The music business is a strange beast. Although there seem to be more female artists in the charts these days than there were a year or two ago, many of whom write their own songs, it still doesn't seem to be something that many young women would consider as a career option. Shows like The X Factor promote singing careers as desirable but, until now, no one seemed to be suggesting you'd sing anything other than someone else's songs.
This week, singer-songwriter Kate Nash is launching a new scheme to encourage more girls into songwriting. Starting with her own secondary school, Nash plans to collaborate with schools across the UK as part of the "Rock and Roll After-School Music Club", aiming to promote songwriting to young girls. Nash started to form the idea after being invited to talk on a panel last summer to discuss the gender gap in the music industry.
"I’d been feeling frustrated for while, wondering why there were far less female artists and bands on festival line-ups, why there were never as many women featured on the covers of magazines and why a lot of women are presented to us as songwriters even when they’re not. At this discussion I was informed that in fact even less women were writing their own music than I realized, that shockingly only 14% of songwriters in the UK that receive PRS are women, and that Q magazine had only featured 3 women on their cover in the last 19 months and 2 had been half naked. Is this really our reality? That’s how seriously we are taken."
Women have always been a major part of the music business, mostly as singers and as consumers, so it's fantastic to see a successful musician and songwriter like Nash looking to help the next generation of female music fans develop their passion in a different way. For more details on the scheme, email afterschoolclubforgirls@gmail.com.
Image via Yvonne Penzakov for BitchBuzz.com