The Business of Music

The Business of Music

After being in school for ten years, there is one class that I feel every university should offer: Business for Musicians.  Just like Computers for Musicians, which is prevalent throughout university curricula, business is definitely an area where musicians lack knowledge and resources.  In my experience, those who know aren’t as eager to share, because it might affect their work through competition and those who don’t know often lose time, resources, and have difficulty being successful in business.

Now, I don’t believe it is the responsibility of applied faculty to find their students work, however, the university itself is responsible for the product that it sends out into the workforce as a representation of their education.  Graduating thousands of musicians throughout the US each year without the possibility of full-time work shows a large flaw in the way music schools are structured.  Universities and colleges could take the opportunity to foster an environment where musicians can develop entrepreneurial skills and learn how to create an environment that is both artistically and financially satisfying for the musician and the community.

For me, I made a very conscience decision in 2002, after finishing my undergrad and working several jobs in and out of music.   If I was going to live a life as a musician, I didn’t want to have any part of my work be outside music.  Fortunately, I have been a full-time musician since then and have had a wide variety of experiences…most of which were amazing or complete learning opportunities (another word for failure).

I decided to start this blog about a month ago, when I got a message from on old roommate of mine who was looking to find a way to live full-time as a musician.  Though she held degrees from two excellent universities, after spending a couple of years doing administrative work, she had no resources on how to get her life back to what she wanted to be: a musician.

So this is what I propose: there are several books that I have found extremely useful and I would like to blog about each of these books on a weekly basis.  As I see it, each week will focus on one chapter of the book and the questions or tasks associated with the chapter.  As in a classroom setting, working with other people offends leads to new ideas for each individual and for groups within the class.  So help spread the word, as every musician could learn from this experience.

The book that will start this adventure is: Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music by Angela Myles Beeching (Director of Career Services, NEC)

Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Talent-Creating-Successful-Career/dp/019516914X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256135442&sr=8-1)

We’ll start November 2 with Chapter one.

For Thursday of this week: Teaching private lessons: Cutting Out the Middle Man