Business structure

The music industry is a complex system of many different organizations, firms and individuals and has undergone dramatic changes in the 21st century. However, the majority of the participants in the music industry still fulfill their traditional roles, which are described below.

Recorded music and compositions

There are three types of property that are created and sold by the recording industry: compositions, recordings and media (such as CDs or MP3s). There may be many recordings of a single composition and a single recording will typically be distributed into many media.

Compositions

Compositions are created by songwriters or composers and are originally owned by the composer. The composer may sell the copyright to another party. Compositions are (traditionally) licensed or "assigned" to publishing companies. A publishing contract specifies the business relationship between the copyright owner and the publishing company. The publishing company (or a collection society operating on behalf of many such publishers, songwriters and composers) collects fees (known as "publishing royalties") when the composition is used. A portion of the royalties are paid by the publishing company to the copyright owner, depending on the terms of the contract. Typically (although not universally), the publishing company will provide the owner with an advance against future earnings when the publishing contract is signed. A publishing company will also promote the compositions, such as by acquiring song "placements" on television or in films.

Recordings

Recordings are created by recording artists, often with the assistance of record producers and audio engineers. They were traditionally made in recording studios (who are paid a daily or hourly rate) in a recording session. In the 21st century, advances in recording technology have allowed many producers and artists to create "home studios", bypassing the traditional role of the recording studio. The record producer oversees all aspects of the recording, making many of the logistic, financial and artistic decisions in cooperation with the artist. Audio engineers (including recording, mixing and mastering engineers) are responsible for the audio quality of the recording. A recording session may also require the services of an arranger or studio musicians.

Recordings are (traditionally) owned by record companies. A recording contract specifies the business relationship between a recording artist and the record company. In a traditional contract, the company provides an advance to the artist who agrees to record music that will be owned by the company. The A&R department of a record company is responsible for finding new talent and overseeing the recording process. The company pays for the recording costs and the cost of promoting and marketing the record. For physical media (such as CDs), the company also pays to manufacture and distribute the physical recordings. Smaller record companies (known as "indies") will form business relationships with other companies to handle many of these tasks. If contractually bound to do so, the record company pays the recording artist a portion of the income from the sale of the recordings, generally known as a mechanical royalty. (This is distinct from the publishing royalty, described above.) This portion is similar to a percentage, but may be limited or expanded by a number of factors (such as free goods, recoupable expenses, bonuses, etc.) that are specified by the record contract. Session musicians and orchestra members (as well as a few recording artists in special markets) are under contract to provide work for hire; they're typically only paid one-time fees or regular wages for their services, rather than royalties.

Physical media

Physical media (such as CDs) are sold by music retailers and are owned by the consumer. A music distributor delivers the physical media from the manufacturer to the retailer and maintains relationships with retailers and record companies. The music retailer pays the distributor, who in turn pays the record company for the recordings. The record company pays mechanical royalties to the publisher, composer, and songwriter via a collection society. The record company then pays royalties, if contractually obligated, to the recording artist. In the case of digital downloads, there is no physical media other than the consumer's hard drive. The distributor is optional in this situation; large online shops may pay the labels directly, but digital distributors do exist to service vendors large and small. When purchasing digital downloads, the consumer may be required to agree to record company and vendor licensing terms beyond those which are inherent in copyright; for example, some may allow freely sharing the recording, but others may restrict the user to storing the music on a specific number of hard drives.

Other uses of recorded music and compositions

Sheet music provides an income stream that is paid exclusively to the composers and their publishing company. When a recording is broadcast (either on radio or by a service such as Muzak), performance rights organisations (such as the ASCAP and BMI in the US or MCPS and PRS in the UK), collect a third type of royalty known as a performance royalty, which is paid to composers and recording artists. This royalty is typically much smaller than publishing or mechanical royalties. When recordings are used in television and film, the composer and their publishing company are typically paid through a synchronization license. Subscription services (such as Rhapsody) also provide an income stream directly to record companies, and through them, to artists, contracts permitting.

Regional variations and industry evolution

The industry is further complicated by the fact that the definition of "royalty" and "copyright" varies from country to country and region to region, which changes the terms of some of these business relationships.
In addition to these traditional business relationships, new ways of doing business are being developed in the 21st century. The traditional lines that once divided artist, publisher, record company, distributor, retail and consumer electronics have become blurred. Artists may own their own publishing companies, artist management companies may promote and market recordings on behalf of their clients, artists may promote and market themselves using only free services such as YouTube or social media, consumer electronics companies have become digital music retailers, and so on, in many variations. New digital music distribution technologies have also forced both government and industry to re-examine the definitions of intellectual property and the rights of all the parties involved.

