relationships between venues and local councils, and venues and national promoters; and the relationships between live music and cultural tourism – from both an import and export perspective, are indicative of factors that not only require on-going research, but also should be included into taught music industry modules, that from experience tend to focus on global rather than local paradigms.  Although some parties within the Welsh music industry would question its relevance – arguing that academic exercises such as this represent the pinnacle of “knowledge resistance”,  in congruence with the numerous other nations, it is suggested that a comprehensive mapping document of Wales is required, documented independently, and including a critical investigation of what could be learned from nations such as Scotland, New Zealand and Finland – the latter who seem particularly successful in fostering government support for performing live music abroad.

Regarding pedagogical initiatives, in congruence to the University of Bolton’s relationship with the Backstage Academy, and the University of Plymouth’s work with Deep Blue Sound, it seems prudent for Welsh Higher Education to continue to investigate what industrial and governmental bodies it can work with in order to address the specific skill gaps referred to by Creative and Cultural Skills, and most importantly how they impact the Welsh live music industry. As stated earlier, keeping intellectual property and income streams within Wales is an essential factor if the Welsh live music industry is to build upon its current £60 turnover, an increase which is essential if the Welsh industry is to become truly independent.

Considering that part of this skill gap needs to be targeted at practitioners already working in the Welsh Music Industry, it is also logical to suggest that Higher Education needs to investigate part-time, distance learning and particularly “accelerated” provision – in order to open up these markets, so Higher Education institutions can facilitate practitioner engagement within and between their working lives. As stated in the stakeholder interviews section in the report, a number of industrial and government bodies are open to the idea of strategic work placements, and in congruence with the likes of Buckingham New University, the instigation of “production companies” within the Welsh university sector would potentially facilitate outward facing, industry focused “centres”, that would encourage music departments to engage with mechanisms such as Accreditation for Prior Experiential Learning, accreditation for current work based learning, in addition to ensuring “traditional” undergraduate students get the opportunity to engage in meaningful accredited work with the live music industry.

The importance of skills, and the relative lack of interest in accreditation in both the questionnaire and some stakeholder interviews reflects larger scale studies carried out by Creative and Cultural Skills (Wenham and Felton, 2011) and a Creative and Cultural Industries Workforce Survey  – both of which suggest that Higher Education is not serving industry with the skills it needs. It is suggested, in the music industry, the grey area between skills and qualifications can only be alleviated if:

1) Employers understand what skills students will have once they have obtained specific qualifications

2) Students themselves have a clear understanding of the relationship between skills and qualifications

3) Both parties are convinced that course content is relevant to the sub-sectors of live music they are working in

It is understood that mutual trust between the live music sector and Higher Education will not develop overnight, and initiatives such as The Live Music Exchange is for the first time beginning to facilitate how both parties can constructively work together. Based on some of the work undertaken as part of this report, the next Live Music Exchange event is planned to be in Cardiff, as part of the 2012 Sŵn Festival in October 2012, and it is envisaged this will provide a strategic opportunity to explore how Higher Education can facilitate the economic and cultural development of live music in Wales.

 

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[1] See (http://bcdash.bigchampagne.com/what)

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The Hologram of Tupac: Where does this leave the future of live music?

I have spent the the day thinking about the Snoop Dogg gig this week with the hologram of Tupac – who died in 1996. Where does this leave the future of live music? In a few years time, will we be going to see the Beatles at Yankee Stadium, or the Michael Jackson Dangerous tour? Will it be possible for holograms of bands to play 100 gigs in one night – a world tour in 2-3 hours? More important – how does the use of technology like this make you feel? Is it any different from going to see a tribute band or buying an album like Crash Landing by Hendrix – which features Hendrix ‘performing’ with musicians via studio technology? In short – is it morally correct? Watch this link asap – as You Tube seem to be  taking it down at breakneck speed.

 

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The Relationships Between Higher Education and the Live Music Industry in Wales: A Critical Analysis (working title)

As indicated in reports such as Building New Business Strategies for the Music Industry in Wales (ap Siôn, 2009), An Assessment of the Feasibility of Establishing an Independent Music Licensing and Royalty Collection Agency for Wales (Ap Rhisiart and Owen, 2011) and Investigating the Live Music Industry in Wales: A Critical Analysis (Carr, 2011),  the value of live music to the Welsh economy is significant, with the most recent calculations from the PRS indicating the value of UK Live music in 2010 to be £1,430 million ­­- down 6.8% on the previous year’s £1,589 million (Carey and Page, 2011).

To see the rest of the blog – click here.

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Live Music and Higher Education: How can we work together?

I am starting a new research project in a couple of weeks related to live music. It builds on a number of projects I have done before – but this time is specifically related to how Higher Education can work more productively with the live music sector. Although focused on Wales, the research should be of interest to all. I have set up a specific blog for the project here, and I would very much appreciate any feedback that would assist the research. If you work in live music in the UK, I would also appreciate you doing the online questionnaire – which can be found here. I will be posting updates of this research to the new blog, but will occasionally update progress here – more to follow.

