A Self Reflection on My Journey as a Berklee Student in Valencia Spain
[Document subtitle]

Supervisor: Steffen Meister
By: Bianca Johnson

JUNE 16, 2019
BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC
Valencia Spain Campus

My name is Bianca Johnson and I am a
graduate student, and soon to be an alumnus, of
the Berklee School of Music!
My time in Valencia as a student in the
Global Entertainment and Music Business
graduate program has been the most amazing
and challenging months of my life. When
deciding what graduate program would be the
best opportunity for me to develop my career, I was looking for a program that had a great
reputation in the entertainment industry and an international presence. Berklee’s Valencia
Campus checked off all the requirements. It is located in a foreign country, which allowed me to
experience people and cultures that are outside of my comfort zone. My network has
expanded having now worked alongside a great group of schoolmates from all around the globe
that have similar goals and aspirations. This tenure has expose me to different music markets
from around the world. Finally, it has help me formulate my thesis on the importance that
social media and YouTube have had in exporting those cultures.

My reflection about being at Berklee

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When I first arrived in Spain, on the Berklee Valencia
Campus, it exceeded my expectation. I had visualized this place
for the last year and a half and now I had finally arrived. Upon
just seeing the Berklee sign for the first time moved me to
tears. This dream I had been chasing was now a reality. From
day one, the main question on my mind was what my
cumulative experience project going to be. During orientation we received a brief overview
about Berklee’s expectations for its students. This overview gave us the basics of what we could
do and projects that had been completed previously in the program. I met with my director
immediately to give him some of the ideas that I had come to Berklee to execute. I was told to
not give it much thought at that time, instead allow the transition of moving to Spain to sink in.

My reflection about living in a foreign country

Living in Spain will definitely have a long-lasting effect on my
life, I must say that I my life is so much better for this
experience. I have had the opportunity to travel throughout
the European Union. In these eleven months, I have been to
other parts of Spain such as Seville and Tarifa, where I was able to look across the sea and view
the beaches of Africa. As an African American, that feeling was indescribable.

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I have had wine in Rotterdam...
I have visited the Royal Palace in London…
I sailed on a yacht in Cannes, France…
the vacation spot of the most rich and powerful.
I have taken full advantage of the opportunity to
completely merge into the European culture. Having
been born in Karlsruhe, Germany, I have now seriously
considered establishing my EU citizenship to further take advantage of the new global “ME.”

My reflection about my colleagues
While here at Berklee, I must say that I have met a
dynamic group of individuals who are certainly about their
business. When I first arrived, I was a little concerned due to my
age how would I fit in. At age, 28, I was one of the oldest
students in my class! My anxiety quickly dissipated. I have worked alongside a great group of
schoolmates from all around the globe that have
similar goals and aspirations. We have travelled
together, shared common vision, and aspirations.
Overall, my colleagues have really enhanced my
perspective of how I might make an impact after my
time at Berklee. I know I have built a network of
friends that I can call upon long after we leave the Berklee campus.
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My reflection about the international market
Within our first week of starting school we
had the opportunity to go to the Future Music Forum in
Barcelona, Spain. This was my first international music
conference I ever attended. I had previously attended a
conference on the corporate level, and one music
conference earlier in the year, but this one was not on the
same level as either of those. Later I had the great opportunity to moderate at the New Skool
Rules conference in Rotterdam.
The conference was amazing. It was held in the in the beautiful city of Rotterday with
some amazing people on the panels. Unfortunately, most of the conference left me
underwhelmed. One of the most important things that I have learned from this experience is
the concept of expectations versus reality. I went to the conference expecting it to be like the
corporate events that I had attended previously, but the reality is that the music industry is
different. This conference was my one of my first exposures to this global cutting-edge music
culture, but it surely would not be my last.
Moderating at the conference really have given me a better understanding of how
globalization has affected the music industry and helped establish artists as brands. I have seen
first-hand the vast differences between local music markets and the importance that social
media and YouTube have had in exporting those cultures.

