CLOSE: Open Floor Discussion & Closing Remarks
Saturday, September 8th 2018, 5.15pm - 5.30pm, Liberty Hall, Dublin
Panellists: Shane Gillen, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Ciara O’Leary Fitzpatrick, Tóla Custy, Nuala O’Connor & Éamon Murray.
Facilitated by Joanne Cusack.
Facilitator:
Joanne Cusack is a button accordionist and doctoral researcher from Co. Dublin. Joanne began her doctoral research in Musicology at Maynooth University, focusing her research on gender in Irish traditional music.
Participants:
Éamon Murray is a founding member of supergroup ‘Beoga’ and has worked in all facets of the music industry for almost 2 decades.
Shane Gillen is the director of Big and Bright music agency. Big and Bright was established in 2017 in response to a gap in the market for an all-encompassing, 360 degree, specialised talent management service and booking agency. Bringing together established industry experience and PR expertise, they allow acts to flourish in all aspects of their careers, presenting greater opportunities for success.
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is an award-winning traditional singer and musician from Corca Dhuibhne, West Kerry. She has enjoyed a successful career as a touring artist, with over thirteen years experience as lead singer and flute player with the Irish traditional supergroup Danú, as well as performing as a solo artist.
Ciara O' Leary Fitzpatrick, currently head of Digital Marketing at Cork Opera House has been playing traditional music since the age of four. A concertina player from North Cork, she also is a guest lecturer at CIT Cork School of Music where she previously graduated from with a Masters in Performance. With music and marketing in her tool belt, she has worked with many artists and artistic bodies in building their online strategies and presence.
Tóla Custy is an exceptional fiddle player and composer from County Clare who has sought to create a sound of his own whilst remaining sympathetic to the subtle nuances in Irish Traditional Music.
Nuala O’Connor established Hummingbird Productions with Philip King in 1987 to produce high quality music and arts documentary films. With Philip King she worked as producer and writer on the BBC’s 'Bringing It All Back Home' and is the author of the book which accompanied the series. Nuala also sits on the governing body of UCC, and has worked as a traditional music reviewer for the Irish Times for many years.
TRANSCRIPT
Joanne: We’re actually going to merge the two sessions now, the FairPlé Feedback, the Open Floor and the Emerging Artists. So if you’ve questions relating to either/or, we’re going to answer them now. So if you’ve questions relating to this panel here, and just FairPlé in general ... So if there’s a…
Úna: Joanne, just to say to say to everyone, I forgot to say when I was speaking earlier that the questionnaire online for stories will be open for another month. And we’ve had 120 responses, and we need to hear everyone’s stories, so if you have, however long, however short, comments or stories of something you’ve seen or ... feed it into the ... if you’re able to send them in to www.FairPle.com/research
Joanne: So any questions relating to this panel, or FairPlé, for anyone that they may want to ask today, now is your chance. Yeah, Ellie?
Ellie: Youse talked a lot about kind of, board room meetings with like with music executives and things like that, and marketing is a huge thing for a lot of bands. And you said as well about the only female in the band she might happen to be a singer, put to the front, do you find a lot with those marketing companies that the reality of your band is then morphed when they put out this marketing perception image that's tuned to spin the balance of your band as well?
Karan: I know I think the reality behind most bands, and the bands actually can kind of in some ways become a tyranny because they’re trying to get gigs, and they’re trying to make a living - actually many of us are really just trying to make a living. But there’s generally one person in the band who, does, well in my experience, nearly does everything and is the de facto manager and I think – so it depends on what you mean by a band, I suppose.
Ellie: Well say if you were in a band or a group ... like Liz was saying how she set up Fiddlesticks, and it just so happened they were all women and then people were like "Oh, this is an all-female band" but it just so happens that that was there. Or you look at other bands where there was one woman in the band and she was an instrumentalist, but she was also a singer, so then the marketing company when they were going to be signed then put them as the face of the band but they may not be the face of the band, if that makes any sense?
Pauline: Yeah but they can trade on you, like your image can become the face of a band but your wage packet may not necessarily reflect that. I think that’s what the thing is, that suddenly you realize that this woman is the face of a band and if you have to miss a gig, they say "Oh, we can’t do it without you, because you know we’re selling the band on your face, or your voice, or whatever" but as I said, your wages don’t reflect that, necessarily.
Muireann: Hard pass.
Tóla: I think it's how deep you’re willing to go to, you know what I mean? So that’s the first thing. You could say no at the start and you probably get any ... it probably will end, see what I mean? But there is an element of argument, I think you were saying it too, you know ... it’s not going to be rosy, that’s a fact.
