AH: So welcome. And in this podcast, I’m talking with Kate McBain and Dan Tsu, researchers and authors of the Industry Connect report commissioned by Youth Music to explore the challenges young people face in moving from education into careers in music, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. The report and the wider work around it maps the challenges and is working on solutions with a particular focus on the intersection between industry and education, including not-for-profits and youth services. So I was particularly interested in the part, which is about reframing narratives, about definitions of music industry, about pipelines and pathways and about expectations of work in music. So that’s what we’ll be focusing a little bit on today. So welcome Kate and Dan, it’s great to have you here.
KM: Hi. Thanks for having us.
AH: So before I get into the report, it’d be great to hear really briefly, just a little bit about each of you. Can you tell me briefly what you do and how did you end up where you are today?
KM: Brilliant. Thanks very much for having me, Anita. I am a researcher, learning designer, facilitator and a creative producer, and I am a consummate portfolio practitioner and one of your enablers, Anita.
AH: Lovely to hear that. Thanks Kate. And Dan?
DT: Hi, I’m Dan Tsu. I’m the founder of Lyrics Organics, the venue manager and programmer for The Rumshack at Glastonbury and co-director of Level in the Field, which is a festival trainee programme for the deaf and disabled. I have worked as a senior programme manager for The Roundhouse. A lot of my background is youth work around music and social action and the creative industries, very much at the grassroots and underground. So I guess a lot of my work that’s kind of evolved into this Youth Music research is both being kind of a grassroots champion and also thinking strategically about creative careers.
AH: Wow, you’re both fascinating. I already was thinking I’ll have you both on individually and just talk about the other aspects of your work. So there’s a lot to unpick in this report. So I guess my first question would be, who is it for, and why should they read it?
DT: So this report is for youth services and music education organisations. It’s basically for anyone in the sphere of music and youth music. It’s interesting because we’ve been, I guess inherently, we’re focused on music education, but actually it’s much more broad than that. We’re looking at not only organisations, but practitioners and freelancers. But this is also intended for the creative industries at large, and I think this is what makes the Industry Connect Report really interesting is it looks much further across the horizon than merely music education, because it is all linked. So it’s for those who know that the system is broken and are existing and working in it, and it’s, I guess, struggled to articulate a lot of the systemic challenges that we see every day on the ground, from youth centres to higher education. And so I guess it’s a new way of looking, a new way of framing, a new way of speaking, to unpack strategies, tools to unlock real, meaningful change.
KM: Yeah, and I might just add to that to say that it’s also for young people. One thing that Youth Music do really, really well is package up their content in a way that makes it accessible for everybody. And we want young people to read this in order to start engaging or engage further with the kind of ideas that we’re sharing and we’re talking about. I mean, why should anyone read it at all? Well, for two reasons, it gives voice to this huge sector of youth services workers, community art workers, those working in learning and youth music outside of formal education, which is really, really important. And secondly, it really does suggest that we need to understand that pathways and careers consist of far more than just what we’ve been led to believe for the last however, many decades.
AH: And just to make clear, when you talk about music industry, you’re talking about everything, aren’t you that a young person could possibly go into so it might be from Community Music to music education, to being a performer, working backstage, any of the allied professions around working in music. Is that right?
DT: Yes, precisely. And I think part of that is about we’ve actually been quite careful about how we use the word industry, and specifically music industry. We have used music industries to recognise the diversity of that, but also recognising that we talk about music industry in the kind of commercial sense of what we think about of publishing companies and record labels and festivals and so on. But actually, when we think about it purposefully, we realise that the music industries includes music education, it includes youth services and many of the other types of organisations that we’re considering.
AH: And there are four clear recommendations in the report. Can you tell us what they are and summarise how you came to those conclusions through the three strands of key findings? So I will be sharing a link to the report in the show notes, as well as a link to the really useful video that you recorded. So if you can just give us the headlines, so that people will be interested in reading those further resources that I’ll share.
