Band as Business, Musician as Entrepreneur

3.  MUSICIAN AS ENTREPRENEUR:  Why You Are A Business

This collection of video clips is designed to wake you up to who you are. If you write, record or play music, you are a small business whether you know it or like it.  Copyright says so.  Copyright provides you the rights of publication automatically when you “fix your work in a tangible form” and it is those rights that make you a music publisher or recording company.  

It’s about the hardest job in the world but it’s also the most rewarding.  If you think there’s a gap between doing what you do and making money from it, you would be mistaken.  The same creativity and originality you bring to making your music applies to how you go about “publishing” and sharing it.  Music is communication and that implies that someone is on the other end of the conversation.  It’s a mutual exchange of value that may reach the level of friendship.

You are a business by virtue of the Constitution of the United States of America.  You’re lucky.  We’ll explain this more as the course goes on but know this:  you have legal advantages and business opportunities that will allow you to do what you love AND support your family AND enrich the cultural economy of this world.

Apply the art of business to the business of your art.

4.  COPYRIGHT:  Why It Makes You A Business

Everything you create that is original, tangible, and falls within the eight categories of copyright protected “work” provides you with six “exclusive” rights that you can monetize and from which you can derive income.  

In this section you will learn about those six rights and the eight categories of protected creative “work”.  The ability to make wealth out of your imagination is an amazing advantage.  Feed it, comb it, squeeze it, brush it, take care of it, and most of all USE it!

Songs may be expressions of the heart but they are also powerful economic drivers.  A successful song will make money for you in your sleep.  And more than that, it has the potential of affecting people’s lives in a positive way long after you’ve left the planet.  Wouldn’t it be nice to make a living doing that while you’re ON the planet?  

All of the other categories of protected work have this same potential.  A musician who is active in the production and sharing of her work will be engaging in most of the eight categories of protected creative work, and that is what the creative life is all about.

4.  COPYRIGHT:  Why It Makes You A Business

Everything you create that is original, tangible, and falls within the eight categories of copyright protected “work” provides you with six “exclusive” rights that you can monetize and from which you can derive income.  

In this section you will learn about those six rights and the eight categories of protected creative “work”.  The ability to make wealth out of your imagination is an amazing advantage.  Feed it, comb it, squeeze it, brush it, take care of it, and most of all USE it!

Songs may be expressions of the heart but they are also powerful economic drivers.  A successful song will make money for you in your sleep.  And more than that, it has the potential of affecting people’s lives in a positive way long after you’ve left the planet.  Wouldn’t it be nice to make a living doing that while you’re ON the planet?  

All of the other categories of protected work have this same potential.  A musician who is active in the production and sharing of her work will be engaging in most of the eight categories of protected creative work, and that is what the creative life is all about.

5.  SONGWRITING/COMPOSITION:  The Center of the Universe

This reel will introduce you to a variety of songwriters as well as several experts in the field talking about the art of songwriting.  These people have one thing in common: they each have their own unique view of what it takes to be a songwriter and how it’s done.  

Songs usually bloom from the heart.  It’s possible to engage the discipline of songwriting on a daily basis but if you don’t feel what you’re writing it’s probably going to sound like it and we won’t feel anything either.  

You can feel something but your powers of expression may be limited, so how do you expand and improve those powers?  I would write out the lyrics of your favorite song or songwriter and see if you can get a feeling for his or her use of metaphor and language.  Try to use their rhythm to write your own lyric; try to write another verse to their song.  This is just an exercise because you certainly cannot add your verse to someone else’s song without the songwriter or publisher’s permission.

The point is, learn from your heroes and develop your own voice, your own style and perspective from there.  Songwriting, like science and literature, painting and inventions, is built on the shoulders of giants.

The rights of publication attach to your song whether it’s a good song or not.  One way to improve your abilities is to “publish” your songs and see what people think of them.  Get some feedback; begin a conversation.  If no one wants to talk to you, you might want to talk about something else!

A songwriter is someone who writes songs!  

7.  MUSIC PRODUCTION:  The Process and the People

Unlike songwriting, which doesn’t usually require the services of anyone other than the songwriter or writers themselves, the sound recording requires a producer, an engineer, equipment technicians, musicians, arrangers, and a mastering engineer.  Both processes create copyrights but the sound recording copyright is generally the result of a group of people each with specialized  skills and abilities. You may be able to do all of these things yourself but each of them could be a lifetime’s pursuit. 

