Michael Wall. Photo by Marissa Mooney.
I caught up the other week on the phone with musician Michael Wall. Michael is the Modern Dance Program Head in the School of Dance at the University of Utah. His extensive music site is called Sound for Movement.
I myself am a huge fan of Michael’s music. I used 11 tracks for my MFA thesis, and I frequently use his music for my own teaching. Also, with my Movement Poems project in Spring 2020, I wrote 52 Movement Poems, and each one is paired with one of Michael’s compositions.
Michael’s generosity of spirit continues, as he launches a new 3-level membership program on his website (for $5-15/month).
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Jill Randall (JR): What sparked your latest offering, and the 3 membership levels? Can you talk me through it?
Michael Wall (MW): Lots of us are looking at what has happened to our community over the past 6 months. What got hit hard, and what ways could we be of help? Being someone who distributes music digitally, it didn’t cost me anything to say, “Hey, I am going to make an album with 50 tracks, and all of this music will be license free, since we don’t know what is happening with online teaching.” We needed to just keep running as much as we could. I wanted to support educators and students. Then, I was finding out about friends and choreographers trying to do shows and online teaching. I made this gesture. What hit me was – how many took advantage of this opportunity.
Over the past year I gave out 35,000 tracks for free – $70,000 worth of donations to the dance community!
JR: This is huge! Just incredible.
MW: I also gave out hundreds of licenses – to anybody that asked.
What sparked the inspiration? It was about contributing. This is the first time I looked at numbers over a year. I was so impressed and humbled. It didn’t cost me anything to do that. A couple clicks of a button and a few emails.
So I started thinking: what could I do more of, moving forward? Long term –
The ability to offer subscriptions through my website just came up this year. By signing up for one of the three levels of membership, this gives sustained support to the project. It allows me to plan for the future, and rest on that sustained support to build things.
JR: Sustained support…a reframing of what is already happening on soundformovement.com.
MW: If you support the website – you are inevitably supporting the ability for me to offer the free licensing for students and educators. This is what you are primarily supporting. And these students and educators are worldwide!
JR: Yes, towards this greater access! You are so generous!
What are the 3 membership levels?
MW: First off, music is half off – whether you purchase a single song or album.
With all membership levels, you have access to the articles. Every month I am starting to write articles that will become chapters. Educators can hold discussions in the comments section. These will turn into a book in a year, and members will get it for free. The articles are about music for dance, teaching music to dancers, accompanying dance, composing for dance…my experience of teaching music to dancers.
For two of the levels, the benefits are meant more for choreographers who are accessing licensing. You will get half off of all licenses. Plus a free mix of 10 tracks.
The last benefit I wanted to note is something I always wanted to build. For the top level, folks will be able to request compositions. You can request the tempo, meter, and instruments. Those requests will go into a queue. When your name comes up, you will get that track for free! Writing a track usually costs $200-400!
These are little tiny gestures to keep our community afloat, long term.
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Related links:
Invitations: 52 Movement Poems (paired with Michael Wall's music)
“Reverse Raven” by Alice Klock
“From One to Many:” 6 Solos Shared (May 2, 2020)
New Curatorial Practices: Online Performances (medium.com)
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Life as a Modern Dancer 
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