KM: Absolutely and it builds on from what Dan was saying, really, in that there is no single definition of the music industry. There are multiple conceptions. And this was something that came out really clearly in all of our consultations, that when we all use the term music industry, actually, most of us are referring to different things. And so we, we really encourage adopting the approach that Sound Diplomacy have employed in the past, which is ‘music ecosystem’, because that ecosystem highlights that actually young people are moving around a terrain in which they learn about what music is and what working in music is in places far more than just education and just industry, whatever those things are. It includes the digital terrain, it includes what they’re learning from their brothers and sisters, it includes the chats that they’re having down, you know, at the grandma’s birthday party. And all of these things contribute to a music ecosystem in which young people learn what is possible or what they think is possible for them. So that’s really, really central, and we wanted to emphasise that, which then highlighted the importance of how actually we need to start having more conversations across different sectors, across different parts of the industries, to start developing a broader shared sense of what the music ecosystem actually is, so that we just at least acknowledge the complexity of what that space is, rather than just assuming we know what the music industry is and therefore what education is. So that’s really, really key. And we also wanted to, what we realised very, very quickly when we started mapping the terrain, was that there is a lot more than formal education and then industry, and that actually there are multiple different pathways into any one of these different roles that exist within the music industry, and indeed beyond that, a music education can take you into all manner of different careers in different creative sectors. But one of the really key findings that led us to start looking or proposing a recommendation for a national strategy that includes looking at non-formal pathways as well or non-formal education, and to start rethinking what a curriculum should be for music industry. Some of the things that actually led to that was a really defining moment in our research, when we decided to flip looking at the music industry as something which is up above us as part of a kind of pyramid with music industry at the top and education down the bottom. And if only we could get those bridges between them working properly, we would solve everything. And actually, we really wanted to challenge that idea, which has led to a number of the recommendations that’s come out. And perhaps Dan wants to add in what we mean by that, moving from this kind of pyramid and fetishisation of a music industry towards looking to the outside.
DT: Yeah, I mean to put it into kind of practical terms, you know, when I’m working in youth workshops at The Roundhouse, at Cambridge Junction or wherever it may be, traditionally, and because we exist in this kind of commercial driver of the music industry, we assume that the best thing to teach our artists, our backstage creatives, wherever they’re working, that they need to move upwards. You know, the kind of the rhetoric is always moving up through the industry, and climbing the ladder of success, and moving from A to B to C is going to get you to D, whereas actually, on the ground, we know that’s just simply not true. There is inequity built into the system. Everyone knows that. So there are people who enter the pipeline in inverted commas halfway through. There are people who can’t even, don’t even know where the pipeline is, and even when they get there, they’re not even allowed to get through that gate. And so when you contextualise this with the inequity that’s built into the system, which is fundamentally what we were looking at. How do you remove these barriers to inclusivity, in the broadest sense, for people to build resilient careers? It’s about rethinking what we mean. And I think Kate, you put it really nicely with this idea of how we fetishise it, and how it’s a very kind of top down approach. And it serves the traditional music industry to look at it that way, it serves a lot of structures that we see today. And actually, you know, to put it simply, we know, for example, that a lot of musicians get supplementary income, sometimes more income, from music in teaching. So where does that leave a kind of a pyramid system? What does that mean for the relative status of someone who’s maybe a really successful musician, but actually makes more money from the education work, of which I know quite a few. So I guess it’s about, as Kate said, kind of flipping it on its side. So rather than us trying to climb this ladder to success that we’re always told, is actually we start to realise that it’s much more like a maze, and when you flip it sideways, that actually what’s happening is young creatives, or even older creatives, are navigating this maze, sometimes with improper amount of knowledge or kind of navigation, and sometimes you reach a dead end, because that’s normal in a maze. If you think about a maze, maze of which I’m a fan of. You don’t moan when you get to a blockage, because, you know, that’s built into the maze. You just back out and find a new route. And that’s the experience that many young creatives are going through more so now than ever, and so part of it is recognising the importance of sideways mobility. So when we’re looking at the Creative Industries at large, for example, if you’re an artist manager and you’re super-hot at admin and you can create content, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can only exist in the music industry. You could become a content creator. You could work in film. You could work in visual arts. And so actually, we are limiting our young creatives and their prospects by simply the language, in many ways.
