Future Sounds - Music Industry Experience Day - Oct 2019

As part of Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust's (NMPAT) current Fund B grant for "Industrious", we are planning to do three conference events across the next three years. We had originally envisaged expanding the scope of our existing conference format to something more akin to an "expo" type experience where there would have been a much broader range of activities on offer.

In 2017, we had run an SEN/D focussed conference... and whilst this had been a success, we wanted to explore other areas of inclusion this time around. As one might infer from the title of our project, exploring links with the contemporary popular music industry was high on the agenda, but we were struggling, in our own minds at least, with finding ways of making the event something that would be appealing to school-based music teachers and other education professionals (our typical conference audience).... at least to the extent that they would be motivated enough to make the arguments internally to get the day out of school!!!! At the same time, a couple of other aspects of the project: the development and implementation of a Musical Inclusion Strategy, and extending and enhancing Youth Voice across the organisation, were being considered.

To cut a long story short, we felt we could meld some of these things together and offer a music industry experience day for young musicians from the ages of 14 through to 25 (as opposed to adults... although we did later during the publicity cycle extend the lower age limit down to 10) and build a focus around practical activities and hands-on workshops around different aspects of the contemporary popular music industry. Our approach here was further motivated by the good relationships NMPAT is currently developing with Steinberg and Roland... as well as the construction of a new studio space on-site at our base in Northampton.

The full programme was:

The Studio Trenches Experience - a chance to get under of a wide range of studio recording techniques (e.g. how best to mic up a drum kit etc.) led by NMPAT's Head of Music Production, John Calcott
Exploring Cubase 10 - led by Steinberg demonstrator, DJ Sappo
Ableton Live and Push - a practical hands-on session led by lecturers and students from Northampton College.
Hybrid Drums - a change to explore Roland's innovative Hybrid Drums system with Roland demonstrators
Live Loung Challenge - an experimental session (on our part) to find new ways of bringing together creative group music-making/composition and creative approach to studio recording and music production into a single experience.... the challenge being to have created and recorded a new song by the end of the day. Led by Sigrun Griffiths and DJ Daniel Johnson
Q&A session - a chance for the young people attending to ask all the attending musicians, session demonstrators and artists, questions about the music industry. The team was joined by solo artists Susannah Sail and Jess Orestano, local reggae musician, bassist and music producer, Robbie Valentine and Josh Steptoe, lead guitarist with the Leeds-based band, Askies
THE BIG JAM - a final fun get-together for everyone attending at the end of the day!

The day seems to have been a success overall. The Q&A session was particularly enlightening... some of the insights from the young people included:

Dissatisfaction with the lack of choice over music pathways at Year 10/11 - e.g. GCSE Music being the only option
Interest in more vocational/practical courses such as BTEC and UAL's Extended Diploma courses
A plea for more practical based sessions such as The Live Lounge Challenge and The Big Jam.... as well as more chances to explore different types of music tech

There was an interesting part of the discussion around the use of social media to promote one's music... but also advice from the experienced professionals not to follow "likes" exclusively and to make sure you get out and perform your music locally. Similarly, there was advice to the young people to ensure they developed supplementary skills supporting their musical talents to help them promote and develop their business skills.

Having done this first Future Sounds event... feedback from both the young people attending, the professionals, and NMPAT colleagues certainly leave us with no room for manoeuvre... that is, we need to repeat the event next year!!! Of course, there will be some tweaks to the way we do things... but we think at the moment our main concern is coming up with such a wide-ranging and extensive programme for a second... and possibly, third time!! (Suggestions, please!)