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Diversity and Inclusion

Resources to Increase Diversity and Inclusion in the Music and Audio Industry

We are often asked ‘How can the industry proactively support gender and racial equality in the audio and music industry.

We’ve put together a list of concrete actions you might take.

Marginalized Groups in this document include women, non-binary genders, LGBTQIA and BIPOC.

These recommendations are for people working in education, industry, audio production and other related fields. We hope that you will read this document and identify three or more steps you can take to make the industry more inclusive.

Hiring and Referrals

Employ people from marginalized groups:

Resources for hiring and recruiting people from marginalized groups

Advertise roles in the right places and make proactive inclusion statements in the job postings. Provide clear opportunities for prospective applicants to contact you directly for further information about the role. If you find that people from marginalized groups aren’t applying for particular roles, undertake consultancy and ask why this may be.

Update your personal references: Can you refer people from marginalized groups for gigs and employment?

If in hiring a position, check that you have a qualified and diverse team looking at resumes. Make sure you have a diverse pool of candidates to interview. We hear all the time, we don’t care about gender or race, we just want to hire the best engineer. But how can you do that when your applicant pool excludes over half the population.

Seek to anonymize the application process where possible.

Look at the diversity in your organization and take steps to build a diverse hiring team.

Offer internships specifically for people from marginalized groups.

10 Ways to Prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace

Provide Sexual Harassment, Diversity, and Bystander Training:

A note about corporate training programs:

Organizations often implement training programs in order to reduce their likelihood of being named in harassment suits or to check a box for E.E.O.C. purposes but does little to change workplace dynamics. Make sure your program is not solely to protect the company. You want to search out and find programs that include empowering bystanders, encourage civility, and offer continued training.

Here for the Music Campaign has resources to build safety into shows and festivals. They work with artists, promoters, fans, venue staff, touring professionals to address sexual harassment and assault in the industry.

Two Types of Diversity Training That Really Work

Confronting Sexual Harassment

Check Unconscious Bias

Understand your own implicit/unconscious bias; that you may be inclined to hear some voices more clearly than others.

Avoiding Unconscious Bias at Work

Test yourself for hidden bias

In the workplace

Reporting Harassment & Policies

As inequalities persist, business owners in every industry have a responsibility to examine the workplace structures they’ve set up or enforced. They must then ask themselves what makes a workplace inclusive and then make changes to support employees from marginalized groups.

What policy does your tour have in place? How do crew members report issues? It is imperative for policies to be effective and that they are taken seriously and handled in a timely manner? It is also imperative to protect the identity of the crew member reporting.

Does your business or tour have an effective reporting mechanism?

HR and harassment issues are some of the most commonly reported types of claims and employers need to be sure to have multiple avenues so an employee can feel comfortable reporting. Regardless of the notification method, employers should follow a consistent documentation process for managing those allegations to ensure consistent outcomes and effective remediation.

Your Company Ethics Hotline Might Not Be Enough

Be an Ally for your co-workers: Although this article is specifically on being an ally for women, it can be easily adapted to include all marginalized groups.

For the Men Who Want to Support Women in Audio

Listen

Listen to experiences of marginalized groups when they provide examples of what marginalizing behaviors look and sound like. Listen, and keep listening without debating, diminishing or deflecting. Just listen. Really take the time to digest each lifetime of experience and insight.

Relieve the burden and contribute to proactive social intervention

Don’t make people from marginalized groups responsible for addressing inequities. We need to work together to shape change:

Set equity targets i.e., to be recording an equal ratio of female artists, works by female composers, and working with sound engineers by a specific date. You might subscribe to the PRS KeyChange initiative. Huddersfield Contemporary Records at The University of Huddersfield have done this. See this excellent statement and commitment from Professor Aaron Cassidy.

Changing Environments

Understand how to create supportive environments for marginalized groups.

