Musicians Union Work not Play Campaign
The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-04971, in the name of Drew Smith, on work not play. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the launch of the Musicians’ Union’s Work Not Play campaign; understands that this campaign aims to highlight the growing trend of professional musicians in Glasgow and across Scotland who are expected to work for no fee; notes that this builds on the work done by the Musicians’ Union in respect of the London 2012 Olympics, which highlighted that the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games had offered many professional musicians unpaid gigs; considers that in an era of illegal downloading, live performance revenue is incredibly important; believes that many people seem to think that music and entertainment are a hobby rather than a career and are unaware of the years of training and hard work that it takes to become a professional performer; further understands that the campaign website, WorkNotPlay.co.uk, is available for musicians to post such experiences, and notes that the Twitter hashtag, #WorkNotPlayMU, is also available.
12:36
I thank all those members who supported the motion for the opportunity to have it debated today. I thank particularly my colleague Patricia Ferguson for her support on the issue. She cannot take part in the debate as she is on parliamentary business at the Committee of the Regions.
I refer you, Presiding Officer, and members to my register of interests, not as a performing artist but as a past member of the Scottish Trades Union Congress general council, to which the Musicians Union is affiliated.
The trades union movement has shaped my politics, and it continues to do so. I take this opportunity to congratulate the MU on all that it does to represent musicians, support a successful music industry and remind us that musicians are workers, too. I welcome to the public gallery Rab Noakes, a member of the MU executive committee, Fraser Speirs and Bill Martin, members of the regional committee, and Jen Hunter, the MU’s regional officer.
Music enriches our lives as listeners and spectators. Those of us who can play or who have had the opportunity to learn to do so are enriched. In common with amateurs, many professional and semi-professional musicians love making music, but for most the job of being a musician is unlikely to enrich them in monetary terms.
The MU’s excellent publication “The Working Musician” is the culmination of a major research project that the MU commissioned last year. In the document, the MU has brought together some sobering statistics about the reality of life for the jobbing musician, which I will share with Parliament and the public at large. More than half of the musicians surveyed by the project—56 per cent—earn less than £20,000 a year. Almost two thirds of working musicians are not regularly able to contribute to a pension, and 60 per cent of musicians report that they have worked for free in the past 12 months.
The evidence detailed in “The Working Musician” is the result of a survey of more than 2,000 workers and in-depth interviews with both musicians and industry insiders. Most working musicians are multiskilled; four out of five have been performing for more than five years; two thirds have invested four or more years in learning their craft through formal training and education; and 40 per cent hold a degree in music. Other self-employed workers face some similar challenges, but the situation for musicians is on a different scale. I mentioned pension contributions a moment ago: at present, one in five of all workers are without pension provision and one in three self-employed workers do not have a pension, but only 35 per cent of musicians pay into a pension.
The MU undertook its research because it suspected that the scale of the problem among its membership was large. However, it was also prompted to undertake the research by the explosion in the numbers of musicians reporting the expectation that they would work for free during the London Olympics. The legacy of the cultural Olympiad should not be impoverished music makers. I therefore ask the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs to consider how we should address that specific issue as we prepare for Glasgow 2014.
Nearly all of us love music. I enjoy gigs, music festivals and, some colleagues might be surprised to hear, even the odd orchestral performance or opera when I can. We will all have different favourite bands, pubs where we go to hear music, clubs and companies that we support. Why do we all value music, but fail to value musicians?
The United Kingdom and Scottish music industries are extremely successful. Money is made, but it does not always go to those who make music. UK music exports amount to £17 billion a year. The UK is one of only three countries in the world—the others are Sweden and the United States—that are net exporters of music. Half of all albums that are sold in the UK are recorded by British artists. The British music market is the third largest in the world, and 10 per cent of all the recorded music that is sold in the world is British. In one year, British orchestras played to UK audiences of 4.18 million, toured in 39 countries, performed 457 concerts overseas and generated an income of nearly £150 million. Britain loves music, and Scotland loves music.
One of the reasons why I ended up in my city of Glasgow was the live music scene. Glasgow is recognised as one of the world’s foremost musical places, even by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. As Celtic Connections continues in Glasgow this week, so does the rock, pop and indie scene. Glasgow’s music scene is legendary, and it stretches across the whole spectrum, from contemporary and classical to Celtic and country music. Its venues are equally varied, and it hosts an average of 130 music events each week, which is more than the figure for any other place in Scotland.
