Owen Nugent E-Portfolio

My name is Owen Nugent and I am a freelance drummer, this portfolio includes a business plan and a cv.

CV

 My name is Owen Nugent, and you can contact me at [email protected] . I have been playing drums for around nine years in multiple styles including Jazz, RnB and Rock. I am based in the West Midlands and Birmingham. I started by learning from Tim Ward who was a great drummer and a student of Jim Chapin who was an influential proponent of the widely used Moeller system. More recently I have been taking lessons from an ex-session musician called Nigel Elliott who is a highly creative player. Currently I am in my second year at BIMM Birmingham on the Music Performance course where I am learning how to play in lots of different styles, improving my technique and increasing my theory knowledge. I am extremely passionate about music and I want play with as many people as possible as often as possible.

My specialist skills include: Instrumental ability, Sheet music reading skills and theory knowledge. I use these skills to play in a way that is musically tasteful and adds to the music. My employability skills include: an open-minded approach to music, an ability to take on criticism and great coffee making abilities.

So far, I have played with a large number of musicians in Shropshire and Birmingham, mostly playing gigs in bars and restaurants. I have gained a great deal from these experiences as playing with other musicians in a relaxed environment allows for me to take chances musically and experiment with what I to play which has been particularly useful in developing my approach to musicianship. I hope to increase the number of musicians I have played with in order to be challenged creatively and broaden my playing. I have played in multiple small band set ups including playing auxiliary percussion instead of drumkit. My approach to playing in these types of setups is to create a grounded rhythm section for to built on by other instruments while adding my own flare.

Thank you for reviewing my CV .

Business Plan.

My business model as a freelance musician is to create revenue through a portfolio-type career. In this type of career, the musician

is hired to play music for a fee, they can be hired by anyone but most of their work consists of live playing and studio recording for which they charge a general fee. The fee for session musicians in the United Kingdom as set out by the musicians’ union is £130 per session with variables including time and specialisation of the session. This type of career is maintained through networking and having a wide array of musicians to play with regularly. Through this playing a snowball effect can be developed where more and more people want to hire the musician until they have a wide network of people from whom they regularly receive work.

A set of specialist skills are required from a session musician, some of these skills include skill on their instrument, knowledge of recording techniques and an ability to play appropriately for the song. These skills are difficult to develop but they all come down to time and practice which is something that successful musicians need a great deal of to be successful. I have personally developed these skills through spending around four hours a day practising and at least 7 hours a day listening to music. This kind of practice is necessary in order to be at the level of musicianship required of a professional musician. Another set of skills necessary of a session musician are employability skills, these include friendliness, ability to take criticism and networking skills. These are important because they facilitate the creation of a good track and can be used to further a musician’s career. Most employability skills could be seen as common sense, but they can be developed by being conscious of how you are acting and how you want to be perceived.

A problem faced by session musicians is often a lack of work going around for musicians, one way to circumvent this issue is by having a unique identity or style as a musician (while still playing appropriately and adding to the music) which allows for you to be hired for your approach to music rather than just your reliability as a musician. Some of the most successful session players of all time include Jim Keltner (Drums), Anthony Jackson (bass) and Spanky Alford (Guitar) all of these musicians took unique approaches to their instruments and were hired for this reason. They had a sound that the producer wanted and could not be authentically reproduced be any other musicians. My aim as a musician is to have my own approach to the instrument while still playing in a musical and tasteful way that serves the song. I think that by adopting this approach to musicianship I can set myself out as a musician to be hired for something unique to me rather than something that thousands of other drummers can do.