Make sure your physical environment is welcoming to all people. Consider how your environments are biased towards certain groups

In Education: Create intelligent, inclusive environments for learning

Reflect on approaches to teaching and learning. From a young age, girls seem to be more socialized to collaborate, so integrate more problem solving, communication methods, and peer learning tasks into music technology education. Erin Barra’s Beats By Girlz lesson plans are great examples of this, and they encourage collaborative learning

Be demanding as all students can become experts. If you teach a minority of girls (who are also less confident), create environments that build up their confidence but also don’t shy away from being demanding. Evidence suggests that those girls will need to be confident and to prove that they have excellent technical knowledge (see unconscious bias) – and anyway, knowledge is power

Support the least confident. Notice where less confident students aren’t contributing, take the issue seriously and consider why this might be happening. Perhaps some students need other (more private) opportunities and spaces to feel comfortable to take risks and make mistakes, because they may not have had the same opportunities to work with technology in the past, or because they have been pushed away by other more confident learners. Some students may just need more assistance with working their way back into practical collaborative projects where they need to feel confident in order to be more assertive with peers

Provide equal visibility of women and especially women of color. Just because we know about Björk, Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos and Mandy Parnell we can’t simply assume that some kind of gender balance has been achieved. This is tokenism, and it is a big part of the problem. Help to address this by inspiring young people to understand that the default identity of a music producer is not a white man.

See the websites:  shesaid.so, female pressure, Female Frequency Her Noise Archive  SoundGirls Profiles Women in Sound 

Employ people from marginalized groups. Advertise roles in the right places and make proactive inclusion statements in the advert. Provide clear opportunities for prospective applicants to contact you directly for further information about the role. Think carefully about how to bring female experts into education. If you find that women aren’t applying for particular roles, undertake consultancy and ask why this may be.

In Higher Education, seek out people you can invite in to deliver guest lectures/workshops/supervision. Some may be part-time university academics also working in live electronic music, or in a studio, or in other areas of sound – so look beyond your network, and beyond conventional academia where possible. This helps to bridge the divide between self-employed artists and academia and provide pathways for people from marginalized groups to have the option of engaging in academic practices

Invite conversation. Talk with colleagues to check what your institution is doing to engage students who may have experienced discrimination and, if necessary, seek consultation from the staff at other institutions who are clearly addressing this well.

Understand the statistics by reading academic articles and education research, and drawing on websites of all-women groups. Try to avoid asking women to explain it – because this is exhausting and the resources are all available.

Additional Steps You Can Take to be an Ally

You Can’t Be What You Can’t See. Challenge the media representation of women in sound and music. Women do not see themselves in trade magazines, in panels at conferences, or in advertisements. Digico ran a fantastic ad campaign last year called Excellence Exposed which featured a diverse group of women engineers in both their backgrounds and musical genres.

SoundGirls has a monthly feature profile of women in audio to offset this, and all their weekly blogs are written by women.

Identify and offer support to organizations doing this work.

You can find a list here

Volunteer your time and expertise to these organizations. Whether it is doing advocacy work, amplifying their work on social media, administrative work, or financial contributions.

Wear the T-shirt – literally! The Women’s Audio Mission, SoundGirls, Gender Amplified, Beats By Girlz, Roadies of Color United sell their T-shirts. Help normalize and advocate for diversity in audio and the music industry.

These are just a few recommendations and the issue is much more nuanced and layered, however, we’re asking you to make a start. Be proud that you are a part of this important audio industry initiative.

Further recommendations and guidance

How Men Can Be Allies, 

Sexual Harassment 

More Inclusive Industry

Blogs on Diversity and Inclusion

The AES Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Resources for hiring people from marginalized groups

Resources for hiring people from marginalized groups

The EQl Directory

The EQL Directory is a global database of professionals that seeks to amplify the careers and achievements of women working behind the scenes in music and audio. Any person around the world can add their name and claim their space. And, any person looking to hire a more inclusive creative team can find professionals in their area.

POC in Audio Directory

The directory features over 500 people of color who work in audio around the world. You’ll find editors, hosts, writers, producers, sound designers, engineers, project managers, musicians, reporters, and content strategists with varied experience from within the industry and in related fields.