Producers are responsible for getting great performances from artists and the engineer is responsible for getting those performances on tape or into a digital file.  The producer’s job is to finish, to close, to operate within the constraints of time and money and achieve a result that is both economic and creative and is an accurate representation of the best work of the artist.  

The easy access to the tools of music making and production make it possible for anyone to produce music, just as the mobile phone makes it possible for anyone to be a photographer, or the Internet makes it possible for anyone to be a writer.  But those tools and platforms do not necessarily make you a “good” producer or photographer or writer.  That is entirely dependent on the abilities, skills, talent, and creative sensibilities of those who undertake them.  

The art of recorded music production is a high art and is the only way we have to share our music with more people than those sitting in front of us when we perform it.  It can be an expensive and time consuming process and it can also be a free and spontaneous process.  

In this video reel you will hear from well-known and successful producers and engineers discussing what they do and how they do it.

8.  RECORDING CONTRACTS:  Transferring Your Sound Recording Rights 

Sound recordings, like songs, receive copyright protection as soon as they are fixed in a tangible means of expression, and by definition, a recording is a tangible means of expression, whether it be in your iPhone or on 24 track analog tape or a Pro-Tools file.

When you sign a recording contract you are transferring these rights to a third party in exchange for the promise of a percentage of the profits.  Don’t hold your breath.  You’d have to sell a zillion records to “recoup” or pay back all of the deductions and reductions the company with apply against your royalties.  In most recording contracts, certainly all of those perpetrated by the “legacy” companies, it is impossible to determine the penny/dollar amount of your royalty by reading the contract.

The old-world recording contract was one of the most one-sided agreements ever written.  They were and are a hundred pages long and always prepared by the company even though it was the artist’s rights that were being transferred.  

So, remember:  the rights under copyright law are yours and if you want to transfer them to someone else, that transfer should be on your terms and in writing.  If the recording company pays you a lot of money for your rights, you will probably have to agree to their terms, but just be sure you understand what that will cost you, because once you do you will probably reconsider your decision to sign a contract that contains such onerous terms and promises very little in return.

9.  MUSIC PERFORMANCE:  Closing the Creative Loop

A great show wins.  The best way to do that is to do it as many times as you can in front of as many people as you can.  I’ve worked with many great artists and the one thing they all had in common was a complete dedication to creating a memorable experience for a live audience.  And they made the conscious effort to improve every time they performed.  And they got really mad when someone screwed up their show.  

It is not easy to be great every night.  But it is easy to try to be great every night.  Besides, it’s your job.  It’s a pretty cool job and you want to keep it.

Review each show after you do it.  What did you do well and what can you improve?  Define excellence for every aspect of your show and create a plan to achieve it.

Make your merch as good as your show and sell it as well as you sell your songs when you perform.  Give the venue a percentage before they ask for it, partner up.  Make them as much money as you can.  If you can’t sell your music to people sitting in front of you, to whom else are you going to sell it?  

Make friends, collect data, know the market.  Be remarkable.  Do something that people remark on.  

MARKETING:  Sharing is Caring

This is an exciting group of video clips.  There are some original thinkers here.  I think you will find their ideas compelling and enlightening.

Sharing implies marketing just as much as selling does.  You have to identify who you are sharing with before you determine the method or identify the distribution channels for accomplishing that.  There are no more one-way messages in the new world of marketing.  Markets are conversations; marketing is about shared values and less about demographics than share interests.

Marketers often think in terms of the 4 P’s:  product, price, promotion and place.  If you think of these as interlocking circles you will find a place in the center where they all overlap.  That’s your target market.  

Once you clearly identify those aspects of marketing, you will develop your ideas regarding how to interact with your target market.  As Professor O’Connell points out, you will have to act with grace, kindness, authenticity, gratitude, and generosity and get people’s permission to market your music to them.  This is something you have to ask for and earn. 

The days of manipulation, inauthenticity, and one-way mass marketing proclamations are over.  Now it is about understanding and caring about your customers and their values and aligning them with your own.