KM: Yeah, and to add to that, I think the idea of a pipeline, in many ways, is born of a time that was many, many decades ago. And you know, our young people, that is anyone under 30 really has been, have been born into a time that is so dramatically different to the one that we were brought up in. And indeed, we’re talking hundreds of, you know, 100 years ago, in terms of bricks and mortar and upward movement and the fact that you’d go to school and then you do your training, and then you get a job. That is just not the world that we now live in. And yet, the structures, as we will know, are still there, and we’re still trying, we’re still perpetuating the idea that there is a bridge from education into industry, when, in fact, everybody in the sector knows that it is not like that, and yet policy, in many ways, still replicates that idea. And that’s what we’re doing, is we are really encouraging and advocating for us to look at this terrain as something far more complex than just one planet of education connected by a bridge to another planet. There are many, many other planets, or what we’re calling nests, where young people learn about who they are, who they can be, what is possible, if only the environments are kind of okay for them. And so fundamentally, at the heart of this is, how do we create spaces and other nests that are inclusive and encouraging and empowering to young people, that are relevant and compatible with their lives, but more so, how do we help them move from one to another? Because the nests themselves, the spaces themselves, are not the main issue, really. It’s about how we help them move from one to the other.
AH: Those findings are so useful because they’re so real and they’re so true. And I think any older creative and older freelancer will recognise that most of us who work in the arts and have created our own careers through portfolio careers and a mix of our own training that we’ve made up as we go along, we definitely would not recognise that pyramid and that progression route, because we’ve made it up as we go along. And that’s what increasingly young people are having to do, aren’t they? So your findings were around how work in the music industry is communicated, promoted and understood, the pathways in the context of a change in landscape, and the post-16 training, education and career development area. And then your recommendations, did you want to talk a little bit more about those?
KM: Yeah, absolutely. So the first one is about national strategy, and this is something that Sound Diplomacy and many people within the Youth Music sphere have been talking about anyway, and that is the need for a national strategy. Which helps us identify how we’re going to work together across different sectors in order to support young people into, you know, to thrive within the creative sector. So a national strategy is one key recommendation that Youth Music is strongly working towards, and they’re in the process of building the structure of that at the moment. Dan, do you want to talk about the next couple?
DT: Sure, the second one is reimagining curriculum and careers advice. We know, you know, that we just don’t get creative industries advice with consistency and quality. But we are told about the path for if you want to be a doctor, if you want to be a lawyer, or if you want to do many of the kind of traditional professions. But actually, we know that careers advice is generally not fit for purpose. We know that there have been significant cuts to music and creative education in the curriculum. And ultimately, if you’re not told about it and you can’t see it, then it’s impossible to be it. And so there’s been a lot of work recently, has been talked about in the House of Commons recently about the improvements to the music curriculum in schools, which Kate can probably speak to more. But I think it’s about meeting young people where they’re at. I mean, this is a thread that will run throughout this conversation and the recommendations, but you know, part of that was coming from how young people learn. The third recommendation is about enhancing non-formal pathways programmes. So as someone who works on a daily in non-formal education, but also within the formal education sphere. Ezra Collective as a very good example of people who are championing the importance of youth clubs, of youth organisations, music services that exist outside of formal education. Ultimately, that’s where the majority of people who start making music go to, because if you cannot afford to enter the formal education system, or, for example, you’re not at a private school which has more music provisions, then necessarily you cannot practice music. You simply do not have the opportunity. So places like The Roundhouse, places like Music Works, places like Saffron and Brighter Sound and all of these amazing organisations doing stuff all across the UK become that de facto hub that magnetised those who feel disenfranchised out of the job market, disenfranchised out of the education system for whatever reason. And this really speaks to the final point about inclusivity and safer working cultures. Do you want to take that Kate?
