We hope to provide you with as much information we can put together about the Music Biz. It's a work in progress at this point in time, but what you will find will help with promotion and music industry management issues. It's really a simple thing the music industry and that's why mongrels like BMG can control it so easy. There is plenty of the pie left and as a muso, if you do things right, you don't need a very large piece to support yourself and your passion for music. Entertain Us!
Randy Pausch Last Lecture
You can search around the internet for this man's life story but you really need to watch this lecture. The music industry can be hard and some of things in this lecture will either mentally shut you down or inspire you to try harder at what you are trying to achieve.
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture. Below is the 'Last Lecture' on You Tube.
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Managers for Artists
There a few ways a manager can be involved with an artist. The first, and considered the older method, is partnership. This arrangement is an easily established one and the maintenance of the relationship can also be simple. The manager is a member of the artist group and being so is entitled to equal share in revenue, advances etc.. Problems can occur though along the time-line if there is a point where the manager, for any reason, is ceasing to be a part of the act. If a band member were to leave then that person would only be entitled to what they have contributed and assets such as the band name will remain with the band, no further income could be derived directly from the artist’s profile other then royalties for performance or copyright in works and performance whilst that artist was with the act. When a manager has been responsible for creating value in the act, the manager would want a continuance of some of the income of the artist for a period of time, this is where there can be a large problem. Therefore, these days it is more common for the manager to be an individual contractor on commission or a fee. The individual contractor scenario sees the manager working for the band in many areas, having set responsibilities and receiving a fee but most likely a commission for their service. In many ways this builds a similar relationship as a partnership but there is complete autonomy. The manager is free to develop other artists, derive income from other services and generally be a professional business person that has no right (generally) to the songs, artist name, likeness, materials or assets other then what the manager contract allows.
There are many factors to consider when shopping for a manager; not least of all is trust. The manager / artist relationship is essentially reliant on trust and even in the eyes of the law a personal management contract can be subject to exit by a party if that trust ceases to exist. Then there are the factors of experience and enthusiasm. It is possible for a manager with enthusiasm to provide a good service to the artist without any more then basic experience, and for bands that haven’t established a profile would be a good choice. Although, this manager, at a later stage, may not be able to handle the tasks at hand. An experience manager will have the contacts in the industry to make ‘things’ happen. They would be able to get the artist into good venues if undertaking booking duties, and generally will be able to expose the artist to the ‘right’ people in the industry in an effective manner. An experienced manager will be able to organise touring, nationally and internationally, negotiate contracts, and look after all the other business affairs of the artist as the artist increases profile and income potential.
Keywords: managers,artists,music,contract
Getting gigs and promoting yourself
Getting Gigs, Promoting Yourself and Stuff.
It really isn’t rocket science and if you put yourself out there you’ll get the gigs. The number one thing for artists to realise is that us bookers on the front-line are concerned more with how many heads are going to roll in the door rather then how brilliant a band sounds. Harsh, I know, but it is the truth for emerging artists. I would enjoy nothing more but then to book great bands, playing music I enjoy, but reality needs to be adhered to from time to time. A booker’s job is to assure their venue of a financial rewarding evening. The next thing is that most bookers will be more impressed if you’re willing to do the hard work and put a line-up together. Going to a venue booker with a set line-up and a claim of how many numbers you will pull, in most cases, gets you in the door. Be aware that an Irish themed pub is unlikely to book metal bands, but if you’ve got the heads then you’re in for a chance not that I would expect that any themed venue is about to ‘flip flop’ on their image. I hope you understand that the point is that you are not selling your music to a booker, in most cases you’re selling potential bar revenue. This is all beginner stuff but the basics are all the same in the big time. You may be trying to get a gig at a small pub or convincing a touring company that you’re worthy of a national tour, it’s all about whether or not people are going to come see you perform. A couple things to remember is that if you promote yourself and fill rooms the industry ‘biggies’ will notice you. The music industry, although not very organised, has a pretty intense grapevine and you want to get in on it; industry people such as major agents, labels and publishers find their artists via ‘word of mouth’. All these types of people generally accept demo recordings and jazzing the release up is advantageous although this is not the way an artist is going to be taken up by a major agent or a publisher. So, get together with other bands and put line ups together, get your friends down to your gigs, don’t gig too much – keep your friends and fans fresh, create an image for street press to write about, be personable and have enthusiasm, do volunteer work for places like Vicmusic, Liberation and Shock; just get out there. Your greatest promoting asset is yourself, meet other bands, talk to people; this is a business and although you may not look like a businessperson (may you do), you need to adopt the systematic values of one. Gerard Schlachecke, from Premier Artists adds that when he wants to make a decision on an artist, he looks to see “Would the band have fans that would die for them”. Okay, you need fans, but there’s a benchmark to aim for. A former publisher Colleen Zulian said that they like artists to be polite and have a point of difference. Others in the industry say they like to see people be themselves and didn’t mind a bit of carnage and attitude. The thing to remember is that bookers, agents and publishers are real people that are in business and in many cases they’re self-employed with families, bills and mortgages. Ask yourself, are you viable? If the answer is ‘yes’ then you prove it.