Éamon: They talk about it in very kind of cold terms a lot, you’d hear them talking about "bringing value", it’s this, you know, like or just weird things, like "That brings no value to what they see.". I think everybody’s different, I would say. Like that band Churches for example, you know, that woman Lauren Maybury is the very focal point of all the imagery, to the point that the rest of the band, you know they’re … I don’t know who the rest of them are. You know, so they’ve packaged that up and they’ve kind of marketed her as the thing, so she brings a certain amount of value to whatever they’re doing, they talk about it in really weird kind-of terms.
Muireann: It’s an extra pressure, then, for the female musician that she didn’t necessarily ask for, or want - and yet if you don’t buy into it, do you have a gig? It’s kind of crap, you know? I certainly didn’t enjoy that side of things, I have to say. And I used to have like, interviewers on the phone, and they’d be like, when I was starting out now I maybe just had a head shot, "Could you describe your body for me so that I can accurately represent it in the interview?" I'm like "Aghhhhh!"
Éamon: We’ve been lucky enough with these new conversations that they don’t want to put any of our heads on anything … like "We’re going to make a video" – "Oh, I don’t know if I’ve any time" ‘Oh, don’t worry - you’re not in it, any of it, none of ye!"
Niamh: There’s a point about that as well though, that if some – you know you make the argue – you know you have to argue against it, as Tóla was kind of saying, if you’re not comfortable with it. But then - especially when you’re younger, like you’re so desperate to get the gig, you’re so desperate to be in the band, you’re so desperate to be on the roads, you’d do anything, within reason. You know there’s that pressure to just kind of go along: "And come up the front now there Niamh, and sit down and pull up the skirt there now a small bit", and you’re like, "O.K." - because you’re terrified. I wouldn’t put up with it now. But when I was 21 ... you do what you’re told.
Muireann: You do it, you do whatever you’re told. I brought out a - not even a CD, I brought out an album with Pádraig Rynn recently, of electronica, which was like nothing to do with trad and folk but was loads of fun, but the best thing about it for me was, I said to Padraig: "And when we’re making the cover, can we not be on it?" he was like, "Yeah!" I was like "Yes!" Oh my god there was just like ... relief.
Joanne: Has anyone any other questions? No? Yeah - in the back.
Éamon: My name is Éamon Murray, four years ago I started learning pipes in Henrietta Street as a very, very mature student, and I noticed straightaway lots of young girls starting off, by – and it’s particularly so in any pipes, by 16, 17 and 18 it’s predominantly boys. And I was thinking about this amazing piece of political artwork behind me, because you’re all looking that way, I can half look this way. One of the things on it is about asking questions, I think that somebody with standing like maybe FairPlé, should ask every organization involved in the education of young people in traditional music to provide a breakdown of what ages kids start at, what the gender mix is there, and all the way through up to 18. And that ... maybe that would give us some clues as to why this fall-away happens, and that as part of their gender equality policy they should report to their AGMs every year on what they’re doing about whatever anomalies emerge in those statistics that they’ve compiled. Because it just doesn’t make any sense to put all the effort in, and to lose almost 50% of your talent every year.
Joanne: It’s interesting you’re saying that because I actually teach in a number of Comhaltas branches around Dublin, and indeed Dundalk when I was there, and it was actually predominantly female musicians coming up but we didn’t see them after that unfortunately on the commercial level. So my research actually in Maynooth, I’m going to be looking in to Comhaltas in particular, it’s going to be great fun, particularly the archive room, I’ve heard all about it. But yeah, so, I’m hoping to get actually stats like that, that might hopefully lead to something like you said, because something needs to change, you know? We’ve got a lot more questions.
Síle Friel: Can I just address the pipes? So I play the uilleann pipes, and there’s not that many of us. I never, well, I know role models are so important for young musicians coming up. I didn’t come from a particularly strong piping background, my family’s from Donegal, it’s mainly more fiddle music. So I didn’t really see female pipers but I don’t ever feel like that hindered me you know, I think that’s just because I was lucky because I was encouraged to play any instrument I wanted, and we grew up in Glasgow so in a way I didn’t really realise pipes weren’t necessarily an instrument for a girl. When I started learning them, my Granny asked me to stop because it would make my arms swollen. So … but I didn’t start playing pipes till I was 16 so maybe that was a bit of a benefit as well because I had a strength of character at that stage where I’d always liked pipes, I always wanted to play them but I didn’t care about gender and biases and all of that. At first I was a little bit apprehensive in supporting FairPlé, I totally agree with everything you stood for, but one thing, and I spoke to Niamh about this, the only thing that held me back was that I felt that Na Piobairí Uilleann had given me such encouragement as a girl on the pipes, and I almost felt like it was an insult to them because as far as I can see, they are doing more to promote more young female players. But after speaking to a few pipers, I can … I almost felt like I had to say my wee piece to the pipers first and then I felt I could support the movement a bit more fully. But we have loads of young girls playing the pipes now - particularly in Donegal, we’ve got a problem where we don’t have any boys playing, it’s all girls playing music, the boys think they can play Gaelic football, the girls play music, so we need to change that. So the pipes being all-girls isn’t necessarily just because they’re attracted to the instrument but I think it’s just a whole gender skew going on at the moment. We have a running joke, some of the pipers and I, you either have to be dead or be a girl to be on the front of "An Píobaire" publication. I still think that’s necessarily … I always question whether I deserved to get these piping gigs, was I getting them just because I was a girl, were they putting me up there to try to be role model for future generations? I really agree that you need the role models there, it’s just having this - you need the strength to be a role model and not question why you should be there necessarily. And now there aren’t enough girls playing - maybe at my generation it’s slightly below - but I think we’ll probably see that gender balance change entirely, because most of the classes I’m teaching at the moment, certainly 80% are girls. They’re just giving a lot of the girls, but ...
