Sound Country
Welcome!
I’m not sure what these blog posts will look like eventually but this is as good a starting point as any. I’ll try to be quite conversational but not anywhere near as bad as a recipe blog.
I wanted to pay tribute to an organisation who inspired me to start these blogs. Part of the motivation is for meta-data business-person bull crap so Google will rank me higher when people search for recording studios, which is my main business. The other part is to share valuable knowledge about the music industry in relation to environmental practices, systemic oppression, the value of art, musicians self care and whatever other wholesome and empowering thing I read or think about. Consider it a way to get away from Instagram, because we all know the hell-scape of comparison and hustle culture that platform has created.
Ok, so, Green Music Australia is an Australian organisation who’s goal is to organise, facilitate and inspire musicians and the broader industry to make changes to improve our environmental performance, from energy use to packaging and waste to transport. Through leading by example and bringing our audiences along with us, we can create deep, cultural change. They do this with close collaboration of First Nations people.
They released a great resource called Sound Country, which is an interactive guide to greening everything from your tour plan, studio and rehearsal spaces, event organisation, everything!
Some key points I found when reading through which were not so known to me are the following:
When touring in Australia the travel is often vast. So, choosing how you travel has a big impact. To avoid carbon offsets (which are great when it comes to small environmental offsets), we should change our dependance on planes. Jet travel is the largest polluting mode or transport. Private vehicle uses less than half the emissions of travelling by a plane. Travelling by bus halves the amount again, and trains win the low emissions travel. In saying that you can catch a train from Meanjin Brisbane to Warrane Sydney for just a little less than the cost of a plane flight but with a massive time difference of 14 hours at best. All the more reason to pressure state and federal government for fast interstate rail infrastructure.
Green Music suggested musicians try incentivising low emission transport to shows and festivals by offering discounts for people who have travelled by public or active modes of transport. I could imagine how this would impact Brisbane. I live in the northern suburbs which is luckily serviced by rail. It costs me more and takes more time to catch the train into Fortitude Valley or West End but if it meant I saved $5 on ticket prices or received a free drink on entry I would definitely use the train, and possibly put more money into the bar because I wouldn’t have to worry about driving home.
Some other points which were a little more obvious but I wanted to highlight anyway was the use of composting toilets at festivals, renewable energy venues either sourced on site with solar or via a company such as CoPower, Enova, or Amber, gear sharing, and only sending small file sizes unless it’s necessary to send big energy hungry files such as your full quality mixes to mastering engineers and so on.
Go witness the full website here for more in depth information about greening your band!
Of course I can offer an entirely carbon positive recording experience. If you want to not read or think about how to make your own recording sustainable I’ve done the work for you. As long as you’re at my studio, you’re covered to the best of my knowledge and ability.
