Composium Digest: We can’t stop talking TikTok
Composium | February 10, 2021
Composium Digest is a newsletter-only addition, delivered once a week. Get overviews of interesting stories happening in the music industry, stay informed of various opportunities music startups and companies offer, and catch up on some of the Composium articles you might have missed.
Met Soloist Concert Goes Online, Instrumentalists Remain Unpaid
David Caldarella, Composium Ambassador
Despite its inability to pay its furloughed instrumentalists, the Met is streaming its Met Stars Live in Concert series through February 19th. Anna Netrebko, the company's 'reigning diva'—set to perform as Tosca before the pandemic interrupted— returns to the company with her recital in this series. While the series began as a test to see if audiences would pay for online content, the orchestra and chorus—the heart and soul of the Met—remain unpaid. The orchestra will be streaming its own concert, independent of the Met, on Feb. 21 at metorchestramusicians.org
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TikTok is now… on TV?
Anouk Dyussembayeva, Composium CEO
The social media platform will now be available on Android TV, after announcing its launch on Samsung smart TVs two months earlier.
This isn’t surprising — while the app did start out with viral dancing challenges as a so-called vertical of YouTube, it has now become its own horizontal platform where you can find lasagna recipes, get investment advice, and prepare for SAT.
Even Ratatouille musical had its own TikTok premiere at the start of the year, which makes the move onto big screen TVs a logical step as the app continues to evolve.
To note, the platform claimed the #1 spot as the most time-consuming social media app of 2020, surpassing Facebook and Instagram.
Can you imagine watching TikTok on your living room TV? While your answer may vary, the app is here to stay on the big screens as TikTok continues to develop and diversify its demographics and user base.
Women in Music
Monserrat Torres, Composium Ambassador
Although 2020 brought easier access to the music industry, women are still underrepresented. Only one in five artists are female and worse, only 2.1% are music producers. In addition, there are hundreds of expectations placed on women who decide to enter the music field. From how they dress to what they can sing, the TV show A Seat at the Table takes a look at what women have to risk being in the music industry.
Recently, three NYU students created Stage Whisper-Her to find and promote up-and coming NYC based artists. They run a music discovery podcast, an online blog, and host online shows. They are currently working on a collaboration with Women That Rock, a music curation and discovery platform to present a “Galentine's Day Concert.” This concert aims to support and empower women and will have a lineup of seven all female artists and all female-led music groups. Tickets are being sold as “pay what you can” and will go towards amplifying the voices of women in the music industry.
Caroline Shaw Does It All
Sidney O'Gorman, Composium Ambassador
While she may be well-known for her compositions for her own vocal chamber group, Roomful Of Teeth, Caroline Shaw's talent knows no stylistic boundaries. Her hunger for creativity has brought her to collaborate with musical artists like Dawn Upshaw, Renée Fleming, and Kanye West.
Where many classical composers specialize in one style of writing, Shaw has achieved the unexpected by not only writing highly regarded classical chamber works, but also by exploring more contemporary styles. Going on tour with Kanye West after working on his album Life of Pablo, writing chamber works based off traditional North American songs, and now expecting a debut of her first opera, Shaw has achieved a truly diverse portfolio.
New York Pop-Up Concerts Aim to Revive Arts Scene, Economy
David Caldarella, Composium Ambassador
NY PopsUp, a series of more than 300 pop-up performances, will begin on February 20th and run through labor day in New York City. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the performances as parts of an arts revival plan crucial to the the economic recovery of the state.
Such artists as Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, Mandy Patinkin, Renee Fleming and Hugh Jackman will be performing, with few of the performances being announced in advance to avoid drawing large crowds. If interested, the new @NYPopsUp Twitter and Instagram pages contain details on the upcoming performances.
We can’t stop talking TikTok
Anouk Dyussembayeva, Composium CEO
TikTok announced on February 8 that it has signed a global licensing deal with Universal Music Group.
As the app continues to exponentially grow and influence the music industry, this agreement would allow for “equitable compensation for recording artists and songwriters”.
