Promoting local music production through training

Sibelius Academy is the largest music university in Scandinavia and third largest in the Europe. The Continuing education centre, where I work at, is about 15 years old organisation serving music professionals in Finland.

Case: Rock managers training program in Helsinki

Two years ago the Sibelius Academy Continuing Education Centre introduced a new training program called Rock Managers Training Program. The program aims to develop stronger and more international popular music industry. It is one of the practical tools and example of supporting the music industry in Helsinki.

Strong local co-operation

The original idea for stronger co-operation with the popular music field came from the Finnish Copyright Union and from the Finnish Rock Agent's Association. Starting point was that there was a great need for new knowledge in international music business. Joining the knowledge and networks of local actors is one of the basic elements when tayloring training for the needs of industry.

High level lectures

Music businesses are mainly micro businesses, most often with only one or two workers. Their possibility to invest time or money on training is very limited. The days must be worth of being away from office. One of the main things when making their time worth while is using trainers who we know will be excellent lecturers and contacts to Finnish music industry people. Most trainers where invited from other countries. We invited over colleagues from other countries to meet our professionals and exchange ideas and knowledge. This is of course quite costy. To cover the cost we applied for external financial support and our training program was approved under the European Social Fund where it gets considerable financial support under the Adapt scheme.

Networking on local and international levels

Training is a meeting place. The aim of the adult education programmes at the Sibelius Academy is to create a stimulating environment, a meeting place where music professionals can share their knowledge, exchange ideas and learn through interaction with experts from the academic, business and arts worlds. We kept in mind the aim of widening the networks among music industry people when selecting students. There are some professional rock managers among the 20 students. We also selected other music indiustry people such as agents, lawyers, promoters, distribution people, PR professionals and self managed musicians among the students. The selection of heterogeneous group was based on idea that it takes a whole group of experts from different parts of the music business to bring a successful product to the market.

Learning by doing vs. learning in training

The tradition of popular music entrepreneurship lays strongly on learning by doing. Educational background of the entrepreneurs is not usually very high and the career development goes often through working in the field. With low educational background the academic language and way of studying is often quite alien to popular music professionals. The training has been as informal and non-academic as possible. In order to insure that the training meets the needs of our clients the whole program has been planned together with the students making sure that they have all the possible impact on who will come to lecture and about what subject.

Evaluating

Evaluating the programs is a key issue when developing the training to match the needs of entrepreneurs. Of course the EU as a funding body is also very interested in evaluations. The effectiveness of rock managers training program was monitored on an ongoing basis by sounding out the opinions of prominent professionals and experts in music and the arts. The evaluation during the program was positive. We got many ideas on which directiong to develope the program and also ideas on how to prepaire our lecturers better to this specific target group. An other part of the evaluation is ofcourse how the students succeeded in their business before and after the training. Since the program just ended 3 months ago, we have not yet got all the results. We are going to run a series of interviews to find out what kind of difference the training program made to entrepreneurs professional development if any. So far however we know: most of the students have dramatically increased their international activities. new joined companies have been found and record sales of artists that are represented by managers from our course have gone up in several cases. Over all it has been a good energy injection to the local music business.

Mutually beneficial

The training programme served also as an opportunity to learn about the work and experiences of music professionals joining our courses. This helps us to constantly update our other training programs and face the needs of professionals by build new better targeted programmes. Flexibility and a fast response to change in the job market and the work-place is vital when working with the entrepreneurs. The training support should not be seen only as an act to increase professional know-how of the cultural entrepreneurs in the region. On its best the training course creates a stimulating environment and a meeting place where professionals can share their knowledge. It gives a place to exchange ideas and widen networks. This is what the whole popular music business relies on: networks and connections.