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One Direction Tickets – Secondary Ticketing

Here is another great post about secondary ticketing. I know first hand how much people are prepared to pay – it is scary!! Click here to read an in depth report via a Watchdog programme on Secondary Ticketing.

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Live Music Exchange: Mastering Tickets

There is an excellent post by Martin Cloonan on live music ticketing on the live music exchange. It reads as follows

 

On Thursday 23 February Channel 4’s Dispatches programme was entitled The Great Ticket Scandal. In it Channel 4 reporters went under cover to investigate what happens at two leading “fan exchange” sites, Viagogo and Seatwave. They found that contrary to the sites’ claims that they are simply a mechanism for fans to mutually exchange tickets, in reality they are clearing houses for a combination of semi professional and professional touts and promoters who sold direct to these “secondary” ticket agents. It was alleged that the biggest concert promoter in the world, Live Nation, is amongst those selling directly to the secondary market and thus benefitting from sales of ticket at prices which are well above the face value. The fallout from this seems set to continue.

What was at stake in the programme was two things. The first is fairness. Here fans who were at box offices and online at exactly the time that tickets went on sale were allegedly denied them because promoters had already sold chunks of primary tickets direct to the secondary market. This was portrayed as a well-established, routine, practice. Secondly, came deception. Both the sites claimed to be fan to fan, but evidence suggested that genuine fan exchange accounts were a maximum of a third of the sites’ business. In addition in cases where Viagogo was not being allocated tickets by the promoter, it used illicit means (such as multiple credit card buying) to buy tickets on the primary market which it then sold through its own website. In both cases the seller was not another fan, but the site itself. Considerable sums of money could be made here, the sites and promoters were alleged to be complicit in the deception, although no acts were named as benefitting from it.

To read the rest of the post – click the link below.  My big question is this – how does this relate to Wales?

 

Mastering Tickets.

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Update of Current Activities

Just a quick update of what I am up to at the moment. Firstly – the edited collection on Frank Zappa is about one month from being sent to the publishers! The plan is to get it on the shelves by the end of this year – so fingers crossed. When it comes out – I will post more details of chapters etc.

My chapter on Welsh Identity in music was realeased last month in Popular Music History. This has been a long time coming – it can be found here

I am also in the process of finishing off a chapter with my colleague Prof. Richard Hand on British Rock ‘n’ Roll in Cinema. It will be published in Spain in L’Atalante. Revista de estudios cinematográficos – more details soon.

Finally I have just started some research for The Higher Education Academy into how live music can interface with higher education. As part of the project I will be speaking at a couple of conferences in May – and will post more details about this when I have them

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National Identity versus Commerce: An Analysis of Opportunities and Limitations within the Welsh Music Scene for Composers and Performing Musicians

I have a new Journal article coming out in the next week which discusses some askpects of the Welsh Music scene. It will be published in the Journal ‘Popular Music History’ – a short abstract copied below.

This chapter intends to explore current issues surrounding the opportunities and limitations inherent within the Welsh music scene, for composers and performing musicians within the popular music industry. It is apparent that Wales currently presents a number of prospects to obtain exposure within national boundaries, with BBC Radio Cymru, Gwyliwch Y Gofod, Bandit, Sioe Gelf  and Gofod  all being indicative examples of Radio and TV specifically targeting Welsh talent. Indeed, Welsh music and artistry has long been internationally prevalent through popular artists like Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey during the 1960’s, rock bands such as Man, Budgie and Badfinger during the 1970’s, The Alarm and The Manic Street Preachers emerging during the mid and late 1980’s, and Super Furry Animals and Catatonia during the Brit Pop influenced Cool Cymru  period of the 1990’s. However, it could be argued that many of these artists compromise their Welsh identity by singing in English, with Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Super Furry Animals and Catatonia being particularly interesting examples of ensembles originally part of a Welsh-speaking scene during the 1980s–1990s, who were later to perform their music in English, often for commercial imperatives. As outlined by David Owen, Welsh speaking bands such as Crumblowers and Ffa Coffi Pawb“realised if they were ever to make a successful career they would have to sing in English” (2006) – this is a politically contentious decision facing Welsh-speaking ensembles to this day. The financial imperative to gain exposure outside of Wales can be considered more important of late, due to the recent reductions in Performing Rights Society (PRS) royalty rates, a factor which has made it significantly more problematic for musicians to operate professionally within Welsh boundaries. This chapter investigates the sometimes opposing political, commercial, and nationalistic pressures on Welsh musicians to sustain a living. Furthermore, it considers how these factors can potentially affect their Welsh identity, a term which was identified by Hill (2007) as being inherently problematic. After documenting a brief contextualisation of the history of Welsh popular music and its dialogic relationship with the construction and portrayal of identity, the chapter will proceed to outline how opportunities and threats are impacted by this construction. It argues that both the government and the music industry need to negotiate the gray area between economics and cultural authenticity, leaving musicians free to portray their ‘Welshness’ as they see fit.  The necessity for a unified industry that facilitates musicians to exploit their intellectual property rights inside and outside of Wales is also emphasised as an important factor regarding the capacity of the Welsh music industry propagating employment for its workforce.

