Let's Think of Our Music Industry Communities Like A Root System
We can create a thriving industry community through celebrating representation and cultivating reciprocal connection. Root systems can teach us how.
This year at NAMM 2024, the ReVoicing the Future Podcast dream team of Natalie Morrison, Julia Olsen, and I presented on why creating community was the key to a sustainable career as a woman in music.
In celebration of the live recording’s release today, here’s a revisiting of the metaphor I offered in my remarks—that to create thriving communities, we need to be thinking of them as a root system.
I have spent the entirety of my career in music thus far thinking about community - how to build it, how to enrich it, and why it’s important.
I’ve worked within a wide range of communities within music, and through each of them I’ve noticed the factors that make a community healthy for its inhabitants, and the ones that keep it from being a productive organism. I’ve also witnessed how powerful a community that functions like a true collective can be.
In mulling these factors in search of what was most useful for me to contribute to a session about how community is the key to a sustainable career for women in music, I kept coming back to two cornerstone concepts. I see communities as vital for two reasons—they create representation, and tap into the power of collective connection.
I often look to nature as an example when I need answers about anything we humans get ourselves into; it knows so much more than 1. we give it credit for and 2. than we do. So, the best way I could think to put a visual to these ideas is to call in the concepts of a vast network of intelligent roots.
In essence, when I think of a connected root system, I often imagine those of the redwoods of my California home, or a lovely grove of aspens. These trees have incredibly shallow roots, and intertwine with each other to share support, resources, and to communicate. I brought up mycelial networks, the brains behind a mushroom, during the session as well, but we’ll focus a bit tighter here on the roots.
So! How can we use these concepts to inspire new perspectives on the importance of community as women in music, or for anyone, really?
Community Brings Representation and Connection
We Need You Exactly as You Are
Podcast Co-Producer and Editor Julia Olsen made a gorgeous point during our session to emphasize to everyone there; “You’re welcome as you are”. She pointed out that every chair there was saved for them.
When it came time for me to speak, I said that “I want to highlight and underline Julia’s point; we need you ESPECIALLY and exactly as you are.” I think we should all go as niche as possible. This is because by being part of a community of women in music, we have a duty to representation.
When someone sees you as your authentic self, showing up for a larger music community, they get permission to be their authentic self, ESPECIALLY if it’s hyper niche.
Somewhere out there, a budding mad scientist audio engineer may go down a rabbit hole and stumble upon a Youtube video detailing how the great Sylvia Massy once threw an amp off a cliff, and shot a piano with a shotgun (note, I cannot verify the details or accuracy of these stories, nor I think does it really matter… her legend has become lore!). Watching this, our engineer would be at home, absolutely lit up, thinking ‘there’s a place for in music!’. They join our industry, and push the boundaries of recording in their own way.
But what if Sylvia hadn’t had the courage to be exactly her? That budding engineer may never have felt music was an option and pursued another path.
Representation means more creativity and authentic expression—diversity. Nature teaches us a diverse ecosystem means a healthy ecosystem; for our purposes here, therefore, a thriving music industry, where creativity is welcome and innovation is encouraged. When these are realities, the industry grows, creating niches and revenue streams around each new innovation, and we all work another day.
The Power of Collective Connection
Zooming back out on our original metaphor - imagine that web of roots. If we look to its foundation, we first see our strong, established roots that have been there from the beginning. Looking further out, we also have our newer shoots growing on the ends of the system. We could also look to the intertwining of redwood and aspen roots as well here.
In nature, these connected systems share resources between the established roots and the new shoots evenly. In the same way, in our industry of relationships, it is vitally important to share support and resources.
Legacy members of the industry can build up emerging members by sharing education, mentorship, and connections, ensuring the minds joining the collective are well equipped to drive its growth. In turn, those emerging members expand the whole, enlarging its capacity and bringing in fresh ideas (adaptations!). Everyone grows and expands their impact in music.
On top of this, we need to remember that each of us are our own root system, tied to the many intersecting communities we are part of. If we have a network that is continuously sharing between its roots, that growth is compounded by each set of branches growing outward from each and every root that joins and is nurtured by the community. In music, each of these new off-shoots can then begin investing that education, mentorship, and connection within their individual systems.
Not only does it feel great, it’s simply good business. As mentioned, we’re an industry of relationships, so we’re all connected in that root system, intentionally or not!
The Lessons of the Three Rows
I know I just said it feels great, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s incredibly frustrating to work with communities, and acknowledging this is part of being able to do the work as best as we can.