While recruiting diverse candidates is a great first step, it’s not going to be enough if we want the industry to look and sound meaningfully different in the future. Let us be clear: this isn’t about numbers alone. This is about getting the respect that people of color—and people of different faiths, abilities, ages, socioeconomic statuses, educational backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientation—deserve.

Women-Owned Studios, Sound Companies, and Services

Women in Lighting

Femnoise

A collective fighting for the reduction of the gender gap in the music industry. But we soon realized that the solution is not just activism. We have to go one step further: to connect and empower underrepresented individuals on a large scale, worldwide.

POC Theatre Designers and Techs

Wingspace

is committed to the cause of equity in the field.  There are significant barriers to accessing a career in theatrical design and we see inequalities of race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability across the field.

Parity Productions

Fills creative roles on their productions with women and trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) artists. In addition to producing their own work, they actively promote other theatre companies that follow their 50% hiring standard.

Production on Deck

Uplifting underrepresented communities in the arts. Their main goal is to curate a set of resources to help amplify the visibility of (primarily) People of Color in the arts.

She is the Music DataBase

FUTURE MUSIC INDUSTRY 

WOMEN/ NON-BINARY DJS/PRODUCERS

South America – Productores por país – Podcasteros

Diversity Database for the Perth Music Community

Women in Live Music DataBase

50+ All-women and feminist sound/music tech collectives, co-ops, non-profits

 

Organizations working on Diversity and Inclusion in the Music and Audio Industry

Gender Amplified is a nonprofit organization that aims to celebrate Women in music production, raise their visibility and develop a pipeline for girls and young women to get involved behind the scenes as music producers. The movement also connects passion for music with technical skills that can be used in a wide range of scientific and arts-based fields, areas in which women are traditionally underrepresented.

Girls Rock Camp Alliance The Girls Rock Camp Alliance is an international membership network of youth-centered arts and social justice organizations.

The International Alliance for Women in Music  An international membership organization of women and men dedicated to fostering and encouraging the activities of women in music, particularly in the areas of musical activity such as composing, performing, and research in which gender discrimination is a historic and ongoing concern.

New York Women Composers, Inc. The mission of the New York Women Composers, Inc. is to create performing, recording, networking, and mentoring opportunities for its members, and to work for the betterment of all women concert-music composers. We believe that continually focusing attention on music by women composers will hasten its full inclusion in the concert repertoire.

Parity Productions is a producer of new theatrical work and ensures that they fill at least 50% of the creative roles on productions with women and trans and gender-nonconforming artists. Parity also actively helps promote other theatre companies that hire at the 50% Standard.

Production on Deck Uplifting underrepresented communities in the arts. Their main goal is to curate a set of resources to help amplify the visibility of (primarily) People of Color in the arts.

Roadies of Color United International Network open to all Professionals in the Entertainment Services, Concert Touring and Live Entertainment Industry. Our Social network was created to unite, network, promote, and collaborate in order to help each other Grow in our related Industries. Our goal is to unite our related industries in a way that has never been done before until now promoting more diversity and inclusion within our related industries.

SoundGirls US-based international organization, with chapters worldwide. SoundGirls mission is to empower the next generation of women in audio. They work to expand opportunities for women in these fields and to share resources and knowledge through cooperation, collaboration, and diversity.

Technicians for Change A grassroots organization in Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota with no paid staff, made up of technicians and designers in various fields of the entertainment industry. We volunteer our time and resources (including personal financial support) to build a stronger community.

The Arts Administrators of Color Network are advocates and continue to fight for equity in the arts through collaboration, forums, and outlets that provide a voice for arts administrators and artists of color where there may not be one.

The Black Theatre Network is comprised of artists, educators, scholars, students and theatre lovers who are dedicated to the exploration and preservation of the theatrical visions of the African Diaspora. For 30 years, the Black Theatre Network has collected, processed and distributed information that supports the professional and personal development of its membership (comprised of individuals engaged in the full range of theatre professions, professional and community theatres and

Wingspace Theatrical Design is committed to the cause of equity in the field.  There are significant barriers to accessing a career in theatrical design and we see inequalities of race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability across the field.