KM: Yeah, I think this comes back to the idea about the pipeline. The pipeline that we talk about from education into industry kind of perpetuates the idea that there is one way. There is a pipeline, and you go from here and upwards, and if you just work hard enough. And we know that working hard enough doesn’t actually disable systemic inequality and all of the other challenges that come with just trying to make it anyway, let alone through one singular pipeline. But the idea that there is one way actually perpetuate also the idea that, well, even if it’s not nice, even if it’s unfair, even if it’s unsafe, even if, even if, even if, just keep trying, because that’s the way it is. And actually what we’re trying to say is, no, just because it has been like that does not mean it should continue to be like that. And we’re talking now, a week after Youth Music have published their safer working culture report, which is called ‘Just The Way It Is?’, and which the coalition that we helped establish contributed to. So we’re really, really proud to see Youth Music do this. But in effect, what Youth Music are now doing is working with CIISA, which is the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority, in order to develop a set of principles around which we encourage everybody within the youth music sector to work towards safer, more inclusive and fairer spaces in which people can work. And so that’s really, really key at the moment. It’s certainly been the central focus of ours as a coalition for the last six months. But that is informed by all of our framing and all of our kind of interrogation and our challenge to traditional ways in which we talk about music industry. We can create a safer, more inclusive and a fairer sector, we really, really can, but that comes from working with each other.
AH: There’s some brilliant, really practical work coming out of that, clearly, and there’s a few documents that I’ll link to in the show notes. Before we go on to sort of talk about what’s happening next and how can people benefit, and I know that you both have to go shortly, so the next two questions are that you answer those in as much depth as you want to are one about framing, and then two about what’s happened since the report and what’s happening next. So we’ve touched on framing a number of times, and it’s what I’ve been speaking and writing about quite a lot recently. And for those who don’t know, framing is a term that’s used in communications to describe how we explain an issue, to affect how people think, feel and act in relation to that issue. So that means taking a good look at the words we choose to use, what we emphasise, what we leave unsaid, and you’ve already been touching on that all throughout this. So is there anything else that you want to tell me about what you found out about the way the music industry and pathways into it are framed and what needs to change to begin to dismantle the barriers. And then I’m very aware that that you’ve touched on that already, so you may have nothing to add, but wonder if you wanted to sort of conclude that or add anything else before we go on to what’s happened since the report and what’s happening next.
KM: I think they’re actually kind of linked, because this report came out, what, year and a half ago now, and a lot has happened. And if there is anything to add to the conversation around framing and how we talk about creative careers and careers in the music industries, it’s that we need young people, or we need to empower young people to define what futures can actually look like. Because at the moment, so much of our education and our training and our framing of what these bridges look like, these pathways, are based on our understanding of what the music sector looked like and the jobs that existed over the last 30 years and the spaces that existed. That’s not going to be the future, necessarily, for our young people. And so one thing that we’re now moving towards is bringing in young people to do that defining for us, and not just defining, imagining, imagining what those futures can be, rather than us imposing on them what we think it should be. So that’s my addition to that question. Dan?
DT: I mean it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because, and you know, I celebrate it too, like we always talk about this idea of this DIY career, and you know, necessarily, that is true to a large extent, because when you’re starting out, you don’t have an artist manager, you don’t have, you know, necessarily, an employer or a festival that you’re working backstage at. You have to do it yourself without – I saw Kojey Radical do a really interesting interview just yesterday where he said that no one, no one teaches you how to make money from music. If you make a song and you release on Tuesday, no one gives you a manual on Wednesday, saying, Here, here’s how you make money off it. So you know this idea of do it yourself is really a bit of a fallacy, because in one sense, what we did find in the report was the way that young people learn when they begin. Let’s say you want to be an artist manager, or let’s say that you want to be a violinist, you are likely to start on YouTube or TikTok by just picking up those skills, light touch. There’s an element of autonomy and creativity there, which is really rare, getting rarer actually. Just to sidetrack for a second, so the other day, I was watching Sandy Toksvig on TV, and she was saying that, on average, children between two and five years old, ask 107 questions per hour. And then when we enter formal education, we then ask two or three questions maybe every two hours. So the idea of asking questions is kind of knocked out of us in formal education. So it makes sense that rather than being put under the spotlight when I’m trying to learn the violin or trying to learn artist management, so actually, I do it without that pressure on YouTube or TikTok, for example. And then what happens is, if we find we might have some skills or some interest there, we develop that, and then we may go into formal education, or then we may go to the youth music services or get a work placement somewhere to develop those skills anyway. The point I’m trying to make is that we can’t do things ourselves. We might do things ourselves in that initial moment, or young people might do by learning on YouTube or TikTok, but actually we need to do it together, and whilst we’re building this portfolio career in all of its glory and all of its kind of dizzying diversity. Actually, the truth is we need each other. We know that throughout the industry. This is why in the 90s, for example, the free party culture coalesced because of the lack of resources and the need for community. And what is clearly coming back into the conversation, especially around young people, from young people, is the importance and the necessity of community in order to level yourself up. So to put it simply, if you are an artist, for example, you need other people around you to support you, unless you’re filming everything yourself, editing everything yourself, you know, doing all your own bookings. And there are people like JayaHadADream, for example, who are doing just that. But in reality, we need to do it together. And ultimately, this is part of the reframing, is to destigmatise the idea of working with other people.
