THE Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) hopes that a fees survey, to be launched this month, will yield a broad picture of what churches are paying musicians.
The RSCM has at all times provided guidance on church musicians’ fees, and continues to receive requests for advice, but, within the absence of any significant recent survey, acknowledges that its data at the moment are historical moderately than current.
“It’s an excellent opportunity to reassess the info and discover exactly what’s happening,” the RSCM’s deputy director, Dr Paul Hedley, said on Monday. “We don’t want this to be an echo chamber whereby all of our members tell us what they’re paying, but to run a much wider survey across the Church and church music as an entire.
“We understand it’s a really diverse picture. Lots of church musicians give of their expertise and time as a part of their regular giving to their local church, and lots of skilled musicians give either voluntarily or take much reduced remuneration. For others, the music that they make in churches is their primary income.”
Existing data revealed geographical variation in addition to differences in practice between rural, town, and city churches, Dr Hedley said. The designation “church musician” now encompassed not only organists, choirmasters, and choristers, but, also worship and band leaders, skilled and amateur singers, those that ran children’s choirs, and people operating PA systems and sound desks, he said.
“Again, there are volunteers in churches who will sit on the sound desk for the services, but there are also those with far more expertise who manage that side of things. There are clearly many alternative contexts now, even from five and ten years ago.
“We wish to play back the image we get from the survey into the broader conversation. Sometimes, PCCs set remuneration levels in conversation with a person musician, and our members are asking questions like ’What ballpark should I be in?’ ‘What conversations ought I to be having that puts things into a smart context?’”
It had been difficult to give you a survey with as few barriers to completion as possible, he said, however the aim had been to be certain that individuals or organisations saw only the questions that were relevant to them, and that there was scope for others, resembling incumbents, PCCs, or treasurers, also to have useful input.
The survey is entirely anonymised, beyond reference to the a part of the country and the context of the worship, “in order that those undertaking it could possibly feel as free as possible of their response”, Dr Hedley reiterated.
The RCSM hopes for the widest possible response.
