Gender Inclusivity in Music Tech

In the first episode of Make Your Mark: Notes on music education, the new Music Mark podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Eddie Dobson, Co-Director of Yorkshire Sound Women Network; Kate Rounding, Executive Director at TiME (Technology in Music Education UK); and Xanthe Sparke, Project Co-ordinator at Old Chapel Music Studios. We talked about representation in the music technology space, the challenges facing young women, transgender young people and non-binary young people and how these should be addressed. We also highlighted some fantastic resources for music education organisations to improve their practice in this area, and opportunities that young people interested in music technology can get involved with.

Find full transcripts, guest bios, as well as show notes, links and resources mentioned in episodes at https://www.musicmark.org.uk/make-your-mark-notes-on-music-education.

Transcript

Yusef Sacoor: Welcome! You are listening to ‘Make Your Mark: Notes on Music Education’, Music Mark’s brand new podcast, where we spotlight wide-ranging experiences and perspectives from across the music education sector. We’ll look at the big challenges to those working in music with young people and celebrate and share inspiring projects and stories from across the nation and beyond. So turn off your amp, put down the bow, pull down your mixers, and grab a cup of tea, as we bring our guests together to tackle music education’s biggest questions, most inspiring projects and musical journeys of those involved. Thank you.

And thanks to Able Orchestra, who provided the intro, outro, and transition music for this episode.

Emma Cragg: We are so excited to share the first episode of ‘Make Your Mark: Notes on Music Education’! I’m Emma, one of your podcast hosts.

Aimee Christodoulou: And I’m Aimee. I’m also on the Music Mark podcast team.

Emma Cragg: In this episode, we had a great discussion with Eddie from Yorkshire Sound Women Network, Kate from Technology in Music Education, and Xanthe from Old Chapel Studios in Leeds.

Aimee Christodoulou: We delved into gender inclusivity in music tech, chatting about representation, sexism and dangers within the music tech scheme, and some great recommendations for resources and other projects to look into. We hope you enjoy!

So welcome everyone, thank you for joining us. We'll get started with some introductions because we've got a few different people here today. Kate, would you mind introducing yourself for our listeners please?

Kate Rounding: Hey, not at all. So, I'm Kate Rounding and I'm the Executive Director of Technology in Music Education, or TiME for short, and we're a national association of music educators, organisations and music technology manufacturers.

Aimee Christodoulou: Brilliant, thank you. And, Xanthe could you tell us a little bit about what you do as well?

Xanthe Sparke: Of course, yeah, my name's Xanthe Sparke, I use she/her pronouns. I am a sound engineer/freelance person who just does loads of bits and bobs. I'm currently working at Old Chapel Music Studios in Leeds as a project coordinator on an Arts Council funded project they're running. And I also record and edit for the Queer Love Stories podcast that's based in Leeds. I do a bit of live sound engineering, just bits and bobs, I'm about doing random bits, that's me.

Aimee Christodoulou: Always lots of hats to wear, right? 

Xanthe Sparke: Indeed, indeed.

Aimee Christodoulou: Brilliant. And Eddie, same, could you please introduce yourself for our audience?

Eddie Dobson: Hi, yeah, I'm Eddie Dobson. I'm currently now a sound designer after a long time working in higher education music technology, and I'm representing the Yorkshire Sound Women Network, CIC, which is an organisation that supports women and gender-expansive communities for working in audio and we have quite a range of activities happening there. I'm sure we'll get into it.

Emma Cragg: Perfect, thank you everyone! So, we'll dive straight in and we wanted to ask whether each of you, what your opinions are and whether you feel that women, trans and non-binary people are well represented in the music technology space?

Kate Rounding: Well, I'll jump in just to say that I'm amazed that, I started in music technology probably 25, maybe 30 years ago now…. and I meet young women and gender-expansive young people now and it's still quite rare and I'm always absolutely amazed at that. I can't believe that it is still an issue. I would have thought over 20, two decades, three decades, that it would have become a more inclusive space and that that would be a more straightforward thing. But apparently not. So yeah, in my opinion, there's more work to be done.