Women in Music a non-profit organization with a mission to advance the awareness, equality, diversity, heritage, opportunities, and cultural aspects of women in the musical arts through education, support, empowerment, and recognition. Our seminars, panels, showcases, achievement awards, and youth initiatives celebrate the female contribution to the music world and strengthen community ties.

Women Produce Music International An artist & producer-led non-profit org & network promoting & supporting the activities of music-makers, producers & engineers through a series of initiatives.

Women’s Audio Mission US San Francisco ‘the only professional recording studio in the world built and run by women – to attract over 1,500 underserved women and girls every year to STEM and creative technology studies that inspire them to amplify their voices and become the innovators of tomorrow. WAM’s award-winning curriculum weaves art and music with science, technology and computer programming and works to close the critical gender gap in creative technology careers.

 

The Financial Case for Increasing Diversity in Live Audio

Diversifying Your Portfolio

 

Increasing diversity in the workforce can be a divisive topic. As I covered in my last blog How to Find the Best Candidate for the Job, often the general consensus is simply that the best candidate should get the job, and a common response to discussions about diversity is that hiring someone because they are from an underrepresented group is unfair.

According to research, “if people believe that racism is no longer an issue in modern society, they also perceive affirmative action as unfair and hold negative attitudes towards affirmative action and organisations that endorse affirmative action, presumably because affirmative action is no longer deemed necessary” (1). Opposition to policies that enforce an increase in diversity, like quotas, is strongly linked to a false belief that society is purely meritocratic. For example, “a survey among Flemish politicians demonstrated that even a decade after gender quotas had been implemented in the political system, many men were still strongly opposed to them. This opposition was partly due to different explanations of the underrepresentation of women in politics. While most women stated that they felt women got fewer chances in politics, most men disagreed with this statement. In line with meritocratic beliefs, men believed that women were under-represented in politics because they didn’t fight hard enough for their positions, while the majority of women did not agree with this statement.”

Classing people according to identity politics makes me uneasy too. There is more to someone than their gender, colour of their skin, class, or sexuality. Unfortunately, there is population-level systemic discrimination throughout our society (2), including live audio, and pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Affirmative action seeks to acknowledge the barriers people may have faced before they reach the candidate shortlist, issues that may prevent them from getting the job and reasons they may not stay in the role or even the industry. As long as people’s lives are affected by these things, we need to talk about them. Luckily, although foisting diversity initiatives upon people usually results in push back and rarely helps matters, voluntarily and consciously looking to employ and encourage people from underrepresented groups does improve diversity (3).

Employers might not be interested in reaching out to minorities in their field solely because it’s the right thing to do, but there is a growing body of evidence that it affects their bottom line: profit. Most of the research I could find on workplace diversity focuses on gender (and even then, it is almost entirely in binary terms of men and women), I imagine because it is a relatively easy metric to keep track of and quantify, but the principles remain the same for other factors like race, economic background, sexuality and age. Here is an outline of why employers should want to seek out diverse candidates, according to science:

Increased diversity is good for business

I want to get one thing clear right from the outset: increasing diversity is not an act of charity. It’s a smart business investment. “Diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits” (4). A 2005 study by consultancy firm McKinsey (5) found that worldwide, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity within their executive team were 15% more likely to have higher than average financial returns, for racial diversity it was 35%. The opposite was true for the least diverse quartiles, showing that they were significantly worse off rather than simply unaffected. Far from needing to let your business take a hit in order to do the right thing, increasing diversity is correlated with increased profits, even after taking the cost of inclusion measures into account.

The main theories believed to be factored in this positive relationship are increasing the talent pool, improving decision making, increasing employee satisfaction and strengthening customer orientation (5). These all sound a bit “corporate” and not directly related to an industry as idiosyncratic as live audio, but they really are. We like to think we’re a special breed, so why wouldn’t we want to attract the best of the best? If you’re only hiring people who are like you, whether consciously or not, you’re missing out on a huge pool of talent. If someone just doesn’t feel that women are suited to audio, for example, they’re halving the number of potential candidates right from the off. Making your hiring practises as wide-reaching and open as possible maximises the probability that you’ll find your next star engineer.