AH: And also, I guess, making places like the Music Works and The Roundhouse and the way that they offer responsive and flexible support for young people, so to make those the norm, rather than something that’s unusual, and frankly, often just project funded.
KM: Yeah, and I think what was really key, it was a wonderful quote from someone from, I don’t know if I can name check them, Bright Sounds in the Manchester consultation was, you know, young people actually know what they need, right? And they know what they want to do, but they need resources, and they need support, and they need other people to be there when possibly, it doesn’t always go to plan when they get to the, you know, that block in the in the maze. So it is about empowering them in whatever way makes sense, like Dan said, meeting them where they’re at. And our education system, or rather the learning system, let’s call it that, the Workforce Development System, if we want to call it that, has to reflect that. And talking just about education leading into industry is part of the problem, because it denies that there are all of these other things going on, and we’re confusing people by saying, this is just the one way, and if you don’t make it then, well, that’s on you. And we know that that isn’t the case. So we really are encouraging people to look sideways, to look at how they can work with others, to share resource, to start looking at alternative ways of organising so that they can create together under whatever terms they choose to. And it seems like a really simple premise, the industry connects kind of idea, but actually it’s not been written down anywhere previous to that, and that’s what’s really key here, is that we are trying to cohere a growing community, community of practitioners who are already working in this way 1000s and 1000s and 1000s, so that we can reframe what learning means, reframe what developing a career, and you know, growing up and developing your skills actually means. But also giving a voice to this vast, vast sector of work that includes mentors like you said, enablers, Anita, all these people that are paying it forward and supporting each other, who we may not necessarily call teachers, but include teachers. Because that’s the other thing. We need youth workers. We need people to learn from these kind of programmes, to benefit from these wonderful creative learning activities and talent development programmes, and to then do the same for the generation that comes after them. And that’s really, really key to the creative to the industry connect coalition as well, is recognising that we are all part of this ecosystem, and we need each other.
AH: And maybe we all need to go back to being young children asking lots of questions about why things are the way they are alongside young people. Finally, can you summarise for me what’s happened since the report, what’s happening next, and how you’re working to make change in this area with Youth Music?
DT: So the last year has been really quite an amazing journey. So as a result of the findings from the Industry Connect report was has been really well received. So essentially, what happened was an Industry Connect fund was set up for a network of organisations, and as part of that, we have had a couple of online meetups and one in person meetup, which was really quite transformative in many ways. Wonderful thing about this coalition initiative is that it’s constantly evolving, and it’s constant these ideas are constantly developing as a result of the people that we’re having the conversations with. So having everyone in the same space, we went to Fisher Gate Point in Nottingham, an amazing grassroots space. The next one we’re going to have in March 2026 probably in southwest of England. And it is an opportunity for us to convene in a big space and really have these deep and meaningful conversations and to connect and join the dots. And ultimately, this is what Kate talked about earlier. So this idea of nests, built in with that is this idea of flight paths. So therefore our responsibility as practitioners and organisations is to give young creatives the opportunity, or at least to give them the tools so that they can fly further with a greater sense of direction and for longer. So this idea of nests being different organisations or different places where young creators may reside for a period of time, it could even be working a part-time job as an usher in a theatre, because the skills that you pick up then are applicable in other roles. So essentially, these in person and online events have allowed these connections to form, to build these flight paths across this network of nests. We’ve also got a newsletter which goes out quarterly, which people can sign up to if you go to Industry Connect Youth Music online, you can sign up to be part of the coalition. We really do want people to join this conversation, because ultimately, we are stronger together, and we are mobilising the sector for change at the moment. So that’s what’s been happening. Going forward we know that Industry Connect and the coalition is an important part of Youth Music’s work, so we’re pretty certain that it’s going to continue going into 2026, and beyond. And who knows? I mean, watch this space. It feels like there is change happening. We don’t know exactly what that change looks like, but we know that there are conversations and connections that are happening that have never really happened in the same way with the same people before.