Eddie Dobson: Yes, Cecilia Bjorck has published a book called Music, Gender and Social Change: Contemporary Debates, Directions and Challenges. I'm just going to quote, she says, despite 50 years of gender equality efforts in music, women are still underrepresented and underprivileged in many parts of the field and many gender stereotype roles and hierarchies still prevail. And some of the work I've done has really touched on the statistics around this, but I'll draw on the Zippia career expert website where they published some data on this. So nearly 10,000 audio engineers in their database. Only 7.7 of them identified as women and that's representative by other statistics such as the Annenberg statistics as well.

Xanthe Sparke: Yeah, I think I've heard similar statistics of, yeah, only something around like 5% of the music industry is made up of women and minority genders. And definitely in my experience of, like my training in music production and music technology, I've always been one of few people who weren't men. So, yeah, just from personal experience being in this industry, there's not many of us about.

Emma Cragg: Seems from both people's personal experiences and also proven through statistics, quite clear that there isn't that kind of equity across the sector. So, are there any problems in particular that any of you think might be the reason for this?

Eddie Dobson: I just wanted to add something on that last question actually, if that's alright. The majority of those statistics focus on white women as well, so from an intersectional perspective it's even more depressing.

So, coming to the sorts of problems, obviously we come across a lot of sexism, but with the Yorkshire Sound Women Network we did a study with some funding called Wired, which generated the Wired toolkit for educators. And in this study, there were a number of participants who were interviewed and a number who participated in a survey to talk about their experiences. So we were able to generate some quite concrete information. And some of the examples of problems were in workshops in extracurricular settings, in music settings, music technology settings, included things like inconsistency of tutor, and the social dynamic of the cohort being off-putting. So, in some cases, people were creating a sort of pre-meeting or trying to make sure there was consistency of the cohort. But that does mean you can't bring in a specialist who is of a non-typical gender, for example, because you need to keep them coming week after week. 

Also, cultural diversity, people who come from culturally diverse backgrounds don't necessarily have that music technology education that some learners have when they come straight in. The same with people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, perhaps, or students who have been pushed towards gender-typical musical instrument practice like playing the flute for example and this is very much an extension of young people being pushed in a very gendered way towards certain clothes or toys, musical instruments being an extension of this. 

So, when certain learners come into the setting, they don't understand the concepts that relate to music technology like distortion, reverb, or whatever, whereas other learners already have those concepts and they're used to working with them so they, they're ahead of the game in a way and that means that they don't want to raise their hand or reveal that they don't know something, they fall below the radar and it doesn't really look like they're as engaged as the other learners who seem very obviously behaviourally and cognitively engaged. I think that's one of the key things that came out of that piece of research.

Kate Rounding: Sounds like amazing research, Eddie. Do you have any sort of knowledge, statistics, research around the amount of young people, women, taking GCSEs and perhaps A-levels, but then going on to FE and then HE? Because I know that there's a massive disparity between the amount that are doing GCSEs, and yet there's a great deal more at FE and HE level.

Eddie Dobson: Well, there's a lot of learners engaged, like younger children equally engaged in music technology. But then when they get to that GCSE level, it's predominantly boys. There's a very steep drop-off. And I think that has a lot to do with identity and what young people, how they want to represent themselves and relate to music technology. And there's a sort of historic thing of masculinity and technology and boys feeling like they need to own the domain a little bit as well. So that starts really then. And then it drops off dramatically again at A level and then really dramatically in higher education. By the time that learners have got to higher education and there are some serious discriminatory problems there for minority female and minority gender learners, especially when they're going on to placements and experiencing real industry misogyny in many cases, certainly with our research. There's a degree of exhaustion in mental health, burnout and worse by the time it actually comes to entering the industry. I don't have the numbers to hand, but it was very strong in our data.

