From a global music currency to virtual multi-camera recording setups, here are a few ways that technology is helping the industry to grow.

Technology's detrimental impact on the music industry is

well-documented, with global recorded music sales in decline since Napster introduced us to file sharing 20 years ago.

But the Entertainment Retailers Association found that UK music revenues grew by 9.6pc last year, partly due to the rise of streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and Deezer.

According to the body, Brits spent £577m on streaming subscriptions in 2017, which is up 41.9pc from the year before.

Signs of life in the sector are especially encouraging for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), some of which are creatively using new tech to benefit musicians and listeners.

Monetising music streaming

Isaac Mao, creator of free-streaming platform, Musicoin, believes that tech can help create a self-sustaining music economy. His company designed a global currency called $MUSIC, which is issued by a network of computers through a process known as mining.

The currency therefore cannot be counterfeited, manipulated or otherwise damaged through negligence or malicious intent.

Whenever a song is streamed, a fixed amount of $MUSIC is immediately and autonomously transferred to the artist through a smart pay-per-play (PPP) contract.

“Currently, musicians only derive a paltry portion of the total revenue generated from their work,” explains Mr Mao. “The global music industry is dominated by companies that dictate market rules that are favourable to them.”

We can live-stream to Facebook and YouTube simultaneously Ian Clarkson, The Jive Aces

But he thinks that content creators should be compensated in proportion to their activity on a platform, so he’s turning to blockchain technology to foster the distribution of fair value to participants based on their contribution in the network – in this case, musicians, miners (who provide computational work to mine $MUSIC) and consumers.

Recording with inexpensive equipment

It should come as no surprise that musicians are drivers and early adopters of the new technologies that are helping breathe life back into the music industry; music is innovation, after all.

Pasquale Totaro is a musician and co-founder of Oddball, which created a drum machine inside a ball. This is connected to an app that records beats when the ball is bounced.

It’s designed to restore the physical relation between musicians and instruments and is used in recording sessions, on the road, and is being tested for use in education.

“We designed it to enable people to make music really easily, anywhere and with anybody,” explains Mr Totaro. “Not only does it appeal to untrained enthusiasts, because anyone can bounce a ball, but

it offers more serious musicians a new way to make beats.

With practice, people can intuitively do what would otherwise be difficult via conventional desktop-based tools.

Most musicians perform for very little Scott Jenkins, musician

Ian Clarkson, the lead singer of swing band, The Jive Aces, says that being able to create quality recordings and video with inexpensive equipment has levelled

the playing field for musicians by removing the industry’s gatekeepers.

“We were live-streaming band announcements, rehearsals and live show snippets from our phones until we bought a Mevo live-streaming camera,” he says.

“It enables us to stream to Facebook and YouTube simultaneously, creating a virtual multi-cam setup with a small portable device.

“It helps us on tour and with restrictive airline baggage allowances.”

Scott Jenkins is another musician who has benefitted from tech. He uses technologies to make performing easier, such as the cloud-based music writing app, Notion, which scores out rehearsal charts and ForScore, a viewing app for live performances.

Ensuring fair pay for artists

While technologies designed to overcome the daily obstacles that musicians face are constantly evolving, Mr Jenkins says that costs can still be prohibitive.

“Most musicians perform for very little or for their own pleasure and invest a lot of money into developing their skills, but they’re very rarely recompensed, so the return on investment doesn't justify the expenditure.”

Royalty-free music platform, Artisound, founded by independent musician, Yannick Ireland, offers one solution.

As well as personally approving every track and making them

available to film-makers and video editors in high-quality WAV file formats, Mr Ireland pays artists fairly for their work.

“I have always paid musicians 50pc of every licence fee, instead of the 20pc or less that’s the industry norm,” he says.

It’s unlikely to make him rich, but it’s about more than that.

“Being a musician qualified in production who understands the challenges of making it in this industry affords me the freedom to play along in a competitive market dominated by giants, but offer something different,” he explains.