AH: Thank you. That’s so heartening to hear. I just want to mention before I kind of wrap up, if it sounded like we were on fast forward, it’s because we had a few technical issues at the beginning, and so we’ve just had a very short time together, and I need to let Kate and Dan go. Were there any closing things that you wanted to say, Kate or Dan?
KM: I think what has been so incredible about this process, and we are so grateful to everyone that’s been part of the conversation, all of our consultants, all of the organisations and the young people into Youth Music, and everyone that’s been part of the Industry Connect coalition. What is so wonderful is that we have people, not just from music industry organisations and music educators, sitting around a table, but we have youth services. We have people from other sectors. We’ve invited people in from theatre, from digital technology. You know, no single issue or entrenched problem to do with the workforce or with music education can be fixed by talking about these things in silos. We have to include everybody around the table. And you know what? It is remarkable, because things emerge in those conversations that you would never have imagined. Because the only thing we can be certain about that we have in common completely, is that we work with young people, and that we are working in service of young people, and so bringing them into the conversation is also really, really important, because it is those mix of perspectives that help us develop new ones. Dan?
DT: I would add a few points. One thing that’s really, is really being applied to my own work at the moment is quite how important mentoring is. Arguably more than the kind of tradition of workshops and, you know, kind of classes and formal education and tutoring is actually when you, I guess, empower young people to define what their own learning journey looks like throughout their career and fly through these nests that actually the thing they need is less the kind of didactic here’s the information, but more to recognise that they arguably have more knowledge than we do. They are digital natives. We are not necessarily. And so mentoring, having someone who can be a North Star with some experience and wisdom behind them is particularly important propeller behind them. So I guess part of it is about meeting young people where they’re at they’re learning differently, and the traditional structures of formal education and workforce are fundamentally different. And so I guess as a message to everyone like myself, don’t be afraid to let your young people lead. We have to recognise at some point that we can inhibit progress by assuming knowledge and expertise, when actually that paradigm has shifted, and just in terms of the volume of knowledge and expertise that young people have. So actually their access to knowledge is fundamentally different. So ask people what they need. So I guess practically speaking, this is about co-design. This is about youth councils and youth boards, and this is our kind of guiding principle on youth music. I guess the final thing I would say as a bit of a galvanising note, is that whilst it may seem super difficult at the moment, and we are under threat and we are embattled and we are tired and underfunded, and all of these things that actually this is where resilience is built. And we know that the workforce and the economy is fundamentally changing. The reason the government is putting in a freelance champion is in recognition of the fact that working practices are fundamentally different, and so therefore we as the creative industries, we as the music industries, are better equipped than arguably any other sector, to be able to be dynamic, to be adaptive, to work creatively, to work remotely, to work collectively, for the change that a large proportion of this country want to see. And so I feel like there is a lag between what is happening in practice and what needs to happen. And the coalition feels like it is oiling those wheels.
AH: Those are really useful and really heartening final thoughts. So thanks so much, Kate and Dan. It’s been really lovely to chat with you, even though we had to do it on fast forward. I wish you and Youth Music all the best in your fantastic work, and look forward to seeing the next steps. Thank you so much.
KM: Thanks so much for having us Anita.
DT: Thank you for having us Anita.