This post is in collaboration with Markson Pianos. If you are looking to buy a piano, they are the piano shop that will help you out!

Let’s face it, 2020 is the year that literally changed all of our lives. The entire world was thrown into a global pandemic and as we have reached its 1 year anniversary, looking back at the past year, its amazing to say that we have survived it.

While we are yet to come out the other side, 2020 also saw small miracles happening in the form of hobbies. As many of us were left with more time on our hands than we are used to, a lot of us (including myself), dedicated this time to our existing hobbies or creating new ones for ourselves.

Continue reading “How playing the piano helped me during lockdown 2020” →

Bands and artists on independent record labels get less than their fair share of access to the most popular playlists on streaming platforms such as Spotify – argues a new paper from the University of East Anglia. The paper, published on Tuesday, looks at whether streaming platforms offer a level playing field for artists and record labels.

It finds that major labels have an unfair advantage when it comes to playlist access, and that they take the lion’s share of subscription revenue as a result. As a possible remedy, the research team suggests changing the payment system, so that royalties generated by individual listener subscriptions go direct to the labels, bands and artists they are listening to. They also recommend more transparency in how playlists are created and how the algorithms behind music recommendations work.

Continue reading “Independent music squashed out of streaming playlists and revenue” →

A 2-minute and 20 second track from Grime MC Dapz on the Map has been released today by the music charity responsible for Town Hall and Symphony Hall today (Thu 17 December)
The song, ‘Stay Safe’, scores a video showcasing the digital broadcasts from Town Hall and Symphony Hall that have now amassed over a quarter of a million views since they began in April

Birmingham born, multi-talented artist, Dapz On The Map has written a brand-new track for the music charity responsible for Town Hall and Symphony Hall titled “Stay Safe”. The Grime MC’s brand-new song scores a video showcasing the digital broadcasts which have been shared from the iconic Birmingham venues during the pandemic.

As concerts are cancelled and postponed to 2021 as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, Town Hall Symphony Hall has continued to bring live music to the people of Birmingham and beyond. Digital broadcasts from Town Hall and Symphony Hall have amassed over a quarter of a million views since they began in April.

Continue reading “Town Hall and Symphony Hall release brand new track from grime MC Dapz on the map” →

X-Factor & Loose Women’s Brenda Edwards helps actor Martin Dickinson release a cover of You Raised Me Up made famous by Josh Groban as a charity single for Children’s hospice.

In a time where we are being encouraged to place our lives on hold, for some that is not possible.Children give hope for the future. We have a generation to inspire, to educate to move. Whether your time is measured in minutes, days, weeks or years, especially if you are a child there is adventure to be had and memories to make. So many lives can be cut short and those lives need our help to fill them as full as they can be with love, magic, inspiration and make great memories for all of those families and friends to cherish forever.

Martin Dickinson has sung with Meatloaf, Brian May, Kerry Ellis and Marti Pellow and Brenda Edwards to name a few. He has performed all over the world in the hit show Mamma Mia (until lockdown 1.0) and has appeared in many other shows including Queens Hit – We Will Rock You, he has appeared on TV and his first film engagement was in the Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart movie Possession in 2001.

Continue reading “Launch of charity single to help hospice for children featuring Martin Dickinson” →

Telescope Radio Expands Programme Schedule To Include ‘Unsigned’ And ‘In Focus’ Sessions

The recent COVID-19 restrictions have had a devastating effect on the music industry, with the organisation representing the commercial side of the sector, UK Music, revealing in their annual Music by Numbers report on Wednesday 18th November that UK music industry is set to halve in size by the end of 2020 with £3bn contribution lost from the economy through the shutdown of concerts and festivals throughout the country.

“The UK music industry was a vibrant, fast-growing and commercially successful sector before the pandemic hit,” said Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, Chief Executive of UK Music, who describes the pandemic as a “catastrophic blow.”

While the live sector has been the hardest hit, streaming has seen a renaissance, with Spotify reporting an increase of nearly 30% in paying subscribers during the national lockdown.

Now, a new internet radio station, born from the boredom of a group of musicians unable to play during the pandemic, has launched in a bid to support other artists and promote local and national unsigned and emerging bands.

Continue reading “New 24 hour online radio station aims to support artists during pandemic” →