Music Union
The Music Union is a union which much like the teacher’s
union or the plumber’s union- is there to represent worker’s rights. The union
is formed of a group of people who fight for the rights of musicians, negotiate
standard pay rates, offer legal guidance to members, hold conferences
discussing trade issues and voice the concerns of a trade to political powers
(as high up in the government as necessary.) The Music Union offers public liability
insurance of up to £10 million (much more than you would ever need),
instrumental insurance of up to £2000, legal assistance for negotiating contracts or helping to claim
money for a musical job or unpaid fees, it helps with copyright protection and
gives career and business advice and networking opportunities. The cost of membership
is £201 per year or just £20 a year for students. Use of services are unlimited
whilst you are a member- so you could make use of their lawyers as much as you
wanted in that time without having to pay extra lawyer’s fees. If you pay for
membership as a student for the year- you will not need to pay more money again
if you stop being a student. You will only need to provide the proof that you
are in full time education the one time when you are signing up. For this
reason it is wise to sign up whilst you are still a student as you are still
entitled to all of the same rights as someone who has paid £201 for the year.
One example of a case where the Music Union fought for musicians rights is quite
recently when they found that British Airways was charging £300 to bring a
cello onto their planes- sometimes more for larger instruments. Previously
airline companies would allow passengers to bring instruments onto their planes
as hand luggage and free of charge providing they had space. Considering it
costs on average £200 to buy a cello- the union found that it would be cheaper
to buy a new cello when musicians got to their destinations than bring their
own onto a plane. The outcome of this was that the Music Union wrote letters to
all of the major airlines who had put this rule into place and are still
fighting the case. It is important as a musician that you invest your money in
the MU as there are many benefits for you. It is a whole lot cheaper to insure
your content and hold public liability insurance through the MU than it is to
do it separately- if someone were to trip and fall during one of your lessons
the chances are you would be paying out way more than a small fee of £201 a
year. The MU will also provide you with legal advice whenever you need it and
if you were to find yourself in front of a contract ready to sign it you may
need a lawyer who specialises in music to look into this for you before you
touch pen to paper. For session musicians it is especially important that you
are signed up to the Music Union. One of the main reasons why this is the case
is because as a session musician you will find yourself travelling to various
places for studio sessions, gigs and other live performances- and the majority
of the time you are taking any work you can get without looking too closely
into how legitimate the company may be. Often when this happens musicians find
themselves not being paid for the work they have done. It is then very
difficult to claim the money you are owed. If you are signed up to the Music
Union this shouldn’t happen as not only are you able to ask the Union to look
into how legitimate the company/venue is for you- you are also able to hire a
lawyer free of charge to take these people to court and get you the money you
are owed. Another issue that you may encounter as a session musician when
travelling is; damage done to your instruments. If you are signed up to the
Music Union you are guaranteed to be given at least the minimum required to fix
or replace your instrument. This saves you emptying your own pockets to pay for
it yourself.
PRS
“PRS is a UK copyrighting collection society and performance
rights organisation undertaking collective rights management for musical works.”
PRS for Music collects loyalty points for the person whose
music was played by another party holding a PRS licence. Some examples of
places that hold PRS licences are; pubs, clubs, party venues, advertising
agencies, shops, restaurants, radios stations…etc. The venues are all required
to buy a license before music can be played (both from a recording and live). PRS
organises the money collected from these places and distributes it to the
artists accordingly. It is only £50 a year to sign up to PRS and this gives you
unlimited access to the service and unlimited use of songs. PRS for music is
seen to be successful as in 2013 they were reported to have made £665.7
million. For a musician paying the £50 a year fee it is a good investment as
you are guaranteed to more than make back your money if you happen to release a
hit and it is played by lots of different radio stations and venues. This is
important for session musicians particularly though as well as all musicians in
general as you as an artist may have composed a song and without signing up to
PRS you are unable to receive the loyalty points and recognition for it being
played by a second party. The consequences of this is that you miss out on making
money off of your music. Also, by uploading your music onto PRS and announcing
that it is your track you are also copyrighting your music. This saves you
paying out money each time you want to copyright a track. Many musicians don’t
know where to start when copyrighting their tracks and therefore don’t bother
copyrighting them at all with the hope that no one will steal their song. At
least if you are signed up to PRS you are covered by something. However, the
consequence of not signing up to PRS is that if someone does decide to steal
your song you have nothing to fall back on and could potentially lose yourself
a great hit and a lot of money. In order
to perform covers/record a cover of a song you will need to hold a PRS license.
