What Is A Music Collective?
A music collective is any group of people who get together to facilitate a particular genre of music in a particular area.
A collective can work in any of a number of ways. Through providing recording or rehearsal facilities, live performances, releases, teaching or community outreach. Around Ireland there is a huge variety in the types of collectives which exist. Some are recording and rehearsal facilities with a diy bent and a focus on the musician. Some are training courses teaching on different areas of music be that performing or technical. Some are a group of bands who get together and decide putting on gigs and sharing expenses mean they get to play more often.
Other collectives are all Ireland based and teach in schools and outreach programmes for the social services, there ‘s a traditional music school in Belfast and a Samba Collective in Dublin. The genre and delivery are as unique as the people involved, what makes them all collectives and all members of FMC is that their ethos is about equal access to all music, for everyone.
They believe that financial status, geographical location, religion or race should have nothing to do with how and where you learn, play or enjoy your music.
Instrument lending library
In association with The IRMA Trust
As part of our ongoing needs analysis among our membership we have found that one of the most common areas of under funding for music collectives is in instrument provision for workshops and outreach programmes. The FMC approached the IRMA Trust Instrument drive with the idea offering instruments to our member collectives on a loan basis to provide instrument tuition at grass roots level and are now the primary partners for making instruments available at entry level for the popular music sector around the country.
How to start a collective?
How Can I Start One?
Get in touch with the FMC info@fmc-ireland.com. You can also get started by getting interested parties in your area to fill out this questionnaire.
Where Do FMC Come In?
The FMC (First Music Contact) are the national umbrella group for music collectives, as we are run by the membership it will be up to you to help decide what it is that needs to be done to improve your lot. Each year we conduct an internal needs analysis where we see what the most common areas of concern are for our members, if we can turn these in to a deliverable project then that will form the basis for our future programme. It's a s simple as that.
