Angie Paez (Ange) Sydney-based songwriter and vocalist has some words of appreciation for the stylist community.
“I come from a family of hairdressers in Barcelona and since I was little I’ve seen my Mum style people’s hair and create joy. It’s a form of creativity as much as music is, and both art forms contribute to people feeling good about themselves.
“My song ‘Like I’m Crazy’ is intended to help people to feel alive and ready to leave any negativity behind. I know my Mum often took on the role of psychologist for her clients and in the same way the music in salons can help healing too,” she said.
Ange gives you permission to play her songs. So do 2 million others.
Permission? A licence? Why do I need a music licence? Any salon in Australia who has music playing anywhere would need permission for that from Ange and her fellow global music creators. That permission is in the form of music licences.
Because musicians started writing songs as sheet music to be played on a piano well before any songs were recorded, two member organisations started up at different times. One for the songwriter, composer group (APRA AMCOS) in the 1920s and one for the recording artist and record labels (PPCA) in the 1960s. After decades of working separately, we have just formed OneMusic Australia to simplify the process.
What does that mean for my salon?
A salon business of less than 51 square metres of ‘customer space’ with just a radio or television on need only budget for $85 a year for a OneMusic licence.
Salons who have secured a licence from one or both organisations will need to switch over to OneMusic a month before their current agreement finishes.
Unlicensed salons will look forward to a phone call or a letter from OneMusic’s customer service team to make sure a licence is in place.
How does my licence fee get to Ange and other musicians?
For the increasing number of salons using a personal streaming service the data these services capture is fed right back to OneMusic, just like data on radio airplay and from background music services continues to do. So although you don’t personally have to let us know exactly what track you are playing through Spotify, from your iPod or from the radio in the salon on a Thursday night at 7.30pm we can hazard a pretty good guess thanks to all this data coming in. From that we work out who is playing and who to pay royalties to.
“You probably have no idea what it means to a songwriter to walk into a business and spot a Licensed to Play through OneMusic sticker on the window,” says Ange. “It makes all the hard work, the working two jobs, the rejection, the little wins, worthwhile knowing businesses support music.”
Photo by: Penelope Morgan