Joanne: It's just to see if they go to the commercial side, the 80%, that’s really the big thing, whether they transition, yeah.
Karan: And that is the actual issue, that’s actually the whole crux of the issue. I teach, we all teach, so we’re not giving out actually about the educational institutes or any of the clubs because we’re all in there and we see the predominance of young women and they're absolutely brilliant, and just as talented. But then when they come out and enter in to the ... making money, what will we call it? professional, or even session scene, something shifts, and you know I think that’s why we’ve been asking these questions. I think a lot of that shift is many young women feel that they don’t belong in a macho culture or a culture that has bravado, or a culture that is endemic with sexual harassment, so that’s essentially I think where we are at, at the moment. Of course, subject to change, but we are part of a volunteer organization trying to tease out all of these questions.
Now, I think the issue of statistics, it has come up all day: Jane Cassidy did a look at 13 festivals, just a kind of a cursory overview, and the statistic was 74% male, 26% female and that seems to be the statistics that’s coming up all the time. And that’s not good enough, you know, because behind that statistic is the reality of being demeaned and demoralized and not held up, or having to prove yourself time and time again, and that has … it becomes exhausting, it becomes really tiring. I’m 50, I don’t need to prove myself any more you know, I’m as good as any singer, any male singer, in fact I would say better. So that kind of … we don’t have any issue, I think, with the schools or even the colleges. And I think that educated female group of performers are now pushing at the ceiling and saying, right, we’re here, we’ve had enough, lets change. I think that’s ... oh and if anybody else wants to do … or fund the research, come and talk to me. You will make my day!
Joanne: I think we’ve time for one more question.
Questioner: First of all thanks very much to all the speakers and everyone who’s organized this, I found it so helpful and inspiring. And I just want to comment on the last three speakers. First of all I was the co-founder of a music school, and we started out 12 years ago. We went from 2 teachers and 60 students up to more than 30 teachers from all over the world and over 400 students. So in December I took a sabbatical from that in order to focus on performing and as a result, first of all I can concur with your intuition, that there is a lot more students, there’s actually a million more female students and then they don’t go into the profession. So just as Karan said, I would concur with that intuitively and experientially. And so then it’s - why? And I have struggled with this on a really personally level, and I want to name some of those things and see if anybody else identifies and if we can come up with some solutions. So one of the first things is that when I was younger, I come from a family who’s really into music, my Mum and Dad met at a Fleadh so they’re all about music, but they actually knew the music culture very well, and they were very scared that I would become an addict of some sort, if I were a traditional musician. So ... being totally honest, loads of my family have addiction problems. So it was totally safe to go to music, to go to college and study music, and it was totally desirable that I become a good musician. But - oh my god, I’ll never forget it, my Mom never asked me to do anything except for, when I graduated, I said "I want to go to Canada and be a composer!" and she said "Oh my god, please just do the Grad. Dip, just for me!" She basically said, you can do anything, but please don’t be a professional musician. "I’m scared, you’ll die at the age of 40 leaving 4 children with 4 different fathers, who I’ll then have to mind, and you’ll be driving home from a session at 4am in the morning and you’ll be in a crash because you’re so drunk and then you know ..." So I think first of all it’s definitely a problem of association, of a substance-addiction culture within a macho culture, an association with that, and parents see their gorgeous little vulnerable girls going into that, and get very scared. So that’s one thing.
Another thing is that I really agree with this whole thing of the sexism being endemic in the lack of regulation. So we were having a really good conversation and coffee with this other woman who had a previous career as a planner, which she said is a very male-dominated environment. I said "O.K. - so you’ve been a planner in a really male-dominated environment which is very formal. And you’ve been a musician in a really male-dominated environment which is not formal, and not remotely regulated. Which one had more sexism? She said there was sexism in both, but far more in the music industry. And it makes perfect sense. It’s because I can’t go to a H.R. person and complain, it’s because I can’t campaign for unfair dismissal because I have five different employers every week, five different individual gigs etc. etc. So I agree thoroughly with Liz Doherty who said that really, professionalisation could be one of the ways to stop to – I think it could provide a check for sexist behaviour, and it could provide punishments for sexist behaviour. And we need that, just like somebody else said, Peter Cosgrave I think, we need both the carrot and the stick.