Xanthe Sparke: Yeah, I suppose the project I'm working on at the moment, we're at Old Chapel. We are training up people in sound engineering and kind of bridging that gap between post-university and working in the real world as an independent freelancer. And yeah, we've seen many people come through the studios who have graduated from university with some degree in music technology and they just can't make that step into the real world because they need extra training, they haven't got the right support. So I think like you say, education is the real solution and seeing these people represented in the industry and plugging those gaps where people are in the between stages. Like, you know, when you're in between, you know, like year nine and taking your GCSEs, and GCSEs and taking A-level, and A-level to degree and onwards and if there's any like, you know, extracurricular activities that can fill in those gaps.

Kate Rounding: I was just thinking that really then, you know, that sort of representation, encouragement, and I don't know the solution to some of the other barriers, particularly at that GCSE level, but I think representation and encouragement, equally for girls and boys at GCSE, sounds like it's a really important starting place for then young women to go on and to feel more confident. Whether that's in a placement or whether they're taking up an opportunity like a project or working in a studio, they need to feel that confidence from school age.

Eddie Dobson: 100%. One of the things we noticed in our study for the younger learners was the importance of friendship and social interaction. And we see that in other activities as well where young children go and they're asking, is my friend going to be there? This is really important that they have a friendship group and in many cases it's more important that they have fun and they're talking, they're supporting each other, and there's a social dynamic. Almost more important than the technology until they get to the point where they have agency and confidence with the technology. 

And also, if they are less likely to raise their hand or reveal that they don't know something, creating environments where those learners can feel safe to do that. So having anonymous ways to share feedback using Mentimeter - in some cases that can't work - but using things like Mentimeter and helping students to contribute in a way that doesn't put the spotlight on them enables those learners and creating situations so you can do that one to one. And not assume that if somebody is very quiet that they're not very engaged because they probably are but they don't want to draw attention to themselves necessarily. These sorts of things are in the Wired toolkit so hopefully we can share the link for that.

Emma Cragg: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. It really sounds like kind of, it's all about sort of enabling confidence and that kind of takes on a lot of different forms, whether that's through just their own awareness and understanding and enabling them to feel safe, like you said, to actually speak up if they don't know something or not necessarily have to speak up, but have another way of sharing that. But then also the representation, that enabling confidence that they can actually see it's something realistic for them. And again, with the friendships, I think it's all about kind confidence at that level, isn't it?

Eddie Dobson: There's something that we call a hidden curriculum. You have the formal curriculum and you have representation on the walls and in the formal curriculum. But the hidden curriculum is how people talk to each other and the kind of assumptions and the kind of culture that they create. Awareness of that is really important for supporting that confidence as well.

Aimee Christodoulou: And just to say for anyone who's interested, we'll make sure that Eddie's research and statistics are popped in the show notes as well. So you can find all of it once you've listened to the episode.

[Transition music]

Aimee Christodoulou: Obviously, you've all come into music technology via different routes, different pathways, but I'm wondering if you could share some examples of your experience of people in leadership roles in the music tech space. Whether that's perhaps at university, I know Xanthe you did music tech at uni; whether that's what that might have looked like in entering industry, I think you said maybe 20 years ago, Kate. I'm sure it can look different for all of you. But what's your experience of people in leadership roles in the music tech space?

Xanthe Sparke: I think the majority of people in leadership roles in my experience have been men. I think I had one lecturer at the university who identified as a woman. People have still been, all people in those leadership roles have still been like highly encouraging of me to pursue this work in the music industry. But definitely at times when I've like, I've been struggling to continue in the music industry, like Eddie was mentioning about all these barriers that you face and like not feeling represented in the industry. I've looked towards people who were women and gone out to talks and tried to go to as many panels and listen to as many podcasts as I could to look to other people who are like me and are actually doing this job because, it's very easy to get disenfranchised and disencouraged when you're struggling in this industry, I find.

