Sophie Ray, Studio Bookings Coordinator: "Last weekend I had the pleasure of heading up to Glasgow for #AlGirlRhythm, an incredible event organised by Stemettes in association with Go Think Big, bringing together amazing young women to help them feel technically empowered, in this instance with an emphasis on the music industry. The day kicked off with a keynote from our very own Isabel Garvey, MD of Abbey Road Studios, focusing on the music industry's relationship with technology and what the future could look like with constantly evolving technical innovations. From the digital revolution to start-up incubation and AI music, Isabel walked us through the industry narrative, getting the most applause with a clip of her 18-month old son and Alexa speaker saying 'lexa, eee iii ooo'. Dominika Dronska, Head of Digital, and myself then led a workshop titled Digital Songwriting, in which we discussed how music making apps produced by Abbey Road Red startups and the Studios could be used as aids for songwriting".
"As a passionate songwriter myself, I was involved in the early curation of our app Topline, which we introduced alongside Humtap during the workshop, getting participants to create their own song ideas on the go. Representing the Abbey Road Institute, I have no doubt that Marta Di Nozzi and Lizzie Arnold inspired lots of future talents with their workshop Women in Production. The ladies talked about taking their first steps into music, explained the role of a producer and gave a great demo of some of their go-to ideas for mixing, with Martas enthusiastic exclamation that time when [she] got the reverb on the vocal track just right! Finally, Isabel, Dom and I were part of a fireside chat discussing our differing routes in to the music industry, whats been happening at Abbey Road recently and answering questions from the floor about careers in music and music tech. There were lots of other opportunities to network, gain advice on finding mentors, workshops on how to build your own apps and so much more. We came away feeling incredibly inspired and we look forward to hopefully being part more initiatives like this in the future".
