The music industry can be divided into four major areas:
- Record Companies
- Live Performance
- Management
- Music Publishing
A record company will sign bands or artists showing some potential and then help them both financially and promotionally, and improve them as an artist. Then produce their records or albums to in turn try and make a profit.
Live performance now plays a big role in the music industry, particularly in recent years as advancing technology has increased the potential for what can be pulled of on stage, and established bands are playing huge capacity venues. Most bands do not make much money from ticket sales at performances however, as there are external expences that need paying for. It does however prove to be an efficient way of building a following and publicity. The majority of profits made from gigs or tours are through selling merchandise and records at performances.
Management in the music industry is an important role for many acts that are looking to step up to a professional level. The immediate purpose of managment for an artists is to help arrange performances, develop their image, and to help push an artist along to secure a record deal. Most original artists today aren’t fully taken seriously unless they have a dedicated manager.
Music publishing is commonly confused with record companies, as both areas cover a very similar role. Sometimes an artist will not recieve a reacord deal, and therfore may persue a publishing company who will then offer a deal purely for producing an artist’s records, rather than taking them on as their own artist.
Advancing technology and cultural changes have affected the music industry over the years both positively and negatively in regards to how things work, and the potential of most artists. The equipment now required as standard in these roles have advanced to a point where financing the purchase and transport of them has been reduced drastically. A mixing desk of today for example will be far cheaper than buying the same quality desk 20 years ago. Another example is amplifiers for guitars; They are becoming smaller but more powerful every year, making transporting them to performances far easier. Furthermore people now are willing to pay and travel large amounts to see bands, so live performance is at an all time high. More people are listening to music often now thanks to the advent of streaming platforms such as spotify and soundcloud, however this means that the sales of phisical copies such as CD or vinly are suffering immensly due to this.
Personally, my career path lies under the live performance bracket, as I am focusing my future work around my ability on the guitar, and live on stage. Ideally, I will be making a living from performing often at various venues.
In a local setting, this would mean performing at various local venues and pubs. The likelyhood is that this would be as a part of a covers band, as this is much more suited to the local venues as generally people in bars and such aren’t interested in original music.
On a national level, this would be either orignal music or covers, and would likely be less paying than locally to begin with. I would have to pay for transport to vanues accross the country for myslef, the equipment, and band members, therefore making less of a profit per gig. On the otherhand, this would be a big step in becoming a professional band if I am playing original material, as then I would be appaling to people across the country and building a small following. This would require a higher level of organizational skills, and possibly lead to the need for a band manager.
On an international level, this would be an original band as nobody would hire a covers band from overseas due to the abundance of them across the globe. To reach this level of live performance, a band must be completely professional, and have a considerable following to justify the expenses of touring the world. The performances would therefore be at established venues, and the band will need a crew of people to help with everything from transporting gear to setting up the stage. Again, this wouldn’t be super cost effective, but at this level selling merchandise would not be much of an issue so this could help increase profits. Most artists on this level will be signed to a record label, and will have most of the logistics and crew worked out for them.
For this career path, I have many skills to improve upon before I can take it to a professional level, such as:
Organisational Skills:
Being a live musician, I spend the majority of my time playing when and where I am asked to, however if I was to do this off of my own back, I would therfore have to organize and perform at my own events to begin with. Once I move up in range and professionality, I could then think about having a band manager involved.
Logistic Managment:
Not only will I have to organize all of my own events, I will have to work out how to finance them, what to charge for ticket sales, will I be selling merch? etc…
Once again at a higher level a band manager can take care of this, but on a local basis I would have to do it myself.
Promotional Skills:
This goes hand in hand with organisational skills really, as a part of this will be promoting myself and events in order to get a good turnout on the night. I need to improve upon how I advertise myself, and how often to do so while I am starting out my career as a live musician.
Risk Assesments:
As a part of performing off of my own back, I am therfore responsible for any damage done to my equipment, or any injuries caused by it. Therefore I will have to perform a risk assesment for each performance in an effort to minimise the risk of anything going wrong. To improve on this I need to be doing them on a regualr basis and trying to think of every possible thing that could occour on a night.
Problem solving:
Anything can happen at a performance, and I’ve experienced many unexpected things already. This means I need to be adaptable to fix things when something may fail, and to really know how to overcome problems as the occour. This in a way goes along with a risk assesment, as this will help me to minimise the chance of problems emerging.