Kate Rounding: I think it can be a tough industry whether you're an artist, a promoter, a sound engineer. And hats off to you for doing live sound as well because I know that can be really hard work... My background was, I actually had children, I was a single parent and decided to go back to college because I needed to get some qualifications behind me. I needed to do something and I wanted to do something with my creativity. I was also in a band, but I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket. So, I also did sound engineering. And then I managed to get a job in a recording studio, which I worked in for about six years. It was mostly recording young bands, Youth Music-funded bands. There were others, but there was a lot of that. But I really enjoyed it. But it was really, really hard work. And I also did a little bit of live sound engineering. But that was one of the first things I thought, actually, I can't keep doing this, especially with two children! But I got there. I think that breadth of experience, I think when young women are starting out in the industry, it's about gaining all the experience because there's no one route into that career. It's going to be different for everybody. Yeah, but it can be hard work.

Aimee Christodoulou: And I guess it comes back to that that issue of representation that we were speaking about before, you know, we want to see other people that look like us going into the same role. And that can be where the problems stem from really. 

Obviously, we've spoken a lot about some challenges that women and trans and non-binary people may face in the sector. But I wonder if you have any thoughts on how things are becoming more accessible for women and minority genders in music tech?

Xanthe Sparke: I, because I'm based in Leeds, I have really appreciated the opportunities that Yorkshire Sound Women Network are providing actually. I have been on one of their projects supporting women and minority genders in live sound engineering and I helped out over a couple of days shadowing for an event. That was really great. I think there's bits and bobs like what Yorkshire Sound Women Network are doing that are popping up that I haven't experienced. Like in the past five years I've lived in Leeds, just seeing more of this happen in the past two years has been really exciting, and I'm yeah super grateful for that, so thank you, Eddie!

Eddie Dobson:  I'm not personally responsible, but I would definitely pass that on! I'm really, really happy to hear that! The Yorkshire Sound Women Network and other organisations as well, and there are quite a few developing initiatives to support young children, young professionals, older professionals as well. So you've got initiatives like the WIRED programme, so the 12-week courses for female and minority gender people. Those courses are really helping to make a difference and that's encouraging. And there's usually a celebratory and mutually supportive sort of environment there. And those spaces don't exist in isolation. Those young people, and older people, move in different spaces, but they gather a kind of resource of confidence from having been in those spaces. So they're not little bubbles. 

I think the main challenge is probably around helping managers of various settings and various industries to address policy and recognise the extent and characteristics of the issues, really prioritising this and responding with, yes, but what can we do? Because these organisations are working very hard to do very positive things, but it shouldn't be left on those organisations to do all of that work, which is why this kind of conversation is really important.

Kate Rounding: I think that's really interesting, Eddie, and I think again that's something that education needs support with, isn't it? It starts in education, like you say, it shouldn't be left to organisations alone. It has to be embedded throughout society and education is where a lot of our children are gaining those foundations.

Eddie Dobson: I want to add that the Yorkshire South Women Network have developed an initiative called Volume Up specifically to make it easier for various industries and organisations to develop their knowledge on creating more inclusive spaces so they have an opportunity to really look at their practices and their staff training and develop policy and practical changes that make their organisation more inclusive. And I think it's up to those organisations to really do that.

Aimee Christodoulou: I think there's lots for our listeners to learn from there. And it sounds like there's a lot of positive change happening already. There's still challenges to face, but we're on the right track. I wonder why all of you might be perhaps hopeful for the future of gender inclusivity in music tech?

Eddie Dobson: I actually asked Heidi, our Development Manager, this question because I'm representing Yorkshire Sound Women Network. So, I'd like to share her answer with that and I hope she doesn't mind. She says that we at the Yorkshire Sound Women Network, we're working with a lot of really talented and creative individuals, like Xanthe, with all sorts of different interests and expertise in relation to music tech. And there's plenty of people who are interested in the field who seek a sense of community with shared values. And we're seeing the impact of these initiatives that both Yorkshire Sound Women Network and allied organisations offer in help with those individuals' progress, their development in different stages, whether it be through Wired or through Paid Trainee Artistic Commission, as in our PRSF-funded Changing Gear programme by delivering workshops or performances or as part of being part of our Paid Associate Pool. So, there's definitely hope on the horizon and more organisations in the music sector committing to things like Volume Up Framework will help them to identify those tangible things that they can change. Which, by the way, we're offering on a subsidised basis for music education hubs. So we're feeling very positive.