Compare that with Twitter, about which we wrote this past week, that has over 3 million infringements of more than 20,000 recordings in the past two years. Or Triller, TikTok’s competitor — according to PCMag, UMG removed its catalog from the app due to Triller not paying its artists on time.
It is great to see TikTok supporting music creators and leading by example of how other social media platforms can do so.
My Music Story: Yoshiki
Monserrat Torres, Composium Ambassador
Disney+ recently released a music documentary about the Japanese classic rock icon, Yoshiki. Yoshiki is a composer, classically-trained pianist, rock drummer, and the leader of the rock group X Japan. He was named as "one of the most influential musicians and composers in Japanese history" by Consequence of Sound. In this documentary, Yoshiki tells his story by connecting it to Disney songs played on his signature transparent piano. Viewers get a glimpse of the behind the scenes of the rehearsal practice and learn about Yoshiki’s life from the moment he lost his father. Unfortunately his beautiful arrangements of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” from The Lion King and “Let it Go” from Frozen are cut from the U.S version on Disney+ but you can check out one of the arrangements here:
Music Startup Q&A: Vampr. Tinder for music collaboration
Music Startup Q&A is a new series where Composium interviews companies about their upcoming projects, opportunities for students, and current trends in the music industry.
Vampr is a social platform helping artists discover collaborations, create new music, and monetize their work — many call it a Tinder for musicians. Josh Simons, Vampr co-founder, answered our questions.
What current trends do you see in the music industry?
There are a few compounding things going on at once. Obviously COVID has eaten away at many independent artist's income with the halt of live music. Meanwhile, we've observed independent music making up an increasingly large percentage of all revenue generated from recorded music year on year.
In many ways, the timing of this couldn't be better. Competition in the music tech market has resulted in companies like us being able to offer things like music distribution and publishing representation for cheap to nothing, helping artists to generate income while stuck at home.
This competition will inevitably lead to mergers and acquisitions in the industry which should ultimately be a good thing for independent artists who will be left to focus more on creating and less on managing their business across multiple platforms.
What, in your opinion, is going to become the new niche for musicians in 2021?
I was listening in on a Clubhouse conversation last night between songwriters and producers and 'Jazz Trap' came up, which I thought was interesting! I think online marketplaces where you can sell your beats and services are becoming increasingly important for musicians across the spectrum.
We've been focusing a lot on horizontal networking recently, which is this idea that you should focus on broadening the number of people you collaborate with on a similar level to you. "A rising tide lifts all ships" as the saying goes, so establishing yourself within a solid network and community is going to be increasingly important as we head into 2021 and beyond.
What new projects are you planning to launch this year? What do music students need to do to be a part of them?
We just launched something called Happy Hour which we're hoping will drive exponentially more connections made on Vampr.
Essentially, we're giving folks on the platform unlimited swipes for a single hour a week, driving more people onto Vampr simultaneously. This brings more immediacy and value to the connections you are able to make. It's like speed dating at a songwriting camp, but on an app!
Read the full Q&A here: https://mycomposium.com/music-startup-qa-vampr
Catch up on Composium’s original articles!
Why it's time to change the music education system
Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri is a Greek-born composer and sound artist working around the world.
An hour into our conversation with Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, a Greek-born composer and professor at Cornell University's Department of Music, we try to define the term 'smart'. Trying my best to come up with an explanation detailed enough to cover all the aspects of human existence, I scramble my thoughts to look something like this (in order of how these ideas entered my head)...
How new opportunities are paving the way for middle-class artists
"We are in a very interesting time in the world where, previous to 15 years ago, there were only artists that were at the top 1% making a ton of money and … then everybody else was at the bottom not making any money whatsoever," Alan Watson, the Student Services Administrator at NYU Tisch Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, says. "Now we're seeing a lot more 'middle class artists' that are able to make a pretty solid living from creating music, building a following, and that following supporting them."
Let's say an artist has 100,000 followers and every one of them pays $10 per year. This would bring $1 million — a sizable annual income for that person to live comfortably and continue creating music. If before you saw people going into music to become music teachers, or be in a wedding band, and that was how they would pay their bills, now these traditional pathways are shifting...