Complementary skill sets

Improving decision-making is perhaps the most widely cited reason for diversity increasing performance (e.g. 6). Think of it this way; would you go to see a heist film where the motley crew of jewel thieves was exclusively made up of eight lock pickers? Not even a getaway driver? It’d be a pretty short movie if they didn’t have a surveillance expert to scope the bank out in the first place. The whole point is that each person brings a different and complementary set of skills to the job. The very definition of motley is something made up of different and seemingly incongruent parts. A workforce made up of as many different people, not just measured by gender or race but nearly any metric, will increase their combined knowledge pool and maximise innovation. Why do you think investors are obsessed with finding the next disruptor business which will completely change their sectors, like Netflix or Airbnb? Approaching things differently gives you a major competitive edge and can result in huge profits. Teams made up of different backgrounds are also more flexible and better at problem-solving. They are more likely to focus on the facts, challenge each other’s views and process information more carefully than homogenous teams, who are more likely to be complacent and rely on shared biases to make decisions (7). Troubleshooting and coming up with alternative solutions to technical problems quickly is the lifeblood of live audio, why wouldn’t we put the best combination of people together to do that?

Happy workers are productive workers

Increasing employee satisfaction might not be as much of a priority in an industry that relies heavily on freelancers, but the principle is still a good one. Everyone knows teamwork is essential on any gig, and camaraderie can get you through the toughest of challenges. On the other hand, even the easiest job is unbearable if it’s crewed by grumpy sound techs. This atmosphere also gets noticed by the artists and management. Freelancers become the face of the audio company while on-site, so it makes good business sense to present that face as happy and engaged.

It is important to note that employee morale only improves if teams are diverse enough. The McKinsey study states that “For minority workers, for example, the boost in satisfaction kicks in when representation exceeds 15 percent of the workforce. Where diversity recruitment is a token effort, psychological outcomes are poorer.” It is not enough to hire one homosexual woman of colour and pat yourself on the back because you’ve ticked a bunch of diversity boxes off the list in one go. As someone who is often the only woman on a team, my experience is that it can sometimes feel particularly isolating, and raising issues that no one else cares about can single you out as a troublemaker. It is less exhausting and risky to your career to conform to everyone else’s behaviour than to try to bring about any meaningful change when you’re the only “different” person. The study also found that gender representation in the US had no effect on profits until women made up 22% of an executive team, after which there was a linear increase in profits in line with increased representation. Other research suggests that increasing diversity can in fact lead to increased confrontation within teams, at least in the short term (4), but that confrontation can result in decreased bias (8) and increased productivity (4, 8) overall. If teams are varied and open enough to foster an atmosphere of honesty and debate, everyone can learn from each other’s differences and improve as a result.

Closer connections with clients

Lastly, it strengthens customer orientation. Drawing on knowledge from a broad range of backgrounds will help to anticipate clients’ needs better and avoid any potential cultural faux pas. It is a natural human tendency to prefer people who are like ourselves (ingroup favouritism, (5)), so while trying to overcome that bias within the team, it could be an advantage in connecting with the client. Assigning an entire crew to match the identity of the client would be taking it too far, becoming its own form of segregation and decreasing diversity in the workplace. However, the client interacting with a range of people maximises the chances of finding someone to connect with and fosters good feeling, especially in very close and personal roles like monitors. If the audio crew has plenty of experience of dealing with people who are different to them, they can also handle cultural barriers more diplomatically than people with little experience.

Far from being a costly and miserable exercise in political correctness, diverse workforces increase profits, improve workflow, foster innovation, raise employee morale and strengthen customer relations. What’s more, the company benefits from the kudos that comes with being seen to be “doing the right thing” for equality. It can be tough to justify anything outside of the essentials of a business in the current economic climate, but when it comes to increasing diversity the old cliche really rings true: it isn’t whether you can afford to, it’s whether you can afford not to.