And then I also want to say, what can men do? I’m so happy to see so many guys here. I salute you all - a massive bualadh bos to you. I think you’re amazing. It’s really hard to be told that you’ve been doing something wrong all along, that you’ve been doing something wrong just because you won a particular genetic lottery, and you guys have the courage to look at yourselves, and to look at your behaviour and to look at your fellows and to stand up and be counted. I think that’s so brave. And what else can you do? And I think first of all, if you’re a concert promoter, try to be aware of your unconscious bias, just like has been so eloquently expressed here. The second thing is: men listen, I have to be honest, in my experience, men listen more to other men than they listen to women on this subject. So if you see something happening, where somebody is being utterly inappropriate, reach out and just say "Ah, don’t be that guy’. You know, it’s hard - I know how hard it is. I’m in that situation all the time: how do I diplomatically challenge without being aggressive? But I have faith in ye, you’re amazing. You came here, you can do that.
Another thing, can you please be welcoming of women in sessions? I don’t know how many times I’ve been in a session, I’m the only girl, and I go in and there’s four or five guys, they’re having the craic, having the banter, they know each other because they met at boys' school together or have been playing, and they just turn their back on me when the set ends. What am I supposed to do? There’s a thing called the welcome, you can do a neutral welcome or an active welcome. Neutral welcome would just be like: "Hi, how are ya" - turn around to my friend again. Active welcome: "Hey, how are you doing? What’s your name? Where are you from? So - do you prefer jigs or hornpipes?" You know I would so, so appreciate it, if there was an active welcome expressed towards women in sessions.
And then, finally on a personal note, and I’ll shut up then, sorry! I had been ... I was answering Úna’s survey, and it was so educational - thank you Úna, for starting it - and it made me get conscious about two things that happened. And one of them was that when I was going looking for funding for a non-profit music project, I went to a philanthropist, and I said "Look, this is the project, we need funding, what would you think?" And he said "I’ll give you the money if you show me your boobs." Men don’t have to negotiate that, so my empathy for all women here - we have this extra layer of work we have to do to try and achieve our dreams. But anyway, the thing is that he was older, he was in a position of power and he mixed up the social and professional. I said no and walked out. But I would just implore you all, guys, be aware that you probably have position of power you’re not aware of, you’re probably going to get older and more authoritative, and just try to be aware of that, and not unconsciously use it.
And the second thing that happened was, it was a similar situation, I was 27, a person who was 28 years older than me - he was a really senior musician - asked me to have sex with him. And I was just so shocked ... I just said "Ah, I don’t think that’ll work" and headed off. But the thing was, I just was so shocked, I just said it in a very detached way, just thought, "Oh god. I've got to get out of here." and left. But there was a 28-year age gap there. There was a 28-year experience gap there. There’s a 28-year professional discrepancy there. He had so much seniority. I think I didn’t experience any malice from saying no. But if I had said 'no' in a different way, for example saying "Fuck off!" - which would have been an equally understandable response! - I’m pretty sure that unconsciously that person would have been biased against me, and that person holds huge power in the industry in which I work. So I just plead to everyone to be aware of your privilege, and your authority. If you’re gonna go off and like, you know, have sex with somebody, great, go off and ask anybody you want, but please do it outside of the industry? Maybe that’s a facetious solution, but ... that's one idea off the top of my head.
Joanne: O.K., thank you. That’s all we have time for question-wise, but we do have a session after this where there’ll be people walking around so that you’ll be able to get your questions in then. I just want to thank all panellists today, including this amazing bunch here, and the people that were on the panels earlier as well, so if you’d just give them all a round of applause.
So I’m just going to invite Karan Casey up now, just to give a speech.
Karan: Just thanks to everyone, like, hasn’t it been a great day? And thank you to, like the amazing people who’ve done tremendous work, this has taken an extraordinary amount of work, so we’ll all have like two gin and tonics each for everyone at the bar. And I hope you know, I hope that this is uplifting and liberating and that we can kind-of start finding ways to overcome all this together. I keep saying "together", because it’s really vital that we’re kind to one another and compassionate to one another and we work from that place, because otherwise we won’t get anywhere. So I hope you’ve all got something out of it all, and thank you very much to everyone, there’s a million people to thank, but thank you to everyone.
Transcribed by Niamh Parsons.
Proofreading and editing by Úna Ní Fhlannagáin.