As I read more of indigenous botanist/scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s gorgeous book Braiding Sweetgrass last night, I was reminded of the nuanced way that both the challenging and the more feel-good aspects of community development are integral to whole enterprise.
In her description of learning to weave a black ash basket is everything I’ve been trying express here:
The first two rows of the basket are the hardest. On the first go-round, the splint seems to have a will of its own and wants to wander from the over-under rhythm around the circle. It resists the pattern and looks all loose and wobbly…The second row is almost as frustrating; the spacing is all wrong and you have to clamp the weaver in place to get it to stay. Even then, it comes loose and slaps you in the face with its wet end…it is a mess of unruly pieces, nothing like a whole.
But then there’s the third row—my favorite. At this point, the tension of over is balanced by the tension of under, and the opposing forces start to come into balance. The give and take—reciprocity—begins to take hold and the parts begin to become a whole. The weaving becomes easy as splints fall snugly into place. Order and stability emerge out of chaos.
In weaving well-being for land and people, we need to pay attention to the lessons of the three rows.
While we can envision a root system with each one feeding each other in harmony, sometimes there’s friction.
Many times to get as far as they have, members of marginalized communities (for our purposes here, women in music) have had to develop ways of interacting with the larger community that aren’t as useful when the ecosystem begins to look a little more like connected roots and less like a battlefield.
When a group reaches the turning point of having both established roots and new shoots growing, when infrastructures of support have formed, the old ‘if there’s only one seat at the table, it better be me’ instinct, a toxic byproduct of the survival instinct within historically marginalized groups, at this point desperately needs to be healed.
Cutting off resources is the antithesis of an ecosystem’s growth. Therefore, when you imagine your root system, it’s equally useful to notice where you have a healthy exchange of mentorship, connections, education, and friendship, and where some patterns that may once have been useful now get in the way of this.
I see the key to moving past scarcity as remembering one’s original ‘why’, at its most granular.
If we look at the community of women in music, a common ‘why’ might be expanding and growing women’s involvement in the music industry. Perfect!
When those of us who are part of these communities feel the frictions that come with forging new paths like Robin Wall Kimmerer describes, first, we can react with kindness. Note the response, thank it for getting you as far as it did, then bit by bit choose reciprocity by slowly pouring more of yourself into cultivating that healthy root system.
When we have pushed our way to a seat at the table, we must remember - it’s important to notice when it feels safe enough to slowly put down our metaphorical fists and use what we have to instead to pull up more chairs.
So, overall I hope it’s a tidy little metaphor, and hopefully one to hold readily in our minds whenever we consider the communities we show up for.
I’m well aware none of this is new; I say this to perhaps offer another perspective as we continuously interact with and effect our communities. I highly recommend listening to the full episode; this here is just my contribution, and you most definitely need to hear what Natalie and Julia brought as well.
For a short success study, a quick shoutout to FEMME HOUSE and my friend Dana Eisenhauer, aka DJ LA.CO.NY. The rising Femme House affiliated DJ’s in the SF Bay Area are constantly supporting each other with education, mentorship, connections, and with gigs. They’re coming to each other with questions about a mix, they’re connecting to share insights with newer members, and they’re offering each other tangible assistance in the forms of gigs. Slots on bills are always being filled by collective members reaching out to each other. Because this community gives back to itself, they’re educated, they’re connected, and they’re working.
This Women’s History Month, let’s take a close look at our communities and notice the ways we can encourage ourselves and others to invest in the collective.
After our opening remarks onsite in the Creating Sustainable Careers Through Community session, we broke into a part two. Women in music organizations across various parts of the industry joined Women of NAMM representatives to be present and visible so that attendees might be able to connect with them individually and get started immediately on their path of finding their niche community. As everyone mingled and made new friends and connections, it was incredible to see it in action, and it led to some exciting synergy among the organizations themselves as well.
I like to think we all have the power to model that healthy root system, and as more of us adopt this perspective, it will become the norm.
I feel wildly lucky to create things like this session with co-producers Natalie and Julia, who are putting these lessons in practice beautifully.
If we keep these things in mind, we can all be thriving roots enjoying long, sustainable careers in a healthy, profitable industry.
I couldn’t love this more even if I tried. The perfect parallel to the what was one of my favorite conversations we’ve had together.
What a profound thought - the link between tree root systems and human connections overall. The sweetgrass comparison was exceptionally insightful, especially the two forces pulling in different directions!