Many gigging artists, session musicians, orchestra players, music arrangers and teachers are told by promoters in the industry and others, “I’ve got a great gig for you. Lots of exposure. A great support slot. But sorry—no pay.” The industry itself has a lot to answer for. My former Labour colleague Pauline McNeill was closely involved with musicians and promoters in efforts to empower artists and improve their working conditions, but there are problems outside the industry, too. Charities are among the worst offenders. Musicians will often hear the statement, “It’s for a good cause.” Most of us will have attended events—we will possibly have paid a ticket price for them—for which the sound person and bar staff have been paid and the venue has been hired, but the musicians have been told, “We don’t have a budget for music.”
Fraser Speirs, who is in the public gallery, has said:
“The problem occurs when a charity event approaches asking for a band to play ‘just half an hour, maybe an hour at most’ and no fee is available. Often I have financed a four piece band only to discover that the PA company, sound crew, lighting rig and guest speaker have all been engaged at their regular commercial rate”.
There is nothing wrong with musicians donating to a cause if they want to do so, but the donation should be just that, not an expectation. Every time a musician gigs for free, the likelihood of others being asked to do so increases. Every time someone has to give up music as a job, every one of us who loves music misses out.
Like other workers, musicians are facing tough times. Their income is threatened by illegally downloaded music, which means that they have to rely on live performance fees more and more. Making music can be a career, not just a hobby. Professional musicians are like any other professionals and should be recognised as such.
I do not have much more time available in this short debate. I appeal to the Scottish Government to ensure specifically that, wherever music is part of an event that the Scottish Government is involved in supporting, work is not play, and work should be paid.
12:43
I, too, am pleased to be taking part in this debate, and I thank Drew Smith for bringing it to the chamber.
My family has had a long association with the Musicians Union. As I grew up, my father was a well-known trumpet player in the Lanarkshire area. He was the Eddie Calvert of his day. For those who do not know about Eddie Calvert, I should say that he was a famous English trumpet player, who enjoyed his greatest successes in the 1950s. Calvert had his first UK number one in 1954 with “Oh Mein Papa”. My father—also called Richard Lyle—was a fervent Musicians Union member, and I well remember him taking part in other union activities in the 1960s and 1970s. He played in a dance band. In those days, he earned £15 a week in his day job, but he could supplement the family income by playing at least two nights a week in Lanarkshire.
The debate centres on the actions of current hall and club owners who want musicians to play for nothing in their hall or club. When I first heard of that, I was appalled. A campaigner informed me that owners of halls or clubs force musicians to sell tickets for their gigs, and they must have a certain number of tickets sold prior to the performance to perform. Hall and club owners now have their cake and eat it by not paying the musician and getting an income from ticket and food and drink sales. That cannot be right.
The London Olympics brought that escalating problem to the attention of many. I can see the benefits that the London games brought to many, but it is unfair to ask for such an important part of the games and the supporting activities to be done for free.
We must all remember that musicians train and develop their skills as a career choice, not as a hobby, and they must be compensated for the work that they undertake. Research has shown that more than half of professional musicians earn less than £20,000 a year and that 60 per cent have worked for free in the past year. Those figures are particularly stark when we consider that the United Kingdom Government failed to include music in its £6 million boost to the creative industries.
Because of those low incomes, only 35 per cent of musicians pay into a pension scheme, which is a worrying trend given today’s economic uncertainty. Compounding the problem is the fact that a large number of people in today’s society think it acceptable to download music for free—or, if they pay for it, it is often extremely cheap. That has led to many professional musicians relying on live performances to make up for the loss of earnings. If that income, too, is threatened, many musicians will no longer be able to continue in their chosen profession.
Scotland is known for its world-class musicians. However, if the problem is not resolved, we will no longer be able to make that claim, as many musicians will have to face the stark reality that a career as a professional musician is not a viable option.
12:46
I congratulate Drew Smith on securing the debate. I am pleased to be able to explore some of the important issues that it raises.
It is important to begin, as other members have done, by recognising the important place of live music in our culture. The motion focuses on professional musicians in Glasgow and across Scotland. The issue is important precisely because we have such a proud tradition of live music in our country. From major international acts to traditional musicians, singers and performers, Scotland has a vibrant and diverse music scene.
The public perception is often that professional musicians play to crowds of thousands and are among the highest earners in our society. Although that might be true for a small number of performers who are in the public eye, the reality for most professional musicians is very different. Indeed, recent research that was conducted by the Musicians Union highlighted the issue as one of the main challenges that face those who seek to make a living from music. According to the research, more than half of professional musicians earn less than £20,000 a year, with many taking home considerably less than that.
It is worth identifying the difference between those who perform for enjoyment and those who perform to try to make a living. We should note that musicians have a variety of motivations for performing. Those who play for enjoyment are often in competition with those who are trying to make a living from music. Others are somewhere in the middle, and use music as a means of earning a bit of extra cash alongside another job.