If you don’t do this you could get into a lot of trouble with the person who
holds the copyright to the song and be made to pay out a lot of money. For
session musicians this is vital as often when being asked to perform at various
venues they ask that you perform covers of songs that the audiences will be
familiar with- for more exposure you may also need to upload covers onto
YouTube, Sound Cloud and other major music sites. In order to do this however,
you need to hold a PRS licence.
Up to date
CV
Having an up to date CV is extremely important when wanting
to be a session musician or even when taking a career in music as it makes
finding employment a whole lot easier. If you were to have gaps in employment
on your CV or you didn’t include all of the music jobs/gigs/performances you
have had- then the employer would think that you are not serious about music
and you could therefore miss out on great job opportunities. A CV not only
demonstrates your skills, it also shows the employer how experienced you are.
Therefore, you need to ensure that you include all of the best work you have
had as you are looking to impress the employer. However, you don’t want to
overload your CV with your experience and so you should stick to only including
your most significant jobs- if you have far too many to write up. When looking
for session musicians employers are looking for the best! Therefore you need to
make sure that your CV also includes your highest graded exam in your main
instrument, references from people who are well known and respected in the
industry (if you have any) and details of courses you have taken/colleges you
have attended providing they are relevant to music and the job. (Don’t include
irrelevant information such as; I attended Barnfield South Academy and studied
English, Dance, History and Geography. Only include this information if you
attended well known performance schools/colleges such as; BRIT school or Sylvia
Young Theatre School and studied music.)
Networking and
Communicating
Networking is also equally as important as having an up to
date CV as you need to network in order to find those job opportunities.
Networking is mostly important for people taking a career as a session musician
as the jobs you will be mostly aiming for are; paid gigs, live performances and
studio sessions. In order to gain these you need to expose your talent through
networking at jam nights, unpaid gigs, live performances and social networking
sites. Networking is the basis for your career. You need to meet new people in
order to find new opportunities and you need to promote yourself in order to
gain exposure. As a freelance musician you need to meet as many contacts as
possible and advertise your brand. This is easy for a session musician as you
will naturally be meeting people and networking whilst gigging and travelling.
However, it can be difficult if you’re working on an album or EP as you’ll
solely be in the studio. You may need promoters and a manager to do the work
for you. These days’ social networking sites are packed full of promotion and
are how most musician promote their music and meet new people working within
the industry. Not only is it important to get your music out there, it is
equally as important to meet new people with aligning interests as they may
just have that power to push your career that one step further. Social
Networking is a necessity when getting your music out there as you need as many
people as possible to take an interest in your talent and this is the most
efficient way. Facebook and Twitter are just a few social networking sites that
people use to promote their music and these are often seen to be the best as
they attract billions of people to their sites every day! Another way in which
you can make important contacts is through gigging and jam nights. Often
musicians will meet their future manager or future band member through doing
gigs and jam nights. It is important that you take up the opportunity to
perform at these mini events as producers and managers will often branch out to
these places in the hope of finding fresh talent and you could be the person
they approach! There are many examples of this happening in the industry. The
famous Adele was spotted performing with her old guitar at an open mic night
and now she is a multi-millionaire and has sold millions of records. This can
happen to anyone. If you don’t take up opportunities like these you won’t be
spotted.
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