Live music

A promoter brings together a performing artist and a venue owner and arranges contracts. A booking agency represents the artist to promoters, makes deals and books performances. Consumers usually buy tickets either from the venue or from a ticket distribution service such as Ticketmaster. In the US, Live Nation is the dominant company in all of these roles: they own most of the large venues in the US, they are the largest promoter, and they own Ticketmaster.

Choices about where and when to tour are decided by the artist's management and the artist, sometimes in consultation with the record company. Record companies may provide tour support; they may finance a tour in the hopes that it will help promote the sale of recordings. However, in the 21st century, it has become more common to release recordings to promote tours, rather than book tours to promote records.

Successful artists will usually employ a road crew: a semi-permanent touring organization that travels with the artist. This is headed by a tour manager and provides stage lighting, live sound reinforcement, musical instrument tuning and maintenance and transportation. On large tours, the road crew may also include an accountant, stage manager and catering. Local crews are typically hired to help move equipment on and off stage. On small tours, all of these jobs may be handled by just a few roadies, or by the musicians themselves.

Artist management, representation and staff

Artists may hire a number of people from other fields to assist them with their career. The artist manager oversees all aspects of an artist's career in exchange for a percentage of the artist's income. An entertainment lawyer assists them with the details of their contracts with record companies and other deals. A business manager handles financial transactions, taxes and bookkeeping. Unions, such as AFTRA in the U.S., provide health insurance and other services for musicians.

Other income streams

A successful artist functions in the market as a brand and, as such, may derive income from many other streams, such as merchandise or internet-based services. These are typically overseen by the artist's manager and take the form of relationships between the artist and companies that specialize in these products.

Music industry

The music industry or music business sells compositions, recordings and performances of music. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate within the industry are the musicians who compose and perform the music; the companies and professionals who create and sell recorded music (e.g., music publishers, producers, studios, engineers, record labels, retail and online music stores, performance rights organizations); those that present live music performances (booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew); professionals who assist musicians with their careers (talent managers, business managers, entertainment lawyers); those who broadcast music (satellite and broadcast radio); journalists; educators; musical instrument manufacturers; as well as many others.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the music industry was dominated by the publishers of sheet music. By the middle of the century records had supplanted sheet music as the largest player in the music business: in the commercial world people began speaking of "the recording industry" as a loose synonym of "the music industry". Since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially, while live music has increased in importance. Three "major corporate labels" dominate recorded music — Universal Music Group (after purchasing EMI in November 2011), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group — each of which consists of many smaller companies and labels serving different regions and markets. The live music industry is dominated by Live Nation, the largest promoter and music venue owner. Live Nation is a former subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, which is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States. Other important music industry companies include Creative Artists Agency (a management and booking company) and Apple Inc. (which runs the world's largest music store, the iTunes Store).

Inspiring and Interesting Quotes about Music

People have recognized the many benefits of music since the dawn of recorded history.  I have scoured the Internet to find the most meaningful and inspiring quotes about music.  These come from a wide variety of ancient and modern sources; sayings from both musicians and non-musicians.  I hope that you will find these inspiring whether you play music or just enjoy grooving to it.  Leave comments if there are other quotes or tell us your favorites.

• A painter paints pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence. – Leopold Stokowski
• Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Berthold Auerbach
• All deep things are song.  It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! – Thomas Carlyle
• If the King loves music, it is well with the land. – Mencius
• Without music life would be a mistake. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
• Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons.  You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
• If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. – Gustav Mahler
• Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them! – Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom.  If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. – Charlie Parker

• Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? – Michael Torke
• He who sings scares away his woes. – Cervantes
• Music was my refuge.  I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. – Maya Angelou
• Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. – Benjamin Disraeli
• Music is what feelings sound like. – Author Unknown
• Music is the poetry of the air. – Richter
• If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music.  It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth.  Sydney Smith
• There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is. – William P. Merrill
• Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. – Henry David Thoreau

• Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. – Ludwig van Beethoven
• I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours.  But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places.  Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. – H.A. Overstreet
• My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require. – Edward Elgar
• Life can’t be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. – William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself. – Henry Ward Beecher
• Play the music, not the instrument. – Author Unknown
• Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence. – Robert Fripp
• Music’s the medicine of the mind. – John A. Logan
• You are the music while the music lasts. – T.S. Eliot