Xanthe Sparke: I think for me working on this project at Old Chapel where we're training up sound engineers as well as teaching them how to run their own business. It's really exciting to see one of the people who's part of that project, who identifies as a woman, seeing her progress and addressing her initial barriers to progressing in the music industry, addressing those things and seeing her actually learning and progressing and starting to work with new clients. Yeah, seeing her confidence grow has been really exciting. And just getting the funding for that project in the first place from the Arts Council is really exciting. It shows that people are really wanting to put in money and time for this issue and are actually serious about making some change.

Kate Rounding: It's really nice to hear all this positivity. 

Xanthe Sparke: For a change, isn't it? It's nice, yeah.

Kate Rounding: It is really nice. And also, I think for myself, it's nice to meet younger people, younger women, working in the music industry as producers, sound engineers… There's a young woman I've met recently in Nottingham who's running the Hoam Studio at Fishergate Point. Hoam stands for House of All Music. And she's running that and she's bringing in younger people. They're having children actually from age 12 and up coming in to record. And she's doing that all by herself. And it's just fantastic. And then there's young producers there making brilliant music. So it's really nice to see that. And I think that that, with this conversation and others happening nationally, and the range of organisations that are out there, as you were saying, Xanthe to support this, I think there is a groundswell, and like you said, Eddie, I think it is changing and it's just lovely to hear that positivity.

Eddie Dobson: My only hope is that it reaches a tipping point rather than subsiding.

Emma Cragg: Yeah, I think that's really lovely to hear all three of your responses are all kind of about people there - that you're seeing the people doing it and that's what's making you feel hopeful and positive. I think I was almost expecting more answers about… this change in policy or whatever, I know each of you have spoken about organisations putting in the work, but it's really nice to hear your answers all more being “we're seeing these young people actually doing it” and sort of actually seeing the change happen. So that is really optimistic and great to hear.

So, speaking about the young people finding a way to make it happen and getting these opportunities, I think it would be good to speak about what opportunities are out there, and how people can find them and how people can facilitate them? So maybe speaking about organisations first. What can organisations, particularly in the music education space, but also just across the music industry, what can they do to support young people in getting involved in music technology?

Eddie Dobson: I would definitely recommend looking at the Yorkshire Sound Women Network, the Wired toolkit and Volume Up resources. 100% very good resources for approaching this.

Xanthe Sparke: We were speaking earlier about representation and if there's a way for organisations to train and encourage women and people of minority genders into leadership roles as well. As well as participating in the workshops, yeah, supporting them in actually being leaders for the future generations as well. I think that's one thing I've been really grateful for on working on this project, is that my role is actually I'm training to be a project coordinator as well. I wasn't expected to already have this knowledge and this job. So, part of the funding was to train me as well. So if there's a way of, yeah, organisations providing that support and funding for people to actually train in leadership roles too so they can support and give that representation to others. I think that would be really great.

Emma Cragg: That's so interesting. Kind of a holistic approach and not just thinking about getting people into the industry in the first place, but actually taking them to the top, getting them into those leadership roles for that representation sounds really important. Kate, did you have anything to add?

Kate Rounding: Well, yes, I do. I always do! I like that idea a lot though, Xanth,e part of that is paying it forward, isn't it? You know, to sort of make sure and as you said, Emma, making sure that we support our young people to grow, and also to be adaptable and flexible because music and music technology, it's often not one pathway, it's often several routes. You might be working in a studio for some time and then you're moving on to organised projects as a musical director, or you might be working on a big live production, whether you're on the monitor mix or front of house. There's so many roles and routes and I think supporting young people to be adaptable and to look after their health. You know, because it can be really hard work, can be late nights and being freelance, that's quite stressful in itself. You're always looking for the next job and then maybe you've got too many jobs. So, you know, helping young people to navigate that, helping them grow and adapt is really important. 