You Can Find Resources to Increase Diversity in Your Applicant Pool Here

  1. Quotas and Targets: How do they affect diversity progress? Chartered Institute of Progress and Development Policy Report, 2015. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/quotas-and-targets_june-2015-how-affect-diversity-progress_tcm18-10824.pdf
  2. The Truth About Anti-White Discrimination, Payne, 2019. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-anti-white-discrimination/
  3. Why Diversity Programs Fail, Dobbin and Kalev, 2016. https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail
  4. Does Diversity Pay? Herring, 2009 (https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/journals/docs/pdf/asr/Apr09ASRFeature.pdf)
  5.  Diversity Matters, Hunt, Layton & Prince 2005 https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/organization/our%20insights/why%20diversity%20matters/diversity%20matters.pdf)
  6. How Diverse Teams Produce Better Outcomes, Beilock, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sianbeilock/2019/04/04/how-diversity-leads-to-better-outcomes/
  7. Why Diverse Teams are Smarter, 2016 https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
  8. Standing Up for a Change: Reducing Bias Through Interpersonal Confrontation, Czopp, Monteith and Mark, 2006 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.138.462&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Resources for hiring women and BIPOC techs, engineers, producers and more

The EQl Directory

The EQL Directory is a global database of professionals that seeks to amplify the careers and achievements of women working behind the scenes in music and audio. Any person around the world can add their name and claim their space. And, any person looking to hire a more inclusive creative team can find professionals in their area.

POC in Audio Directory

The directory features over 500 people of color who work in audio around the world. You’ll find editors, hosts, writers, producers, sound designers, engineers, project managers, musicians, reporters, and content strategists with varied experience from within the industry and in related fields.

While recruiting diverse candidates is a great first step, it’s not going to be enough if we want the industry to look and sound meaningfully different in the future. Let us be clear: this isn’t about numbers alone. This is about getting the respect that people of color—and people of different faiths, abilities, ages, socioeconomic statuses, educational backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientation—deserve.

50+ All-women and feminist sound/music tech collectives, co-ops, non-profits

Women in Lighting

Femnoise

A collective fighting for the reduction of the gender gap in the music industry. But we soon realized that the solution is not just activism. We have to go one step further: to connect and empower underrepresented individuals on a large scale, worldwide.

POC Theatre Designers and Techs

Wingspace

is committed to the cause of equity in the field.  There are significant barriers to accessing a career in theatrical design and we see inequalities of race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability across the field.

Parity Productions

Fills creative roles on their productions with women and trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) artists. In addition to producing their own work, they actively promote other theatre companies that follow their 50% hiring standard.

Production on Deck

Uplifting underrepresented communities in the arts. Their main goal is to curate a set of resources to help amplify the visibility of (primarily) People of Color in the arts.

She is the Music Data Base

FUTURE MUSIC INDUSTRY 

WOMEN/ NON-BINARY DJS/PRODUCERS

South America – Productores por país – Podcasteros

Diversity Database for the Perth Music Community

Women in Live Music DataBase

Pearl Jam Fans Rally To Help Live Event Techs

 

The Wishlist Foundation is a Pearl Jam fan-run nonprofit, grassroots 501(c)(3) fan organization dedicated to supporting Pearl Jam’s charitable and philanthropic efforts. They are 100% fan run, independent from the band, its management or the Ten Club, though they have been generously supportive of their efforts through the years.

Their ongoing mission is to utilize the collective ability of Pearl Jam fans around the globe to make a difference in the world. They have raised over 1.5 million dollars since their founding to support causes dear to the band Pearl Jam.

The Wishlist Foundation is made up and run by fans of Pearl Jam and music. They want to give back and help support the people who bring live music to them. That’s us — the techs and engineers.

Through their efforts, they are helping to support us during COVID 19 by filling Amazon and Target Wishlists.

How it works.

  1. Create an Amazon or Target Wishlist
  2. Make sure your Wishlist is public
  3. Complete the registration form with a link to your Wishlist
  4. The links to your Wishlist will be sent to The Wishlist Foundation
  5. The Wishlist Foundation will activate their members to fill Wishlists

Ideas to create your wishlist

Register Here

The deadline to register is Sept. 1, 2020

 

 

What Will We Do When Our World Returns?