Keywords: gigs,promotion
Offer and Acceptance part 1
Offer and Acceptance when present become an agreement. Courts, when deciding if a contract exists will attempt identify an Offer by one party and a unequivocal acceptance by the other. With the identifiable elements of Offer and Acceptance the matter will cease. A contracts first elements must be Offer and Acceptance.
At the point the Offer and Acceptance has been established it can be determined that an agreement of some sort does exist. Following this a court will then proceed forward to consider the element of the agreement.
To promise to do or to refrain from doing something in exchange for something from another party is considered an Offer. An Offer is a proposal where the acceptance of it will lead to an enforceable contract. Not all things that seems to be an Offer are in fact an offer. There is something known as an 'invitation to treat'. An example of an invitation to treat is displaying goods for sale or advertising. These are not Offers when acceptance of the deal constitutes a legally binding contract.
An offer can be made to an individual a group, or to the 'World at Large'. An offer must be a clear proposition and on the understanding and acceptance of the offer by an offeree a contract can be created. The acceptance of an offer must also be clear and uneqivocal.
OFFER (INDIVIDUAL)
If one is to make an offer to another, the offer is only valid to that individual. Another person can not accept an offer made by someone to another. Here's an example:
Bill advertises his car for sale for the amount of $5000
This is an invitation to treat! This is not an Offer. Bill is only notifying potential purchasers that he would be willing sell his car for $5000.
Teddy responds to the 'invitation to treat' He looks at the car and and asks Bill if he's firm on the $5000, Bill say 'you can have it $4900.
This is the the Offer. We can identify that Bill has offered his car to Teddy in exchange of the consideration of $4900.
If at this point, Bill's neighbor over hears the conversation and says 'I'll accept that, here's the money', this would not be Acceptance as the offer was made only to Teddy to purchase the car. What is actually happening is that the neighbor would be making an offer to purchase the car from Bill.
A question to consider at this point is that if Bill accepted the Offer from his neighbor where would that leave Teddy. This is where we get into the area of the withdrawal of an offer or the expiry of the offer. If Teddy had have counter offered $4800, then Bill could simply accept either offer. Bill has made an Offer to Teddy, Teddy can respond to that offer within a reasonable amount of time.
Teddy says, okay, I'll take the car for $4900.
Now we have Offer and Acceptance!
If Teddy was to counter offer $4800, Bill would be free to contract with his neighbor as a counter offer negates the original Offer. At this point Teddy cannot say, okay I'll have it $4900 and be Bill be bound as that would not be acceptance, the counter offer canceled the original offer. This would not be considered acceptance but rather an offer from Teddy to Bill to purchase the car for $4900 and it would be up to Bill whether to now accept the deal or not.
This can be a bit confusing at first and may take a bit of thinking to comprehend what an Offer actual is. You can test an offer with the following points in everyday terms.
Is the 'offer' clear and concise?
Is the 'offer' legal?
Has there been no withdrawal of the 'offer'?
Has there been no counter offer?
Does accepting the 'offer' close the deal?
If you ask thos questions and you have answered yes to all of them then you can safely say that there is an Offer.
Keywords: Contract Offer Accepatance
Introduction To Contract Law
The Music Biz is a bit of a mine field and doing it properly is important. Really, we want to all just get down to the business of playing music but it is important to understand contract law. The first thing you need to know is that if you are carrying on in a way that it seems there is a contract and all the requirements of legal contract are met (you'll learn about this on the site) then you are, in fact, in a contract.
