How to "Make It" in the Music Business

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Young aspiring musician? Want to know how the business works?

I'd like to preface by saying that this article is intended to reach first the young artist hoping to make a career for him or herself in music industry, and secondarily it's designed to reach industry professionals...who at this point should be thinking like a young artist hoping to make a career for him or herself in music industry.

So you want to be a rock star? Don't blush, it's ok, me too. If we were honest...wouldn't we all like to move with the weather and rock packed concert halls??? Don't kid yourself, it's a good job.

However, maybe this isn't your goal, maybe you're content to become a recording engineer. Perhaps you think that with your savvy people skills and diverse network of musician contacts, becoming an A&R guy for a major label might be a snap. Maybe you don't know much about audio engineering and social networking, but you've got incredible taste in music...perhaps you're the next producer to rival the greatness of Rick Ruben. Alternatively, maybe you're a humble sort of person with realistic, conservative outlooks on possibilities available in the music industry. Perhaps you hope to prod at industry job titles until you find the one whose description looks like it's got the right balance of achievability and fun. Maybe, after much research and deliberation, you've found the perfect program from an esteemed school that will give you cutting edge experience relevant to your career as an engineer/manager/A&R Guy/songwriter/producer/session player.

Unfortunately, those jobs don't matter. The rock star, the session player, the band manager, the business manager, the audio engineer, the producer, the record label, the distributor, and the retailer have failed. The record industry is failing...forget why for now; this is a human interest story. What happens when we point fingers at who's to blame? Everyone points fingers at someone else; that's what happens. Humans are predictably arrogant creatures. Understand it. So what's one to do if everyone works and no one gets paid? Well first...we'll complain about it:

An engineer provides a valuable, top notch service, and he is compensated hourly for his time. He certainly deserves an hourly wage, right?! No he does not. He does not deserve to make money, yet.

The producer takes a song and molds it into pure gold, the audience can't NOT listen to this hit maker! He deserves his hourly wage, right? Nope, not yet.

So who does deserve money? Those who make money. I don't know where your sense of entitlement comes from; but if you didn't make MUSIC make MONEY...YOU DON'T DESERVE MONEY FROM MUSIC! Just as the traditional music consumer expects to forgo money to obtain music; you should aim to achieve the inverse. This is what a business thrives on. You may be thinking, "duh". Justly so, intrepid entrepreneur, justly so.

Are you an industry veteran frustrated by how immature, inexperienced, uneducated, misguided, and just plain WRONG I am? Please give me a chance to redeem myself...

So you provided a valuable service that, in the black and white context I described, didn't technically make music make money. That's ok. Technically, lawyers don't make money, and neither do doctors. Those doctors and lawyers HAVE money...but where did it come from?? The answer is obvious...someone who DID make money paid them. To the seasoned industry pro, this may be all that I expect to offer you in terms of valuable insight. Sometimes we (as humans) get so wrapped up in doing what we do with excellence, that we may forget why we're doing it in the first place. Please understand that I would go to great lengths to work under established hit makers because I understand that I am ignorant of so many tactics in the studio. There's always more to learn, and experience is ALWAYS valuable wisdom. Consider my insight as a word of advice coming from yourself; BEFORE you decided to pursue a specialized musical craft.

To the industry veteran producers, engineers, and studio owners struggling to stir up business that once flourished: are you making music make money, or are you providing a premium service to a customer with deep pockets? Your customers (record labels) are going broke, and your fans won't pay. I don't mean that you need to recharge your services and bring "quality back to the game" as so many incredibly talented and commendable engineers/producers have committed to do...I mean to say that you should think about your business as just that, a money making enterprise. Let's take a look at how RECORDINGS make money in brief, with a picture, and simplified to a comfortably obscure MSPaint endeavor:

That's the traditional record industry, and the individual component's functions are beyond the scope of this article. "Google it" if you don't know what each step does, the Internet is your most valuable asset. Understanding the past key, in my opinion. Self sufficiency is what this article is all about. So let's ignore the innards of this diagram immediately and focus on the beginning and the end:

  1. The artist makes music.
  2. The consumer pays the artist for music.

Everything between number 1 and number 2 is a means to an end. In Artist Entrepreneurship 101, we call the steps between 1 and 2 "Overhead". As a business owner, we want to minimize overhead because Gross Income - Overhead = Money in the bank. To the DIY musician, this may sound like music to your ears, but don't be too quick to hit the road on your southern Missouri tour with freshly burned CD-R's from the bargain bin at Walmart. You won't make enough money to sustain yourself by these means alone, let alone earn excess income that will allow for you to get those frivolous things like dental insurance and a reliable car. There are those that can make a DIY career work, but those that are truly successful at it are working for a fraction of what their effort might suggest. Digital revolution DIY pros like Imogeen Heap have cancelled tours because it's simply not financially worth the effort. Are there any starving artists out there reading this thinking you're content to make art forever at any cost? Get out of your idealist bubble, at some point you will want to relax and enjoy the fruits of your hard work. However, maybe I'm wrong. If you're the type of artist who can endure this sort of lifestyle, Bob Dylan comes to mind, then by all means please shock and amaze us all with your sacrifice. I don't mean that ironically, in the end, you are the most incredible type of musician the world will ever get to experience, a selfless giver of musical art. Sure you'll get something in return, but chances are you'll never retire comfortably. There's a lot of competition out there now, and there's about to be a LOT more. People will always download music in bulk illegally, for the rest of time, yes I am sure. There are so many psychological reasons the consumer will use to justify theft in this way...but those who decide to go the straight and narrow will still be out there buying your music in droves. Or will they?

At the time of this writing, Apple has acquired the online streaming music service lala.com, presumably to bolster a revised and more consumer centric format for iTunes that includes subscription service. Rhapsody is a subscription service you are likely aware of as a music consumer. You listen to all the music you want and pay a monthly price for it, and in many cases you don't have to pay at all. In these scenarios, the artists are paid by advertisers. Spotify is almost a mirror image of Rhapsody/Lala.com but has enjoyed much more success in Europe than Lala experienced in the US. On June 24th, 2010, Apple struck a distribution deal with Spotify. While I'm not a fortune teller or a certified business analyst...I would venture to guess that when Apple unvails it's TuneCore catalog in subscription format, they will own the distribution chain sooner than later. Try doing a little research on how much money artists make per play on Rhapsody...then crunch some numbers based on the assumption that your hit single reaches 2 million listeners over the course of a year. You'll be angry, I promise. That's the future.

"Isn't TuneCore one of those services that any mediocre musician can submit songs to?"

Bingo. There is now one middle man in the Recorded Music Industry, which was formally dubbed "The Record Industry". This is also the reason that competition in music is about to get tough. I will quickly admit that I'm not one to say which job titles will live through the transition from Record Industry to Recorded Music industry. I can say with confidence that the potential profits in the Recorded Music Industry are steeply insignificant when compared to American Record Industry of the early 90's and prior. It is worthwhile to note that music is more than a recorded work, it is a performance captured OR a performance created. It is absolutely critical to understand that the record industry is a component of the music industry. The music industry is doing just fine. Find your own sources, this is a conceptual soapbox presentation, not a research paper. We'll both be competing for the same revenue, after all.

If you want to make money in music industry, it would be most wise to take the steps to learn how money is made. I am.

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User-submitted comments


Quincysan
Jul 13, 2011 03:15 pm
Updates 1 year later
Reading this again, there is still a core of useful information but some expressions of naivety; no regrets, moving on. Apple's iCloud service was announced June 6th, 2011. This is Apple's answer to Rhapsody/Lala/Spotify/Zune. Focus on David Israelite.


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