Giving Season for Music Fans
Plus: Tune Tag Challenge, B-bye Spotify, Hello Qobuz and more!
Inside This Issue
Giving Season for Music Fans
Thea’s Tune Tag Challenge
B-bye Spotify, Hello Qobuz!
ICYMI
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Giving Tuesday for Music Fans
Your inbox may be flooded with solicitations from charities on this Giving Tuesday 2025. Giving Tuesday was created in the spirit of everyone choosing a charity that is near and dear to their hearts (or discovering a new one!) and donating money to the cause.
If you’re a music lover and haven’t already donated to an organization, here are music-related nonprofits that Herizon Music supports. IMHO, these causes deliver the most bang for their buck to music makers who need it most. Your donations are appreciated any time of year, but especially now as orgs budget for 2026.
MusiCares
MusiCares provides a safety net of critical health and welfare services to the music community. Founded by the Recording Academy in 1989, MusiCares safeguards the well-being of ALL music people through direct financial grant programs, networks of support resources, and tailored crisis relief efforts.
I personally know musicians who have directly benefitted from their services — from displaced victims of the California wildfires to guitarists who needed hand surgery. As a member of the Recording Academy, part of Herizon Music’s dues go toward the cause. Recipients do not need to be Recording Academy members to qualify.
For more information please visit: www.musicares.org
Girls Rock Camp Alliance
Girls Rock Camp Alliance programs are located in cities worldwide with year-long programming. Their mission: fostering creative expression, positive self-esteem and community awareness for girls, women, gender expansive, and transgender youth and adults through social justice and music education, activism, and performance. Kids 8 - 17 years in age consider this a life-changing program. Herizon Music has partnered with and fundraised for these camps before. See a Girls Rock concert and you’ll get why my heart grew three sizes that year. Here is a 2019 video featuring Izzy Jane from when Herizon Music (then a foundation) fundraised for Girls Rock.
This year, I’m donating to the Girls Rock Detroit chapter as my local charity choice. Find a city that has special meaning for you and donate today!
Soundgirls.org
This international nonprofit was founded in 2013 by veteran live sound engineers Karrie Keyes (Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Neil Young) and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato (Indigo Girls, Jewel, Gwen Stefani, Ke$ha, Mr. Big, Melissa Etheridge, Goo Goo Dolls). Their mission: to create a supportive community for women in audio and music production, providing the tools, knowledge, and support to further their careers.
What I love about this group is that women of all ages and backgrounds benefit from networking, educational programs, and big discounts on industry products and services. Only three to five percent of working audio engineers are women, so let’s give them a leg up!
TUNE TAG CHALLENGE!
Musicstacker Brad Kyle of FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE challenged me to a game of Tune Tag. It’s like one-degree of separation between songs, each of us had to name a song that was somehow linked to the previous song. Of course, ours featured a lot of women and unexpectedly turned into a duet theme. The music videos are amazeballs! Brad has hosted gads of these and the reviews are in for ours, the 120th tune tag:
✨@Mark Nash said: “Wow, what an absolutely BRILLIANT Tune Tag this was! Some stunning and legendary female voices included here.”
✨@Andres chimed in with, “I don’t exaggerate when I say this is probably my favourite Tune Tag. Ever.”
✨@Tamara Casey echoed, “I just knew this was going to be amazing and it did not disappoint.”
✨@Chris Bro added, “So so good. Might be my favorite!🎸🤘👊”
✨@Kristin DeMarr sang her praises: “The duets!! Incredible! This was such a great Tune Tag!! Thea is a treasure!”
✨ @NickS (WA) was wowed: “I knew it would be good, but I wasn’t sure that it would be transcendent. But it completely won me over!”
B-bye Spotify, Hello Qobuz!
Herizon Music made the decision to ditch Spotify as its streaming service for a number of reasons.
If YOU want to make a change and want to help Herizon Music, consider French streaming service Qobuz. We’ve become a fan and an affiliate (meaning Herizon Music gets a small commission if you use our link).
PCMagazine gave some great reasons to try Qobuz here. They state that offering only paid subs was a “con,” but I consider it a pro for people who really love music and want to support artists. Artists get paid more than Apple Music and the sound quality is superior. They heavily promote original editorial content and human-generated playlists. That’s a win in my book.
Qobuz pays $0.021 per stream to music rights owners. Apple is at roughly half that, and Spotify pays a measly $0.005.
There are Solo, Duo, Family, and Student rates available. This link also gets you one FREE month to try the service. So… why not give it a shot?
ICYMI
🎧 The Kalamazoo Gals’ Almost Forgotten Story
🤓 Uncharted Territory: Book Preview and Sexism in Music By The Numbers
🎸 Is It Power Pop? Thea’s Top Picks (as contributing author to Remember The Lightning)
Like what you see? Subscribe for FREE or upgrade to a paid sub. Only $12 for 12 months! You can also drop a holiday cheer tip starting at $2!
Thank you for joining our band of dreamers, rule breakers, and rockstars!
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It’s a wrap!
Thea 🎶
Thank you! 🙏🏻
Yeah, that Qobuz (I always want to say Quiznos) is a great service. I'm digging on the streamability of it. The $5 that I spent for a 1 month sub to Soundiiz which made transferring all of my artists and playlists a snap was well worth it.