Hello, my name’s Aleks Juljanski. I’m a first-year undergraduate studying electric guitar,
specifically on the Popular course, here at Leeds Conservatoire. In this essay, I will
examine an area of the music industry that I hope to see myself in as a career. The
specific area I’ve chosen to examine is that of song-writing performers, with an
emphasis on those within alternative, shoegaze, grunge, and other left-field genres and
with a focus on the UK. I’ve chosen to mostly stick to the UK to narrow my research to
only that would be of note to what I aim to accomplish in future years. Further narrowing
my research, I will stick to researching contemporary artists to try find an accurate
representation of how the current music industry may fair.

What are the (academic and professional) qualifications and/or
experience required to enter the profession?

On initial glimpse, no sort of academic qualifications is necessarily required. Despite
this, many modern musicians find the connections and musical tools through
academic institutions like the Conservatoire, with the most notable recent example
being our own English Teacher (Cross, 2024). Their qualifications here helped to initially
make them meet and gave them the platform to break out in the post-punk scene.
There’s no doubt that their time studied here helped showcase their musicality as the
band’s songwriting, especially frontwoman Lily Fontaine’s lyricism, on their 2024 debut
‘This Could Be Texas’ won them that year’s Mercury Prize (Mercury Prize website, 2024).
English Teacher’s work has landed them on a massive festival circuit over the past few
years, which has seemed to become one of the best outlets for new bands nowadays to
receive traction.
Despite the benefits of studying musically academically, a point can be most certainly
made for one entering the music industry without an academic background. A relevant
example would be the band Wunderhorse. Frontman and songwriter Jacob Slater stated
that he left home at 17 (Kemp, 2022) to move to London to pursue a career in music,
first fronting the punk trio Dead Pretties in 2017, eventually disbanding that same year
due to the stress that the industry placed on the band. There is a possibility that this
initial entry into the profession may have been successful if the band had some
academic experience, but it didn’t stop Slater from re-entering the profession in 2021.
The experience gathered from his last outing helped Wunderhorse became one of the
biggest new acts in the alternative scene, playing sold-out international tours and
making similar festival circuit appearances, their most recent effort being supporting
Sam Fender on a sold-out UK stadium tour.
With these in mind, it’s clear that no qualifications are needed as made clear with Dead
Pretties, but their effort failed quickly, possibly due to the lack of any advice found
within a music qualification with how to deal with industry pressures. This also proves
that one can gain professional experience from such an event to re-enter the scene
successfully as seen in Wunderhorse. Academic qualifications, specifically in music
institutions, alternatively seem to greatly aid and provide easy, immediate resources
and connections to bands like English Teacher.

What knowledge, skills and personal qualities/attributes are needed
for success within the profession?

Obvious knowledge needed would be that of musical ability. To create songs of quality
with intent, one must know how to use their instrument of choice, whether that be
vocals, guitar, keyboard, etc. Songwriting itself is a skill that one constantly evolves
upon with every iteration of a song or section and success is often found due to that
skill being refined over a long duration of time. Another unavoidable skill is that of
performing live. Whilst social media has created new platforms for artists to reach
audiences, playing live remains one of the best ways to reach new audiences and one of
the primary ways to earn income for musicians. Like songwriting, live performing is a
skill that is refined, with artists like Wunderhorse, Fontaines D.C, and Sam Fender often
being highly-praised by critics for their excellent live shows.
Often other sorts of experiences within the music industry may prove successful for
songwriters. Using the previous example of English Teacher, guitarist Lewis Whiting and
Bassist Nicholas Eden both studied Production (Cross, G, 2024). This knowledge may
have complemented and informed the band’s songwriting process, with many of the
instrumental choices possibly being made from production perspectives.
As for personal qualities, one of the most important ones would be reliability. Many
people working in the music industry work tight schedules almost daily, so performers
often commit to said schedules and deadlines as to not waste anyone’s time, whether
it’s that of a studio engineer, live engineer, or even an audience. These would also
require people in the industry to clearly communicate with each other for the same
purpose. This would also come with the need to be adaptable to any mistakes that
would arise or changes to existing plans.

What are the duties and responsibilities of the profession – what does
a typical day’s work involve?

As mentioned in the previous section, reliability is a key responsibility to any work.
Taking the example of a live performance, a band would need to ensure that they clearly
communicate with any other bands which gear individual members would need to bring – i.e., which band should supply the guitar/bass amps, would each band bring their
own, which band should supply the drumkit, would each band bring their own
breakables, individual instruments, cables, pedalboards beforehand. They would also
need to ensure they make it on time to soundcheck, not waste any time during
soundcheck, allow the next band to soundcheck in quick succession then ensure they
appear on stage on time and not go over their allotted time, whilst ensuring no other
mistakes happen that would cause problems for everyone involved. Similar procedure would be involved in studio sessions barring the involvement of other bands.
Rehearsals and practice sessions would likely be frequent in the day-to-day of a song
writer/performer, in which the song-writer would showcase any recently created or
developed ideas; teach their bandmates a proposed written part for said songs or,
instead, jam to the idea presented until a part is found that suits. The band may go over
any mistakes made previously, or practice existing materials in isolation or in setlists for
upcoming events.
As an artist grows more established in the profession, their days may start to fill up with
more press appearances, whether that be photoshoots, interviews – whether they be
recorded and then transcribed, or video, or general promotion for newspapers or social
media.
A full day’s work for a performing artist would usually consist of these, sometimes being
multiple in the same day, just one, or maybe none. It all depends on the events
surrounding a musician’s day. In a busy festival circuit, live performances would be
frequent, with press usually following directly before or after with rehearsals possibly
same-day, in the lead-up or during soundcheck. Whereas in the rest after said festival
circuit, the average day would likely feature none of these, with perhaps the songwriter
working on ideas at home, away from any formal industry setting.

