The Big Lockdown Music Survey: An Emerging Bigger Picture

The Big Lockdown Music Survey was a project led by NMC Recordings, funded by an Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant, aiming to tell the story of lockdown in recorded music. More than 200 recordings of music made during the first lockdown (introduced in March 2020 in response to the Covid-19 global pandemic) were submitted in response to an England-wide open call. Creators of all ages and all levels of experience from across the country submitted music of all genres. Six regional partner organisations selected and curated album-length selections of music representing their region, which were plotted onto a lockdown listening map with interactive filters such as region, weather, mood, and genre.

NMC Recordings collaborated with RNCM PRiSM throughout the curatorial and data analysis process. Specifically, Dr Bofan Ma, PRiSM Post-Doctoral Research Associate and composer-performer acted as the data consultant for the project. This consultancy culminated in a detailed, public facing and open access data analysis report, featuring interesting information about music creators during lockdown such as:

- 14% of the applicants relocated during the lockdown period, resulting in their submitted music being created in places different from where they would normally make music pre-lockdown;
- Over 20% of the applicants worked in an outdoor environment when creating their submitted music;
- 65% of the applicants acquired new technical and production skills during the lockdown period through creating the music and recordings submitted;
- 22.4% of the applicants considered that ‘anxiety’ best represented their mood as they created their music during lockdown, 13.1% chose ‘optimism’.