My last day of work was March 13, 2020, and I’m still just as confused and anxious about it as the day our industry shut down.  Since I was 15 years old, I have never gone this long without working, and I really just don’t know how to feel about it.  I work in the arts because it feeds my soul, but can I afford that luxury anymore?  Is it fair to ask me to get another job?  Getting another job for me would mean getting another career, which would mean starting from zero, but I can’t afford to go back to school or pay for new training while I’m unemployed.  And what if I and a bunch of other people like me in my industry have this thought?  Then who is going to work in entertainment when it IS back?  Maybe I should just apply my sound skills to a non-live sector, so podcasts, radio plays, editing, etc.  Again, isn’t everyone going to be trying to do that, so won’t that completely oversaturate the market and make it impossible for most to work?  If I just hang tight, stay unemployed, and wait for the world to reopen, how long will that take, and how long can I actually last like that?  These (and many more) are the questions circling my worried mind every second of every day.  I’m watching companies fold.  I’m watching venues lock their doors forever.  What if that happens to one of my regular gigs?  What’s going to happen to me and to my colleagues, friends, and family?

The entertainment industry is famous for using two phrases:  1. “There’s no business like show business” 2. “The show must go on.”  Since I have no control over what our future holds, I’m choosing to put my faith in those two mantras.  They’ve gotten me through sticky situations many times in the past, it stands to reason that they will work their magic now.  I mean, we’ve all been there.  We’ve all had way too many notes piling up at the last minute, or not even teched the end of a show before the first preview, or listened to a host of sound gremlins making their presence known during that final preview, yet, opening night always comes, and the show always goes on.  It’s the magic of theatre.  Yes, you read that right, I’m openly relying on magic now.

So, let’s skip ahead to the part where entertainment opens back up.  We all know it will not be all at once, and we all know it will not be like it was before.  My plea for anyone reading this is to please be open, respect the process, and please be kind to each other.  We’ve been doing a lot of good work that needs to continue when we reopen. Jobs will be scarce, and we will all need them, but we need to remember what we’ve been working on for our community. We will encounter companies affected by the pandemic trying to hire entertainment workers for less than they are worth because “that is all they can afford right now.”  We can’t let that happen.  Look, I get it.  We all need work, but if we sell our skills for less than they’re worth, that is the price those producers will start to expect from you in the future and everyone else that does the same work as you.

We’ve been working hard on solidifying our standards, and we can’t waffle just because we hit a bump (or hill, or mountain…) in the road.  It’s not good for you, it’s not good for me, it’s not good for our community.  We need to remember that we have pledged to be allies and accomplices for marginalized people. We need to continue that work. Don’t take jobs from racist companies. Don’t keep quiet about discriminatory practices. Don’t turn a blind eye to misogyny and homophobia. You might say to yourself, “I have to keep this gig, I need the money, I’ve been out of work for so long,” but just remember that the company you are working for needs you too.  If you, if everyone makes a stand together, refuses to work in inequitable situations, who will they have to turn to?  Those companies will be faced with two choices: Change their policies, or shut their doors.  We need to remember not to be greedy. Don’t take overlapping jobs.  Give one of your fellow community members a shot at survival too.

Brace yourselves, I’m going to quote High School Musical now….We’re all in this together.  I know that’s just about the most Pollyanna thing you’ve heard from me, but I really can’t convey the sentiment any other way.  We really are all in this together. And we are stronger together.  And we know that. So this is one of those times when it’s going to be really tough to always do the right thing, but that’s what integrity is doing the right thing even when it’s tough and even when no one is watching. Stay safe, my friends.  Keep your heads up, and keep moving forward.  We will get there together.

 

How Can We Boost Intersectionality in Audio?

 

Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. It is no secret that women, people of color, and other minority groups are highly underrepresented in our audio industry. So how do we change this? We need to understand intersectionality and practice intersectionality as a WAY OF THINKING and ACTION, and not just a word.

