Great to hear from you personally! Are you the founder of SOFT? Yes I had been to events at PigeonHole, SMU, Artistry, Timbre and in which we supported local “live” music. There are other open mics like
www.facebook.com/OOOM.sg and
www.meetup.com/The-Singapore-Singers-Songwriters-Meetup-Group/. However, during the course of this project, I interacted with many musicians and even had the chance to interview them. Many have day jobs and are “part-time” hobbyist although these aspiring musicians have very good music – they often don’t see it as a form of livelihood.
I believe much more can be done and I was especially inspired when I saw this post
https://www.facebook.com/publichousesg/posts/421837681243587. Sylvia Lim had some mentions of having more of our local music played in-stores or F&B places and government lobbies. We should have royalties for more local musicians and most importantly let them be heard. I thought it will really be great if one day we visit shops and the in-store music is playing Singapore songs! But the reality is that after interviewing commercial entities, I realise they don’t even pay for licensing rights even with Copyright Act in place.
I was very curious the royalties that Singapore musicians earned through collection societies, I got a spectrum of musicians who feedback to me they received $0. Some just got a mere few dollars while the highest amount gotten which I heard from a fellow musician was $300 in a year. If only our local commercial entities pay these licensing fees and have the royalties distributed to more local musicians, that would had been an ideal situation.
Many times we think it is ridiculous to think shopping malls, F&B and retail will eventually play more local music…but haven’t we thought that having FREE rides on MRT is a crazy idea brought up by an MP? People were saying it was stupid idea and wasn’t feasible laughing at his idea. But soon in June we will be getting FREE rides on MRT in the early morning isn’t it? Just wanted to share my thoughts and passion on this.
If SOFT can share this with more members of the music community and let it spread with the strength of our musical voices, I think this project can have more weight. Do you think you can help shouting out or letting relevant personnel know? Thanks!