Often, for people who are just starting out and trying to make it as professional musicians, free gigs might give them the exposure that they need early in their careers. However, other musicians who are playing for free, possibly on the same bill at the same venue, might have no such desire. Therefore, it is hard to differentiate between professional performers and those who play as a hobby, as they often play on the same stage.
That does not mean that there are not real issues that need to be considered. The work not play campaign has highlighted that, in some areas, there seems to be a culture in which venues or promoters take advantage of aspiring musicians. If someone is making money from the playing of music, be it a promoter, bar owner or venue manager, it is only fair that the profit is shared with the musicians. That issue is challenging enough to address properly at local level, but I am also aware of concerns about professional musicians being asked to do unpaid gigs that were attached to last year’s Olympic games. The organisers of Glasgow 2014 will want to be aware of those concerns as preparations for the Commonwealth games continue.
Common sense suggests that, in that situation, musicians should be remunerated for their work. However, there will be events that might not break even and for which profit was never a primary concern. In such circumstances, it would be difficult to expect a promoter, who might be investing their time, effort and money into an event, to pay out of their own pocket if there was never an agreed commercial contract.
The campaign website that the motion refers to includes the experiences of a number of musicians, some of whom describe being pressurised into performing at charity events for little or no pay. Clearly, bands might wish to offer their services for free to a charity that they support, or for other reasons. That could range from bands supporting national campaigns such as Live Aid to a ceilidh band waiving a fee for performing at a friend’s wedding. However, using guilt to compel musicians to play for free is a worrying road to go down—playing for free should always be at the behest of the musicians.
We also need to be aware of charitable gigs that are not so charitable after all. There are a number of reports of events that have been billed as charity events with high ticket prices but with very little money actually going to charities. Those often involve organisers and promoters taking their usual fee whereas the musicians are expected to play for nothing. The key thing is that musicians should not be exploited by unscrupulous promoters.
If musicians are happy to perform with no fee, that is their right, but nobody should be pressured into working for free. It is good that the work not play campaign is raising public awareness of the issues. Members of the public might often believe that musicians are being well paid when the opposite is true. Years, often decades, of hard work go into becoming a professional musician, and musicians should expect to be paid fairly for their work.
12:50
I welcome this afternoon’s debate. This is a very important issue, and I congratulate Drew Smith on bringing it to the chamber.
As members will know, I play the bagpipes, so I know how hard it is to learn an instrument. Years of hard work and dedication go in before someone becomes proficient in any instrument. I can fully appreciate the frustration that is felt by musicians when they are expected to play for free. For me, it is a hobby, not a profession. I always considered playing my instrument as a hobby and never as a profession for some point in the future.
As we have heard, the recent report from the Musicians Union highlights the fact that 56 per cent of the musicians who were surveyed earned less than £20,000 per year. That is not a great deal of money, particularly for a professional musician. It is not a great reward for a career that has involved many years of training, rehearsals and dedication, not to mention the personal and financial sacrifices that are required to achieve the level of skill that enables someone to be a professional musician.
The motion highlights the fact that too many people seem to regard music as
“a hobby rather than a career”.
There have always been examples of musicians being asked to play and work for free for charity, as Drew Smith indicated. At the recent London Olympics there seemed to be a blanket policy of not paying for music. Recently, other organisations have started to do the same. That has had an impact on the work that is available for musicians. There are reports of some venues trawling around for open mic nights, looking for musicians who are just starting out and getting them to play at venues for free, rather than paying for professional musicians. I understand the arguments about the showcasing of new bands, singers and musicians wanting to break into the scene—I understand the idea of providing someone with the opportunity to play. However, there needs to be a balance if that is to take place, rather than what appears to be the norm now of getting musicians to play for free.
To be a top-class musician takes years and years of dedication and study. It is a full-time job. Although it is largely true that musicians enjoy their jobs, that does not mean that those jobs should have no value. It should be remembered that the enjoyable part of a musician’s job is often their time on the stage or in the studio. However, those enjoyable, creative times are short compared with the time devoted to work behind the scenes, including travelling, rehearsing and administration. A one-hour gig can be part of a musician’s 12-hour day.
I have played at many an event in the past. When I was younger, playing at weddings, the wedding might start at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but our day would then be over—we did not do anything that day apart from going and playing our pipes at that wedding. When someone is being paid to go and do a job, it is not just for the time when they are performing—they are getting paid for the whole of their time that day. I suggest that that is how it should be.
Music is already a difficult career to sustain. Unless a musician makes it to the very top, it can be very poorly paid. Most of the Musicians Union’s 30,000 members have to do other jobs alongside music to make ends meet.