Understand and Recognize Differences

Stating that you “don’t see color” is a problem. A huge problem. Understand and recognize there are many different people from all walks of life. Race,  gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. These character traits are what make each and every one of us individuals and unique. Besides being prejudiced against people who are different from you, learn to embrace differences and recognize your own differences. Understanding and recognizing differences can help the audio industry hire and create a safe space for minority groups.

Increase Representation

How many times have we seen audio companies host panels and seminars with only white cis-gender men on the panel? It is truly disgusting, and when these companies are called out about this, very little is done about the matter. Why is this? We need to increase representation. In order for us to increase representation in the audio industry, we actually need to hire minority groups. Generate panels with more people of color and women in our industry. There are very few if any women or people of color in executive positions. There is not one Black-Owned audio touring company on a large scale in the US. Before you hire your “homeboys” and skip over resumes of names that “sound Black”, please understand the damage that is being done for individuals and groups who already suffer from discrimination disproportionately. There are a lot of racists in power and in positions that inflict their racist ideology in society and jobs. This is also true in our industry.

Join the Conversation

Staying silent and ignoring social justice reforms and racism is not okay. Ally is not a noun. Ally is a verb, something you do and continue to do because it is right. Speak up against racism, homophobia, misogyny, and every other form of hate and oppression. Join the conversation against hate and create a conversation in the workplace. We saw many companies speak up standing with BLM but continue to discriminate against Blacks. We need to continue to educate ourselves and each other.

More on creating an inclusive industry

How to Find the Best Candidate for the Job

Twi McCallum on Hiring Black Designers and Creatives

Twi McCallum on The SoundGirls Podcast

For the Men Who Want to Support Women in Audio

A Guide to Supporting Women in Sound

Black Technicians Matter

On Current Events and the State of Our Industry

Women in Audio – Music Blogs, Collectives, and Organizations

A More Inclusive Industry

 

 

 

Recording through Live Stream Services – August 17

 

SoundgGirls & Female Frequency Webinar with Ali AMAC McGuire.  Moderated by Vanessa Silberman.

Learn how to record and collaborate from home through Zoom and other live stream sources

Monday, August 17th – 6 pm-8 pm EST

Register here

Ali “AMAC” McGuire is a Gold Record Mixing Engineer and vocal producer. Having worked with artists from Joji to WifisFuneral, Shordie Shoridie, Slushii, Sophia Reyes, Lizzo, Phi11a, Kelly Rowland, PNB Rock, The Kooks and more.

A MAC got her start in Philadelphia PA doing FOH at live sound venues all over the city then moving on to touring with acts like Fetty Wap, Post Malone, and T Wayne.

In 2017 A MAC decided to move to LA to work in the studio with the best in the world. After getting her first studio job at Melrose Sound in Hollywood she branched off to work with labels such as Atlantic, Warner, GOOD Music, 88 Rising, Hitco and more. https://www.amaculent.com/

Vanessa Silberman is an international touring singer, guitarist and songwriter from Brooklyn, NY (via Los Angeles, CA). She is also a record producer, engineer, an independent A&R and runs an artist development Label called A Diamond Heart Production.

Vanessa’s live shows and music has been compared to the raw bare bones rock ‘n roll of Nirvana along with the appeal of Liz Phair and Chrissie Hynde, authenticity of classic artists such as Patti Smith and Neil Young mixed with the pop sensibilities of commercial radio artists such as Green Day and Metric.

Widely known for having a very strong DIY ethic and wearing many different hats in the music business —Vanessa has worked for heavy hitter’s in the music business such as Producer / Songwriter Dr.Luke as well as for many companies and places ranging from the Foo Fighter’s Studio 606 to Epitaph Records.
https://www.vanessasilbermanofficial.com/

Female Frequency
Female Frequency is a community dedicated to empowering female, transgender & non-binary artists through the creation of music that is entirely female generated.

The first Female Frequency EP made entirely by women is available here–>
femalefrequency.bandcamp.com
femalefrequency.com

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