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I also had an opportunity to participate in the BBC
Music conference in London, England. It was certainly an
accomplishment I would may not have otherwise
experience were it not for attending this program.
Despite not being able to do a Ted X event for my
cumulative experience project, I was still able to
participate in the event. This was an amazing experience.
I had the opportunity to serve as an MC for one of the
events.

My reflection on my thesis
My journey toward creating my thesis has
been a rocky road. I knew I wanted to explore how
the entertainment industry impacts the global
markets but how I was going to achieve that
objective was left to fate. I really wanted to host a Ted Talk as my cumulative experience
project. I thought this was attainable as Berklee had done two previous years. Prior to my
arrival, I studied the videos of the 2017 Ted X Berklee event. I was excited to bring my ideas and
learn from those that are intricately involved in bringing life this event. Unfortunately, during
one of my initial meetings with my director, I found out that this was not a possibility. I
discovered that due to Spanish government regulations on labor, Berklee was no longer
allowed to have students officially participate in this collaboration for project consideration.
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Closer to the end of the first semester, we were given a presentation on the available
cumulative experience projects. ‘Women in Music’ were one of the options and two specific
roles were right in line with what I wanted to do. The Women in Music would allow me the
opportunity to expound upon the work that I had done with the Women in Music organization
in Atlanta. I had previously researched the different chapters that they had all around the
world and identified events that they had sponsored in collaboration with the Berklee Valencia
campus. I was very excited to be able to use my research to further the cause of this
organization while her at Berklee. I applied confident that I would be accepted as I knew I could
really make an impact if I was given one of the positions. Unfortunately, I was not selected.
This left me completely blindsided and at a loss for what my cumulative experience project
would be. I wanted to do a project on where my passion lies, what motivated me to be here in
the first place. Now both ideas I had were taken away. This is when I had to begin a new
journey of self-discovery.
This redirection forced to sit back and really evaluate the reasons why I had come to
Berklee and what I wanted to get out of this experience. When coming to Berklee I wanted to
understand the world of music outside of the confines of the United States. I wanted to
understand how an artist can transcend his presence to become an international icon. I needed
to discover the factors, the culture, that present itself that allows artists to equally thrive
outside of the U.S.
In several Musically and Music Business Worldwide articles, a recurring factor was the
impact of YouTube and social media. YouTube and other social media vehicles have granted
new access to the discover of talent. You no longer need a major distributor to push your

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creativity to the masses, you just need you own mobile recording device, and a YouTube
account, to create the next entertainment sensation.
Upon discovering these factors, I decided to further explore this concept as a research
paper. As I delved deeper, I discovered that I was on the cutting edge of this topic. There was
not a lot of current research. Most of the articles that I found was dated between 2010-2013.
My research could really set a precedent in the study of this phenomenon.
To gain a better understanding, I took a class on the global markets offered during
second semester. My expectations for the course was that we would have Skype calls with
music professionals from all around the world. I imagined that these professionals would give
us detailed insight about their local trends. The actual course syllabus was quite different from
my expectations. Instead, the class was consisted of student ran lectures about different music
markets. Some presentations on global markets lacked a lot important content and required
that I do some in depth research on my own, while others really provided pertinent
information. The top markets that really stood out to me were Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and
India. I decided that I would further research these music market and discovering the different
factors that contributed to their global success.
The presentations on Brazil and Mexico inspired me to understand more about the Latin
music market. I found that several music publications have written articles on this market’s rise
to the top. An article from Variety magazine and MusicAlly discussed the Latin music market’s
18% growth. This market was becoming extremely popular in the United States and the
numbers attributed YouTube and Spotify as reason for gaining global popularity.

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There was also a great presentation on the
South Korean music market that help me formulate
my thesis. This market has also shown a significant
number of views on YouTube and popularity all
around the world. The entertainment companies
within this region have perfected the art of

Korean boy band EXO performing in China in 2016

branding.1
They have leveraged their artists’ influence to create amazing partnerships with global
brands. Also, the support from the Korean government, was a significant factor in the growth of
this market. They invested a lot of money to ensure that the Korea was portrayed as a positive
image throughout the world.
Finally, I completed a presentation on the Indian music market that left a significant
impression. This market has received so much attention from music publications about its
increase in music streaming and vast numbers on YouTube. Recently the Indian Label and film
production company, T-Series was the first YouTube channel to reach 100 million subscribers 2
and Indian dialects are the top listened to content on YouTube. Therefore, I thought it was
important to further research this market and gain a better understanding of its significance.
As I began searching for different sources of information, I found that there were very
limited resources on the Indian market. Most of the information that I obtained discussed