• Music is the universal language of mankind. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Music rots when it gets too far from the dance.  Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. – Ezra Pound
• He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. – Robert Browning
• Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. – Victor Hugo
• Music has been my playmate, my lover, and my crying towel. – Buffy Sainte-Marie
• Music is an outburst of the soul. – Frederick Delius
• Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory. – Oscar Wilde
• In music the passions enjoy themselves. – Nietzsche
• Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. – Robert G. Ingersoll

• Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. – Alphonse de Lamartine
• When words leave off, music begins. -  Heinrich Heine
• Truly to sing, that is a different breath. – Rainer Maria Rilke
• Music is the shorthand of emotion. – Leo Tolstoy
• There is no truer truth obtainable by Man than comes of music. – Robert Browning
• A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. – Benny Green
• The pause is as important as the note. – Truman Fisher
• Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven. – Lawrence Duncan
• Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. – Confucius

• Rock music in its lyrics often talks ahead of the time about what’s going on in the country. – Edmund G. Brown
• The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention:  the need for rhythm in life… the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. – Richard Baker
• Music is the medicine of the breaking heart. – Leigh Hunt
• Country music is three chords and the truth. – Harlan Howard
• I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. – Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
• The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously.  Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. – Aldous Huxley
• Music is love in search of a word. – Sidney Lanier

• I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else. – Lily Tomlin
• Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.  – Ludwig van Beethoven
• Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.  – Ludwig van Beethoven
• Music  is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.  – Ludwig van Beethoven
• Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.  – Warren G. Bennis
• Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable. – Leonard Bernstein
• Music is well said to be the speech of angels.  – Thomas Carlyle
• The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music.  – Agnes de Mile
• Number is the Word but is not utterance; it is wave and light, though no one sees it; it is rhythm and music, though no one hears it. Its variations are limitless and yet it is immutable. Each form of life is a particular reverberation of Number. – Maurice Druon

 

• I think there are only three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, music, and baseball. – Gerald Early
• There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music. – George Eliot
• Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. – Kahlil Gibran
• As any jazz musician knows, it takes flexibility and adaptability for improvisation to create beauty. – Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer
• Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them, You learn notes to play to the music of your soul. – Katie Greenwood
• Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite. – Thomas Carlyle
• Without music, life is a journey through a desert.  – Pat Conroy
• Extraordinary how potent cheap music is. – Noel Coward
• The history of a people is found in its songs.  – George Jellinek

• I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music. -  Billy Joel
• It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics.  – James Weldon Johnson
• Music is the vernacular of the human soul. – Geoffrey Latham
• Just as certain selections of music will nourish your physical body and your emotional layer, so other musical works will bring greater health to your mind. – Hal A. Lingerman
• Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don’t take it too seriously. – Henry Miller
• If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing. – Zimbabwe Proverb
• The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud. – George Steiner
• A good composer does not imitate; he steals. – Igor Stravinsky
• Remember, information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music; music is the best. – Frank Zappa

 

• Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains. – Paul Whiteman
• There’s a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don’t know what it is. But I’ve got it. – Ron Wood
• There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another. – Frank Zappa
• You are the music while the music lasts. – T. S. Eliot
• True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today. – George Gershwin
• Sounds like the blues are composed of feeling, finesse, and fear. – Billy Gibbons
• The effects of good music are not just because it’s new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
• Music and dancing (the more the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less cultivated classes, that a taste for them, for their own sakes, can hardly be said to exist, and before they can be recommended as innocent or safe amusements, a very great change of ideas must take place. – Sir John Herschel
• Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below. -  Joseph Addison

Why is Music Important in Our Lives?

In today’s world of busy schedules, tight budgets, increasing pressure to juggle careers and kids, it’s easy to wonder on occasion why music, art, and other forms of entertainment are important. At first glance, these seem to be “extras” in our daily lives. We can’t reasonably live our lives without food, shelter, clothing, income, exercise, doctors, cars . . . the list goes on. But we can make it through a day, a week, months, and years, without the inclusion of art and music in the fabric of our schedules. This begs the question, what is the purpose of music then, other than pleasure and distraction, if we can live without it?
The answer is simply the health, well-being, growth, and advancement of our minds. It is our mind, after all, that sets us apart from other animals. It is our mind that gives us the competitive edge in the world’s food-chain. Our intelligence gives us the capability and creativity to survive, arguably, just about anything. Our intelligence is a powerful and potent tool, one which may very well be our salvation, at the same time that it poses the threat of destruction. How we use our minds, our intelligence, may determine what happens to our species, as well as those species with whom we share the earth.