Most of us just play music, some of us promote it, and others are there to exploit it. Now, we need to define exploit, it is not a naughty word by any means. Exploitation is the function of anyone involved in your music, so don't run away from it. You want your managers and your promoter to exploit your music. With-out this exploitation, you miss out. Here's the proper definition:
Exploit: make use of and derive benefit from - Oxford Dictionary.
There is a second definition and that seems to be the one conjured when the term exploit is used and that has something to do with being treated unfairly. As a muso you want to be involved with the proper definition and as a music manager etc. you want to act with the first definition.
WHAT IS A CONTRACT?
A contract can be defined as a legally enforceable agreement. To go a bit further with that we can say, a contract is a legally enforceable set of promises in return for another set of promises.
A music or business to business contract is usually written but as I stated earlier if you behave as if a contract exists then it does. Most contract are verbal or through action. An example of this is that when you purchase goods from a store you are entering into a legally binding contract with the outlet. You agree to pay a price for an item, the store agrees to supply it and the item is fit for it's purpose and free of any encumbrances. You'll understand that sentence a little better when you have worked through all the will be written here about contract law.
Simple Contracts!
Well it isn't all that simple but that is the definition of most contracts. They are known as 'simple contract'. There a few other types such as Formal Contracts which are ones that are executed under seal. These are deeds, and the most of common of them are used in property (land and the such) transactions.
Simple contracts can be very complex, so don't be fooled by the wording of 'simple'. Put simply, the term Simple Contract is given to contracts which are not formal deed. Throughout this section of musicbusinessmanagement.info, we will explore the construction of a contract. I will write about the essential ingredient required in a contract which are:
Offer
Acceptance
Consideration
Intention to be legally bound
Capacity to contract
Legality of the Promises
I'll also cover form, warranties guarentees and remedies.
One last note - courts will not enforce a contract that have been formed for an illegal purpose!
Goal setting disturbs me. I have found that, not only in myself, if one is not able to reach a set goal regardless of reason the actual result is a feeling of failure. This is factually correct as well; a person makes a goal to swim the English Channel, they suffer frostbite and need medical attention ¾ way across, they failed and therefore are a loser. That is the fact, in reality this person achieved something not many could. They might even be proud of the effort, but that doesn’t change the feelings of failure.
Having studied goal setting formally on many occasions and participated in the concept, I have surmised that the result of such activity creates a daily routine that has the intent of producing the desired achievement. With this knowledge in hand I propose that an effective way of achieving ‘goals’ is to analyse what is required to achieve those ‘goals’ and amalgamate that requirement into daily actions. An argument may be; if a person doesn’t have a destination they will never arrive there. My response is this; if I build the road and travel along its path I will arrive at its end as a matter of course.
To summarise; planning is the key. Setting a destination is restrictive and potentially mentally harmful. Regardless of why a goal is not met is irrelevant when considering that a failure has occurred. Unfortunately I do not possess any formal training to make this analysis a part of modern teachings but would appreciate your entertainment of this, a new concept of self improvement through affirmative and constant action rather then creating a destination of achievement.
How do you identify strategically important retail outlets?
There are a number of factors to consider when one is looking for what stores to get product into.
Location
There isn’t any point stocking a store in Brisbane, AUstralia if you are not known in that area. It would be important that your cd is accessible to your fan base. So, getting product into stores in the local area is essential.
Promotion
If a promotion or tour is to be undertaken in a specific area then it would be advisable to make sure that the product is available prior to the promotional activity and for a little while after in that specific area, not restricted to location as there could be demographically targeted marketing.
Positioning
Appropriate niche stores need to be identified and stocked with your cd. These types of stores have the ability to promote your product to their clientle through basic word of mouth. This type of positioning of product is a very simple grass roots marketing ploy (to be cynical about it).
Charting
If charting is important then what charts are you going to push for, remember there has to be enough units on hand to support it. Kmart has it’s own chart as do other affiliate stores. Pick the chart you want to hit and stock those stores that submit sales numbers to those charts.
Reputation
Some stores have reputation for different genres and being seen in one of these stores can increase artist profile. This is a little different from niche store positioning as it is taking into account that the outlet may sell varied product but may be able to set trends.
Have you got a question about music business management?
At the bottom of this page there is a contact us link and you can ask a question using that form. We'll try to answer your question within a day. Please remember we can't give you legal advice, or financial planning information but we can clarify terms, industry related situations.