While we highlight the problems that are currently faced by working musicians, it is still necessary to provide support for the musicians of the future. We need to do what we can to ensure that the study of music is available to everyone who has the ability and who wants to do it. I therefore congratulate the Scottish Government on the additional £1 million of funding to provide schools with the means to buy musical instruments.
I also congratulate all local authorities in Scotland on the excellent music tuition that goes on across the country. A short time ago, the Parliament had a debate about the varying fees that local authorities apply but, in the main, local authorities do a tremendous job on music tuition and singing.
I welcome the debate and hope that it goes some way towards highlighting to the general public and the people who run venues the importance of music as a career and the reasons why professional musicians, like any other professional, deserve to be paid for their services.
12:55
An American writer once said that music is the fourth great material want, after food, clothes and shelter.
I think that we all have powerful memories of music in our lives. I still remember the first live gig that I went to, more than 40 years ago, when 900 people—some 300 too many—were in the Inverness Caley hotel ballroom to see Rory Gallagher. That memory has stayed with me for a long time. I remember being in the Usher hall in 1991 to hear the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra play the Leningrad symphony on the very night that tanks were rolling towards their city. I have talked in the Parliament about the emotional impact of seeing the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra play in the Raploch, in Stirling.
I also remember a folk festival in Glen Nevis, which featured no one that I had ever heard of or have heard of since but somehow managed to channel the grandeur of the setting into a memory that will live with me for ever. I remember stumbling across a jazz band in a hotel bar in Inverness, which featured a guitarist who, although he was part time, was quite able to rip off John McLaughlin solos that I thought no one else on the planet could play. We all need music to enrich and punctuate out lives, and we do not just need stars.
My daughter is an instrumental teacher in Haddington, the town where I live. She is part of a rich music scene in that small town. I say “rich”, but that is ironic, because none of the people who are involved is in any way rich, however talented they are. They all scrape a living, managing an ever-shifting portfolio of teaching jobs, youth work and any non-musical activity that pays—performing and recording come on top of all that. Even when they have a gig for which they are meant to be paid, they often have trouble getting the money out of the promoter or venue.
I was therefore not surprised when Drew Smith said that 56 per cent of musicians earn less than £20,000 a year and two thirds of musicians have no pension. The Parliament has sometimes debated the iniquity of industries that use interns and tell young people that they must work for nothing to gain experience and show that they can do the job. That approach is endemic in the music industry—hence the 60 per cent of musicians who say that they have had to work for nothing in the past year.
We should support the work not play campaign. We should support anything that increases the opportunity for paid employment for our musicians. The campaign relates, I think, to the let the children play campaign for instrumental tuition in schools in Scotland. Just as we must ensure that local authorities do not regard charges for instrumental tuition in our schools as a soft touch and put them up at budget time, we must ensure that authorities do not regard instrumental tuition itself as a soft touch and cut the number of tutors. That is the kind of work that many musicians do to get by, so that they can play the music that they want to play.
Luther said:
“Next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.”
Those of us who cannot sing a note and cannot play an instrument need musicians, and not just the stars. We should welcome the work not play campaign, and we should value and invest in the treasure of music and do everything that we can to support it.
12:59
I congratulate Drew Smith on his motion, which has enabled us to have a debate—with a healthy number of impassioned speeches—about how we can best encourage support for Scotland’s music industry. Drew Smith set out the issues well, including the pensions issue, the social expectation that musicians will play for free and the impact of digital downloading. I hope that we will return to the area, and not just in a members’ business debate, as I believe that we need to look at it more closely.
I am sure that we all agree that the music industry is an essential part of the fabric of Scotland’s culture, and today’s debate marks a critical step towards ensuring that we place a value on our musicians’ art and performances. Scotland’s music culture and the industry that delivers it are world class, and it is the duty of the culture secretary to ensure that this part of Scotland’s identity is promoted, nurtured and developed. However, I am sure that members understand that there are limits to what the Scottish Government can do directly in relation to commissioners. We cannot direct private venues, charities or those who organise weddings to pay, but we can support the campaign to raise awareness of the concerns that have been raised today.
The latest Scottish annual business statistics tell us that, in 2010, Scotland’s performing arts industries contributed more than £77 million to Scotland’s economy, with 460 registered businesses turning over £160 million and providing 4,700 jobs. Specifically on musicians, the annual population survey, which calculates on an occupation basis as opposed to looking at registered businesses, tells us that there are about 3,000 working musicians in Scotland.