And I think, again, going back to education, sharing that breadth of roles, what there is in the industry, because even in music technology, you're not just a producer or a sound engineer. Even in the live setting, there's lots of different roles within that. You could be building software, you could be making software more accessible. There's so many different roles even within the tech space. So I think helping young people see that. And that also acts as advocacy for parents to support their young people to take up those music careers. So, yeah.

Eddie Dobson: Could I add one more thing or maybe a couple more things? Mentoring is a lovely way to do this, but supporting the mentor as much as the mentee I think is important, not expecting free mentorship, but developing schemes that can provide young people with mentors. Also, the Youth Music Next Gen funding is, I've got a link for that that I can provide. And something that's available now is Yorkshire Sound Women Network trainee opportunity for 18 to 25 year olds, although that closes in December. There are other schemes like that sort of on the horizon. And also for young people to get involved, there's the Sound and Music Summer School, now this isn't for traditional classical composers anymore. There's a strong music production element to that and there is some sponsorship support for young people to get involved and that can lead to some nice future developments too.

Emma Cragg: Thank you. I think that gives people a lot of places to go away and have a look at and find out more.

There's just something I wanted to ask off the back of what Kate, you were saying, speaking a little bit about kind of the challenges of actually working in the music industry and, you know, particularly these kind of late nights. And is there an element of personal safety that's involved and maybe more of a challenge for women and minority genders working in this area?

Kate Rounding: Well, yes, I mean, more than likely. I've thought about this prior to this recording and, you know, I think everybody is individual, so how they deal with these things will be individual to them. I know you sent a question which was asking about sexism and had we experienced sexism. And yes, and misogyny, yes, definitely. How that impacts you, in any given situation, can vary and it can vary to that person. But I would definitely say in response to your question about safety, it is a concern. Perhaps not so much in, you know, if you're working in a fixed studio… having said that, you know, you can be there through the night on your own with people you don't know. But I think that comes down to your confidence again. But definitely in bands, that's a whole different matter. I can definitely say you would be... there's more concerns for safety out there gigging.

Xanthe Sparke: Yeah and for live sound engineers as well definitely.

Aimee Christodoulou: Have you got any experiences you might feel comfortable sharing for our audience?

Xanthe Sparke: In live sound engineering, yes I think I've faced more sexism and misogyny in that world. Because you're often in a space where alcohol is involved and people are unpredictable, and when people are stressed in that situation too, they look to you and sort of like put all their rubbish on you. So yeah, live sound engineering can be a difficult space to be in as a woman. Yeah, especially when you're working with bands that are like majority of the time made up of men. I think people are just not used to seeing women in those spaces, or people of minority genders, and just have a hard time actually believing that you know what you're doing.

Aimee Christodoulou: There's lots of tangible things for people to take away from this, but I think ultimately it keeps coming back to representation, right? If we can see more representation in a wide breadth of roles across the music tech space, that will start addressing the root of some of these problems really.

Eddie Dobson: Just one more thing on that... I haven't experienced sexism in the most explicit way that you might expect, so, not sexual abuse, although I know a lot of people who have experienced that. And it might be because of the way that I present, but what we found in our study with the Wired Research, with respect to higher education and industry placement, there was a lot of narrative on harassment which falls just below the radar of the harassment policy. Unconscious bias, explicit sexism that just doesn't get quite caught. So there's a need for allyship and proactive intervention amongst peers, certainly at university level, for these issues to be taken very seriously amongst academic staff, which isn't always necessarily the case. It isn't always understood or prioritized, but especially when it comes to industry placements, because what we found in the research was that students were going, they were going to university, they get into their second year, and then they go on an industry placement. They're still very young and they're in an environment where they're being explicitly discriminated against, not just because they're young, but also because of their gender. And observing male peers being given opportunities to learn software, to be in environments that they're not able to be in, experiencing bullying, which may be related to sexism, but they can't necessarily put their finger on it. And the power dynamic there is enormously problematic such that they don't feel that they're able to raise issues or address them. And ultimately leading to people suffering very serious mental health issues. So, while somebody doesn't say anything sexually explicit or put their hand on somebody, they are still, likely that person is still experiencing bullying and misogyny, and trying to navigate that as a young person is horrendous. So I think all of that needs a careful eye. And if it's a placement, it's the responsibility of the university provider to address it within the policy and act it through procedure.