The Surprising reason why china is blocking South Korean music videos and TV. https://www.vox.com/latestnews/2017/3/3/14795636/china-south-korea-pop-culture-kpop-attacks-thaad
1

Eamonn Forde “T-Series hits 100m subscribers on YouTube” MusicAlly May 31,2019
https://musically.com/2019/05/31/t-series-hits-100m-subscribers-on-youtube/
2

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growth of the Over-The-Top (OTT) Platforms. These platforms are video on demand
subscription streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video. Due to India’s love for
local Bollywood content it was easy to correlate the importance of these to the Indian culture.
Bollywood films are still the most popular source of income for India representing 80% of the
country’s revenue. Unfortunately, YouTube is not included in the over the top platforms.
Therefore, a lot of the information did not pertain to the topic that I was focusing on.
Although India is experiencing extreme growth in music subscription and YouTube
views, I have found that it is more because of population size and recent internet access. 3.
Based on the research it shows that this growth does not translate into the music market in this
country. Shridhar Subramaniam, head of the Sony Music India, says. “India was never a CD
Market, and we never really had a download business either. We had a brief cassette era and
one of our biggest revenue streams up to around four years ago was ring back tones.”4 Only
time will tell is this music streaming penetration will change this market behavior.
Also, India does not currently represent the concept of global exchange that I am
looking for. A lot of the music enjoyed by the locals is not consumed on a global scale and a lot
of the global hits do not reach the charts in India. Now this can change over the next 5 years
because more of the people will have access to YouTube and social media but based on their
current behavior this does not seem likely. The change would require the Indian government to

Cherie Hu “How India, The Global Music Industry's Sleeping Giant, Is Finally Waking U” Forbes September 23 2017
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cheriehu/2017/09/23/how-india-the-global-music-industrys-sleeping-giant-isfinally-waking-up/#1cd814e430bf
4 Cherie Hu
3

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alter their regulations on the radio market to allow for more international music penetration.
Due to these factors I did not believe that India was a good market to discuss in my paper.
As I began compiling all the information that I had collected in my research, I was able to
formulate my opinion about the future trends of the music industry. There is no way to
understand international music markets without understanding the data from YouTube,
Spotify, and the consumer engagement from the entire social media platform. Music markets
around the world use social media barometer for local trends and for marketing. All credible
news and research outlets have sited YouTube numbers as a way to legitimize their artistry.
YouTube has proven to be the most important tool for international music markets. The
allure of free content brings many subscribers, which attracts significant investments from
advertisers. Advertisers investments fuel YouTube and exposes globally the local music
markets to the mutual benefits of brand sponsorships and partnerships. Artist have now been
given the leverage to establish themselves as brands and obtain non-traditional sources of
revenue.

Conclusion
This is a fascinating time to be in the music industry. It is the age of the artist
understanding their worth as a brand and a business. New roles within the music industry are
being created to keep up with the changes in technology. Data is king and understand how to
read and manipulate that data is a skill that is well paid for. Top artist such as English rapper
Stormzy are now hiring brand managers to be their liaison to marketing companies. We have
left behind the time when the only way that an artist could make a living doing what they love
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was to sale their “soul” to the record company. We are now in the era where the only thing any
artist need to become successful is a savvy team and un-yielding determination.
This research has really help me to identify where I fit within this industry. The brand
and artist relationship is something that I am intrigued by. The art of creating a campaign that is
authentic to both the brand and the artist is a delicate balance. A balance that must be treated
with respect and cultural sensitivity. I believe that this is right in line with my passions and my
skillsets. While this was a challenging process the results that came from this research paper
has inspire me to pursue an angle of the music industry that I had not previously anticipated. I
am a better person because I have had the opportunity to take this journey and discover my
place in this industry.

Thank you Berklee for giving me this once in a lifetime experience!!!

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