Join Polly’s Patreon community. Get access to an exclusive weekly video diary, a monthly live stream, the Studio Circle (a limited community of songwriters), house concerts and basic mentoring, and you hear news first. The archive, growing all the time, is packed with unreleased song material and years of personal videos and tips, guitar maintenance and tuning videos, guides to home recording and insights into life on tour and life writing at the coalface. Some tiers offer more structured support for songwriters.
Polly writes Substack essays under the moniker Songwriter on Fire. Her essays are on topics of songwriting, creativity, home recording and the twists and turns of singer-songwriter life. Subscribe to read as she publishes.
PRODUCTION SERVICES
Polly records and produces a very limited number of artists (3-4 maximum) each year in her home shed studio. She picks these artists very carefully, and records songs and then builds a light layering of tracks to bring out the songs’ shine. Polly doesn’t do pop production, but more acoustic lo-fi layering as appropriate. Artists get Polly as producer/engineer and musician for that price and she’ll play and sing anything she can that you ask for, if it’s appropriate to the song. She has a real piano, her Martin guitars, an Appalacian dulcimer, a mandolin, a Nord (piano, rhodes and hammond organ sounds, synths), a cümbüs which sounds a bit like a banjo, and guitars and electric guitars and electric bass and even a V drums kit… Sometimes nothing is needed, just instrument and voice. She strives for beautiful warm recordings with a focus on vibe. Polly has a network of musicians who might throw down parts if needed. She’ll deliver you finished mixed wav files ready to master, and will liaise with a mastering engineer for the finished product to be just right.
Rate = £500/day.
MENTORING SERVICES
More than the Creative Companion options in Patreon, Polly offers full mentoring services online or in person. She takes on a limited number of clients (3-4 clients max) at any one time for ongoing mentoring on a retainer basis. This is ongoing and tailor-made developmental support. In each month she offers three hours of 1 to 1 time (2 x 90min sessions) and then additional asynchronous support, such as detailed song feedback and listening time, between sessions. In the sessions, we might talk about songs and songcraft, tightening up material for recording and performance, but also mixes, social media activity, home recording, best practice for live performances, booking shows, creating EPKs and online digital presence, making posters, writing a press release, working with platforms like Patreon, trying to secure a good self-sustaining fan base, planning a release schedule, keeping your chin up, stamina, self-care. All that. I encourage clients to tell me where they feel their gaps in knowledge are and we can prioritise those, and work outwards. It’s elevated, tailor-made, ongoing support, unfolding over time, hence the retainer model, which is what many artists need as they lead up to making an album and then releasing it.
Rate = £500/month, with an initial minimum commitment of 3 months.
TEACHING SERVICES
Dr Polly Paulusma published her PhD on Angela Carter and folk singing as an academic monograph Angela Carter and Folk Music: ‘Invisible Music’, folk song, and the art of canorography (Bloomsbury) in 2022. Dr Paulusma has published a series of other articles and chapters on Carter and folk songs in literature, and on songwriting, creativity and practice-as-research.
Dr Paulusma is Bye Fellow in English for Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. She teaches poetry, practical criticism and songwriting for Cambridge University for the colleges and for PACE (Professional and Continuing Education, University of Cambridge) and CMP (Centre for Music Performance, University of Cambridge).
She is Associate Professor of Song and Literature at ICMP (Institute of Contemporary Music Performance) in London, where she teaches on the Songwriting Masters programme. She also teaches on residential songwriting courses for the Arvon Foundation and Moniack Mhor.
She teaches group songwriting and creativity workshops, with an emphasis on songwriting for wellness.