Aimee Christodoulou: Such an important discussion to have and I wonder how much of that, like you say, goes under the radar because I suppose it just becomes the norm and expected behaviour and you just put up with it.

Kate Rounding: One of the things that I thought about is to encourage girls, young women to speak to somebody if they are not happy with something that is happening, is to ensure that they are absolutely confident to tell somebody. I think that's really, really important.

Eddie Dobson: Yes, and to know that they'll be taken seriously. Especially, yeah.

Kate Rounding: Absolutely.

Emma Cragg: Maybe this partly comes back to talking about leadership roles earlier as well, how a lot of the people that we see in these leadership roles are often just men. And then maybe young women working in the industry, if they do experience something, they might not feel kind of safe to go and speak to them. I mean, I guess maybe it depends on the culture in that specific place that they're working and the person specifically they're dealing with. But there might not be the same openness about it as well.

Aimee Christodoulou: I wonder how then, how do we empower young women and people of minority genders in the music tech space to feel safe and confident enough to speak up? How do we go about that?

Kate Rounding: I always come back to it starts in education, you know, right from early years and certainly in GCSE and secondary school into FE, we have to encourage them to, well, I suppose for organisations, they need to have a visible safeguarding representative, somebody there who can be approached and can do something about it. And then it's the culture of supporting young women and girls to be able to speak. And I think you're absolutely right Eddie, to know that something will be done about it. That's important.

Eddie Dobson: I agree 100 % and I think it's important to belong to a network and to belong to a group of others who are able to understand and where you feel safe to talk about this, to decompress and simultaneously to have a mentor of some kind, even if they're not in the same industry, but somebody you trust, who you can talk to independently and just sense check your own mind on something.

Kate Rounding: Absolutely, whether that's bullying or harassment or anything you're concerned about. And I wonder as well that, as the conversation around gender progresses, whether this will actually support more young women, girls and non-binary young people into these music tech spaces, because I think actually some of the societal stereotypes around gender have been barriers to entry. So I wonder as that conversation progresses, whether that will help more people to enter the music tech space. 

And I think another conversation that is just starting nationally on a serious level is about supporting young people with disabilities into the music industry and into the music tech space. And you mentioned intersectionality, Eddie, and I think you know, that is a massive barrier and a massive area that needs a lot of focus. It's something at TiME that we do focus on, particularly in education, because there's so much technology out there that can make music, making production more accessible. But then when you think about access to studios, I know that there is Crown Lane Studio in Morden that is fully accessible, and that's been designed with the support of John Kelly and is a fully accessible studio, they've even made the cafe accessible with Braille in the menu, they all do BSL as part of their training. 

Eddie Dobson: Nice.

Kate Rounding: But yeah, it's really nice. I think that, yeah, so that intersectionality and supporting people with disabilities into music careers is really important also.

Aimee Christodoulou: There's so much there to take away and think about we could probably do a whole other episode to be honest on intersectionality alone. 

Eddie Dobson: 100%, yeah.

Aimee Christodoulou: But obviously with so much to dive into, we want to make sure it's not too overwhelming, we want our listeners to take away tangible things that, maybe it's one thing they go away and look into after this. So I guess that leads us quite nicely onto, you know, you were speaking about mentorship and finding your community, things like that. I wonder if you have any recommendations for other organisations, or resources and training, that's already out there that people should go and look into after listening to this episode?