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An Overview of 2011

It is so long since I last blogged, so I thought this seemed a good time to set a new year’s resolution to upload a post at least once a week. So – here goes – a brief synopsis of what I have been up to last year (as far as I can remember).

Due to the amount of work I have had to do on the edited collection on Frank Zappa (More later) – I made a decision to not present at as many conferences this year. I did however do a couple. The first was in Liege in March – on ‘Loops in Popular Music’ – a really interesting international discussion at the local university. I presented the paper with my colleague – Dr Ben Challis – and after the proceedings of the conference were processed we were asked to update our work for a book chapter. The book is in the French language, and at the moment is being edited – more of this in a later post.

This was followed by a conference at Edinburgh University, which was organised by Prof. Simon Frith and focused on live music – part of a 3 year project funded by AHRC.. This gave me the chance to discuss the research I had recently completed into the live music industry in Wales, and was a great opportunity to listen to loads of industry professionals and academics discuss their research. An overview of the papers can be found here for those that are interested.  The research into the Live Music Industry in Wales also led to a talk at the Institute of Welsh Affairs (which was really well attended), an interview with the Minature Music Press, a talk at the Hay Festival and a couple of radio interviews.

September of last year also witnessed the launch of the European Social Funded Foundation Degree in Music Industry Entrepreneurship I had been working on for a number of years. The idea for this started a couple of years ago with a paper that was published in the Journal for Applied Research in Higher Education, and I hope this course can act as a sort of template of the ways in which the music industry can work with Higher Education.

The Zappa Book has been progressing nicely and is due to be handed into the publishers at the end of March 2012. Although not conferences, I was lucky enough to do a couple of talks at the University of Valencia and Cardiff University this year on some of the thinking behind the book. Although I am really pleased with how the book is shaping up, one of the book’s key contributors David Sanjek sadly passed away just prior to Christmas. He had handed his chapter in just a couple of weeks before and had worked so hard on it. His death came as such a shock to everyone and I have decided to dedicate the book to Dave – he will be sorely missed.

I have also had a couple of other publications released this year on Zappa, but rather than go into specific details – anyone who is interested can get details here.

Finally, thanks to Spotify, I have managed to listen to so much music this year. In no particular order – the best music of the year includes:

The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

James Blake – Enough Thunder

White Denim – D

Beady Belle – Cewbeagappic

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Nigel Price Organ Trio – Heads & Tales

Amon Tobin – ISAM

Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow

Radiohead – The King Of Limbs

Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know

Radiohead – TKOL RMX 1234567

Happy new year.

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The Live Music Industry in Wales: A Snapshot of Findings

The Welsh Music Industry is currently standing at a crossroads: is it always to be reliant on the industrial infrastructure of England? is it always to accept the fact that concert ticket sales are often slow (making the business of music promotion even more risky); does it accept that potential audiences have to be prepared to go travel to regions such as Bristol and Manchester for concerts that should be happening in Wales? is it acceptable to ‘buy in’ skills for major events as opposed to utilising and training indigenous talent?

 

The recent research I conducted for the Welsh Music Foundation does not propose that it has solutions to many of these questions, although it hopefully raises numerous important issues – that must be addressed if Wales is to break free of the predicaments outlined above. As stated in the report, the Welsh live music industry currently constitutes around 4% of the UK total – around 60 million per year. With a population of around 3 million, Wales makes up around 5% of the UK population – so it could be argued that this division of profit seems about right. However, I would argue, that in a globalised economy, Wales as a nation (as opposed to a region of the UK!) has an opportunity to focus on specific areas of the live music industry, that would facilitate a greater cut of the £1.5 billion live music currently generates.

 

As verified in the debate that followed on from my talk for the Institute of Welsh Affairs in Chapter Arts yesterday, this needs to start from the bottom up. In my view, factors such as ensuring the commercial music sector in particular are empowered to take advantage of the seed grants being made available by the Arts Council of Wales (in order to propagate innovation), the importance of constructive dialogues between the music industry and local councils (such as that currently taking place between the Welsh Music Foundation and Cardiff Council), and ensuring the training Wales offers reflects both the needs of the global and local industry, will all provide the foundation for what everybody wants – Wales making the most of the most of the economic and cultural opportunities live music presents.

 

The Welsh live music industry can only do business with the outside world if it has the skills and infrastructures in place within its borders, and this report will hopefully provide a commencement point for this to take place.

Here is a podcast version of the talk I gave for the Institute of Welsh Afairs yesterday. It was great to see so many people attend, but for those who missed it, this gives a snapshot of what was talked about.

 

 

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