Guidance

Webinar recording: Social prescribing – what is it and is it for your music group?

In this recording of our webinar (original event 20 May 2022), guest speakers discussed what social prescribing is and how it could be a huge opportunity for music groups. 

Social prescribing is a key feature of the NHS’ long-term plan, which aims to strengthen the link between the local community and social activities such as music, sport, and arts. In this webinar, we discussed who does the prescribing, what kind of people are referred and what it would mean for your group to become ‘social prescribing friendly’.

We welcomed:

Access and inclusion: Inclusive communications

Your group has to communicate lots of different information to many different people – participants, audiences, committee members, employees. Making your communications inclusive means everyone can access the information they need to be, and feel, fully included in your activities.  

Managing members, friends and sponsors in the Making Music Platform

This guidance specifically covers Managing members, friends and sponsors in your Making Music Platform. Before reading this, please ensure that you have read our help guide on Getting Started with your Making Music Platform.

All of the Making Music Platform help guides and latest Platform News can be found on the MM Platform Service hub page.

Customising your Making Music Platform

This guidance specifically covers customising your Making Music Platform. Before reading this, please ensure that you have read our help guide on Getting Started with your Making Music Platform.

Getting started with your Making Music Platform

This guidance should be read first and covers what you need to know about how the Making Music Platform works before you start to design or customise your own Platform.

All of the Making Music Platform help guides and latest Platform News can be found on the MM Platform Service hub page.

Case study: Putting on a COVID-secure performance - Churchill Music

We hear from groups about how they have managed to put on risk-assessed, COVID-secure performances for their audiences.

The role of the librarian

The role of the librarian is important for the smooth running of your group and doing it well can make a big difference.  You need systems to keep track of all the music whilst being flexible enough to cope with unexpected schedule changes, and the more disorganised members of your group who may forget or lose their music.  

The main responsibilities and challenges are: 

How and where to source music

Sourcing music is vital to the efficient running of a music group. It normally falls to the librarian to do this and can involving obtaining music from a variety of sources.

In this resource, we’ll look at how and where you can find the music you need, and the things you need to think about when dealing with publishers and music libraries. 

Hiring or buying music from publishers

Obtaining music from publishers is vital for leisure-time music groups. Whilst it can be a big and sometimes difficult task, it doesn’t have to be. We have worked with various publishers and the Music Publishers Association (MPA) on this guidance to ensure our groups can access the music they want and receive the best possible service in doing so.

Discover the Amateur Choir Licence from PMLL

Since 2019, Making Music has worked with corporate member Printed Music Licence Limited (PMLL) - part of the Music Publishers Association - and Making Music members to create an amateur choir licence, launching this April. This licence allows leisure-time choirs to photocopy sheet music.