Eddie Dobson: Well, I feel like I've already mentioned the Wired resources, but also for organisations to look up Volume Up, and music providers to look that up as well, in order to do a sort of audit of what they're currently doing in collaboration with the Yorkshire Sound Women Network and develop better practices. A bit like unconscious bias, we all have it and we all have to do the work to address it, and if more than half of the population are not currently engaging in our music industries, what a lost resource that is. Never mind, you know, there's the economic benefit from that point of view. Never mind the possible creative contribution and enrichment of our society as a whole. We can't neglect it. We can't continue to neglect that. So it requires work.

Xanthe Sparke: I suppose, for me at Old Chapel, as part of the project I'm working on, we're looking to get solo artists and bands in to record with the trainees to help them improve their skills and gain more experience. So yeah, anyone who's a solo artist or part of a band who wants to come in for some free recording sessions, if you go to the website Old Chapel Leeds, then you can find more about that and apply to get involved. All completely free, all we ask is people have patience with the trainees as they're still learning.

Kate Rounding: There's an organisation called Saffron that seem to do a lot of great work in this space supporting women and gender-expansive people into music, into the studios. So yeah, definitely check out Saffron. And then more locally in Nottingham near me, there's an organisation called Sugar Steelers, which is led by women, is there to support women and they do DJ skills and various things. I think it's always important to have a look at what your local music hub are doing and what their hub partners are doing. There's often great things going on in your region and that's a good place to start.

Emma Cragg: Thank you all so much. And we will include links to all of those resources and projects that are going on. So people who are listening can check out the show notes to make sure they find their way to that. And really great to have things for both organisations to look at to kind of improve what they're doing, but also young people directly to be able to go and have a look and find some projects that they can get involved with as well. So, before we finish up, we wanted to ask what's one thing that each of you are just really loving working on right now? So whether that's a project, or some music in particular that you're working on…?

Xanthe Sparke: Yeah, I'm really enjoying working on the new season of Queer Love Stories, the podcast I record and edit for. It's, as ever, just really inspiring to see different types of queer love, whether that be in friendships, family relationships, community… it's just a lovely source of inspiration.

Emma Cragg: That sounds really joyous, I think I'll definitely go and listen to that! Kate, shall I come to you next?

Kate Rounding: I love working with TiME and supporting these connections between technology manufacturers and educators, both in formal education and in the community and also in music therapy, that's brilliant. And I'm also working with the Leicester Music Board to deliver the Leicester Music Conference, which will be next February, and absolutely love doing that.

Emma Cragg: Sounds great, sounds really exciting. And Eddie?

Eddie Dobson: That sounds really interesting, yeah. I've been recently working on an audio feature by Emma Ratnall called The Spaces Between, and there's some beautiful music in there, really, really gorgeous piece of work. My job was really mixing and mastering the overall production, not the music track specifically. And it looks at identity and the problematic question, where are you from? Identity assumed, masked, hidden and forgotten. It's absolutely gorgeous. So I recommend looking out for that when it's online.

Emma Cragg: Amazing. That sounds great as well. So hopefully if that's out there when we release this, we can include some links to that as well so people can check it out. Fab, is there anything that anyone else would like to add or shout out or mention?

Eddie Dobson: Just not to leave it to those who are already doing the work. Don't assume that because you're sympathetic and you want to do something that you know what to do. There's a lot of resource and information now, but it requires all of us to do that work now.

Kate Rounding: Get in touch with Youth Music or keep an eye on Youth Music and their funding opportunities, because I know they have supported some brilliant projects around the country. And if there are people out there with something they want to really achieve with young people at the heart of it, Youth Music are always worth keeping an eye on.

Aimee Christodoulou: Brilliant. Thank you all so much for joining us. It's been so insightful. I think our listeners will have so much to take away and look at from this and, you know, lots of thinking to do as well.

Emma Cragg: We learnt so much from that discussion, and we hope you have lots to take away and think about too!

Aimee Christodoulou: Thanks again to Eddie, Kate, and Xanthe, for sharing their experiences and expertise with us! Thanks for listening, and see you next time!