As we heard, musicians tend to operate a portfolio approach to their business, which centres on their networks and their reputation to secure their next piece of work. Although the music industry necessarily operates in a flexible manner, the compulsion to work for free has the potential to compromise the professional integrity of the industry and create insecurity and hardship for musicians. We heard about that in the debate.
The Government continues to support the music sector in Scotland in a range of ways. Our national performing companies, which are the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, the National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Scottish Opera, operate under contracts with their musicians. The terms and conditions, including rates, are cleared by the Musicians Union. However, I appreciate that there is a wide spectrum in the music industry and that the national performing companies are at the more structured end of the scale. It is important that we look at models of best practice, as set out by the campaign, and that those who commission live performances, who might previously have expected to get performances for free, consider providing at least minimum compensation for musicians’ performance time, for example by paying the living wage. We expect that in other areas—why do we not expect it in this area?
Drew Smith’s points about performances around the Commonwealth games were well made. I will take that forward.
Scotland loves music, but we also need to love our musicians. We need to ensure that we respect them and recompense them for the work that they do in inspiring our nation. A fairer deal all round for performers, the sector and the country needs to be engendered. The Musicians Union and the responses to the recent survey that Creative Scotland commissioned might confirm the value that our culture places on our music industry, but the dilemma that our performing musicians are facing needs to be addressed by both event managers and artists themselves.
I commend the Musicians Union for its fair play guide, which sets out a simple model for musicians in managing their business. I recognise from my work with the culture sector that those who earn a living through art or culture have their art as their focus and might not have business planning as their top priority, but I also know that the commitment and passion that are delivered by artists are things that set them apart from other businesses. The artist’s passion might sustain their brand and image but, unfortunately, it does not necessarily sustain their livelihood. The Musicians Union’s simple guide could help to unlock some of our musicians’ potential through the clarity that they will experience in defining their activities and the articulation of their choices. Patterns are likely to emerge from the exercise in planning, highlighting the venues and events that their genre might tend towards supporting in kind and those with which a commercial relationship is emerging and there is more stability.
We recognise the challenging economic conditions that are being faced across the music industry, from artists and their managers through to labels, promoters and venues and, critically, high street retailers. We have seen the difficulties faced by HMV, for example. What is required is the cultivation of more proactive support of and by that community, not just the music makers and performers but those who stand to benefit from its production—promoters, venues, retailers and, most important of all, music fans and audiences.
Only today, we saw the launch of the CREATe—creativity, regulation, enterprise and technology—centre at the University of Glasgow, which is a £5 million research initiative by a consortium of seven universities. It will look at copyright and new business models in the creative economy. It is very important. As was mentioned in the debate, the importance of live performances will increase in a time of digital downloads.
We must strive to develop a culture that recognises the interdependency of the music community and increases the intrinsic value of music itself. One of our nation’s defining characteristics is our passion for music, and we must focus our efforts on creating the most supportive commercial environment possible for our artists, labels, venues and retailers, so that they can earn a living from entertaining, enlightening, informing and inspiring our audiences.
I hope that the issue can be addressed through mutual recognition of artists and commissioners. Musicians should place value on their work and not too readily accept having to deliver their business for no fee, and commissioners might consider musicians’ right to be compensated fairly for a fair hour or two’s work, as we have discussed.
The Government believes in investing in and supporting music. Despite the pressure on budgets, I have maintained the youth music initiative, which is in its 10th year and which has inspired so many. We have also seen great strides forward. For example, the Scottish Brass Band Association has grown by 500 per cent in five years. We are at a point where we are creating more demand: we are creating more capacity for musicians and we are inspiring more young people to take part in music. Some of those young people will have a future with music as a hobby, as Stuart McMillan mentioned, but some will want to move on.
As well as the success of the youth music initiative, there has been support for Fèis Rois, which established a successful ceilidh trail programme across the Highlands and provides valuable professional development and employment opportunities. We are looking to extend that into the central belt. It provides the transition from playing for experience to paid performances. The Fèis Rois trail included 78 performances to more than 5,000 people over the summer.
One of our challenges is to support that increased passion and activity in music with structures. The more music we produce, the more audiences we grow locally and, indeed, nationally and the more music festivals we have, the greater the expectation sometimes that access to music should be free and that musicians do not necessarily have to be paid. The Government will continue to support the music industry through our partners, agencies and varying initiatives and programmes, but we need the various parts of the industry to come together, which I would be more than happy to help facilitate, to make sure that the lives and the livelihoods of people who are involved in music in Scotland can be respected and promoted so that music can be loved for generations to come.
It is right that we take time in Parliament to recognise the importance of music to our country and the importance of respect for our musicians who provide that music.
13:07
Meeting suspended.
14:30
On resuming—