What are the main financial and legal issues that impact on this
profession?

Perhaps the main issue affecting new performing artists is low income from music,
often touring specifically. Referencing English Teacher again, in interview, they’ve gone
to state that Fontaine and Whiting were unable to afford rent during the making of ‘This
Could Be Texas’ (Wray, 2024) and that, as of the article’s writing, they were ‘yet to turn a
profit from touring.’ In the same interview, they go on to state that there is ‘no real
incline’ for artists fees in the past few years, as opposed to rising fees of travel and
accommodation. Some smaller artists may also face low-ticket-sales, especially if they
are yet to build up a following.
These same principles apply to streaming rates, with Spotify, the biggest streaming
platform, only paying out £0.003~ per stream. Most new bands take years to reach the
100,000 monthly listeners mark, let alone the millions that acts like Wunderhorse or
Fontaines D.C. receive. Fortunately, organisations like PRS for Music exist to help
guarantee fair payout for any use of member’s work which go against unfair rates of
other services such as DistroKid. Many small artists also turn to using services such as
Bandcamp, which allow audiences to pay larger, often single-digit amounts for digital
music which has the benefit of giving the artist a higher cut of the purchases,
Bandcamp only taking 15% of purchases for digital music (Bandcamp, no date.)

What would the potential marketing and promotional aspects of this
profession look like?

Artists like Fontaines D.C., Wunderhorse and IDLES use social media marketing subtly
and often sparingly when outside of album release cycles. Instagram pages seem to be
the main way of reaching and communicating with audiences, as this is where said
bands will routinely post tour dates and updates about said tours, album/single
announcements and press releases. Outside of which, these bands tend to keep a
constant stream of live photos and clips to showcase their respective shows and to
likely subtly advertise the live shows to potential audiences. Chosen clips will not
showcase a certain viral factor that is seen in other forms of social media marketing but
will often showcase high-energy moments or hooks in a likely way to intentionally
distance themselves from mentioned types of social media marketing. This is likely to
uphold a certain image that they trust audiences to subscribe to that comes with
distancing themselves from the audience.
Another important form of promotion and marketing is the interview, which artists
usually do during album release cycles to help promote the album. These are
traditionally with major music magazines such as NME or Rolling Stones, or large
publishers with dedicated music sections such as The Guardian and accompany album
reviews from said publishers.

What are the intellectual and personal challenges presented by the
profession and how might these be dealt with?

As mentioned with the Dead Pretties, some may find it difficult to cope with the
stressed and constant attention of the music industry and may turn to harmful habits
like drug abuse and can risk the musical projects falling apart. Many bands also suffer
fallouts, which is the main reason many influential bands may break up, take The
Smiths and the recently reformed Oasis. Both acts suffered from mismanagement
within the band because of creative differences and unclear intentions for the
musicians within the band. Johnny Marr, Smiths guitarist showed desire to collaborate
with other artists, which didn’t fit within singer Morrissey’s vision for the band as a
creative unit. As for Oasis, there was an ongoing feud between the Gallagher brothers
that seemed to go unchecked by the band, resulting the eventual break-up after
reaching it’s inevitable boiling point.
These instances highlight that bands will often find themselves in disagreements within
their roles in the bands and how they are treated as a result, in terms of profits made
from the music, what they have control over or not within the project, or if their voice is
listened to within any disputes that are to arise. It is a responsibility of everyone within a
project to make sure clear boundaries are set in place to avoid such challenges
appearing.

What career-progression/development opportunities are available
within the profession?

In the songwriter-performer profession, there are no typical types of promotion towards
other roles, but only the climb towards establishing a bigger audience and outreach, which leads to more streaming income, festival opportunities with higher placements
on the bill depending on popularity, and bigger shows. Because of this, the standard
trajectory for a new artist tends to start with playing small local clubs, before moving
onto larger clubs, perhaps in a more regional city area, then moving onto playing clubs
across the country. Larger artists would then likely move onto touring larger theatre
venues such as the O2 venues, alongside an international tour or overseas tour of
possibly the same size depending on overseas appeal before then moving onto arena
style venues.

Bibliography
Cross, G. (2024). English Teacher Secure Top Ten UK Album and Northern Music Award
https://www.leedsconservatoire.ac.uk/about-us/news/english-teacher-secure-top-ten
uk-album-and-northern-music-award/
English Teacher announced as overall winner of 2024 Mercury Prize for ‘Album of the Year’
(2024). https://www.mercuryprize.com/news/english-teacher-announced-as-overall
winner-of-2024-mercury-prize-for-album-of-the-year.
Fair Trade Music Policy | Bandcamp (no date).
https://bandcamp.com/fair_trade_music_policy.
Kemp, E. (2022) Wunderhorse: the storytelling songwriter on his debut album ‘Cub.’
https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/music/features/wunderhorse-dead-pretties-cub-album
interview-23553/.
Wray, D.D. (2024) ‘‘The working class can’t afford it’: the shocking truth about the money
bands make on tour,’ The Guardian, 14 May.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/25/shocking-truth-money-bands-make
on-tour-taylor-swift.