If this intelligence is so vital, it seems we should foster it, nourish and develop it. We should give our minds those things which encourage creativity, happiness, and thoughtfulness. Music is the very manifestation of our thought and intellect, so we should pay close attention to it. In addition, the study of music serves to develop our intellect, and the appreciation and enjoyment of music and art serves to calm, enlighten, and inspire us. So whether you are the creator, the student, or the audience, music is vital to your mental and intellectual well-being. Music also help us to express our humanity, to communicate that which is beyond words and language. For many, it is cathartic, emotional salvation. Creating music, creating art, helps us psychologically to put order and meaning to our experiences. In this way, music and art cross over to the spiritual.
All of these benefits - expression, communication, intellectual development, creative development, inspiration, comfort, pleasure - have now been studied and observed in the scientific community. It has been shown time and again that music is a particularly potent form of mental, emotional, and intellectual stimulation. It is no longer just a hunch, a feeling, or a belief that music is important, but a documented scientific fact. And it’s also becoming clear through a variey of studies that music is vitally important at every age and stage of life. Early on, it increases intellectual, academic, and social development. Later on, it keeps us sharper longer, and can even be a potent tool in managing and treating illness and disease.

Because we now understand how music, and all forms of art, are integral to our mental and intellectual health and well-being, we must assume the responsibility to include it in our daily lives, to foster it’s support and growth within our communities, and treat it as core curriculum for our children. Without it, we may survive for a long time, but will our quality of life suffer as a result? Will our way of life continue? Will we have the tools to meet the future challenges which we cannot even imagine?

Now imagine a world where every person has the opportunity to master a musical instrument. Imagine a world where everyone has experienced at least one moment of genuine achievement, that feeling of “I did it!” Imagine a world where all children are more likely to play the piano in their free time than a video game. Imagine a world where young people are more likely to join a community chorus, band, or orchestra than a gang. This is a world that we can create.

Making Musical Instruments - How to Make a Musical Instrument?

Wondering how to make musical instruments? On reading this article, you will surely say, "making musical instruments is interestingly easy." True, making homemade musical instruments is not that difficult. Read on to find out how.

The creation of both music and musical instruments, traces its roots to the basic human need of bringing rhythm in life. There's music all around us...leaves rustle to the tune of the whistling wind; birds chirp in tune with the swaying trees; clouds announce the arrival of rain through their thunder; rain drops perform a tap dance on roofs and window sills; waves dash with the sea shore, in perfect harmony and sea shells reproduce the sound of sea waves. All of these gestures of nature are melodious musical expressions. Probably, these forms of music must have inspired man to design instruments that could produce sound and create music. Nature must have been his inspiration behind making musical instruments.

What are musical instruments? Well, they are defined as objects constructed or used for making sounds of music, but they are not just that. Musical instruments are the means to express the universal language of music. How about being able to reproduce this language through homemade musical instruments? Sounds interesting? Then keep reading on how to make a musical instrument. Let us see one example each of some of the different types of musical instruments and understand how to make them.

How to Make a Drum?
All you need to make a homemade drum is a cylindrical container, construction paper, a masking tape and glue. For the drum sticks, you will require two pencils and tissue paper. All of these materials are readily available. As the first step to making a homemade drum, get a cylindrical container like an empty popcorn tin or an aluminum can. Then cover the top of the container with strips of masking tape and wrap the container with construction paper. And your drum is ready! For the drumsticks, tie a bunch of tissue to the end of the pencil with a masking tape that spirals around the pencil, right up to the top of the tissue ball. Repeat the same procedure for the other pencil, and you have your drumsticks ready. I am sure you will not wait to 'beat the drum' for your accomplishment of having made one yourself!

How to Make a Flute?
Flute music and melody are synonyms. It's a wonderful idea to create this melody from a homemade flute. Here's how to make it. The materials required for making a flute include, a steel rod, a propane torch to heat the rod, an oven mitt to hold the heated rod, a 1/4" drill bit, sandpaper, a hacksaw, a grease pencil, linseed oil and a bamboo (that's what the flute will be made of!) How to go about making the flute? First, cut out an 18-20" long piece of bamboo that is around 3/4" in diameter. Make sure one end of this piece is blocked by the fibrous material in between the sections of the bamboo. Mark a spot at a distance of 1" from the blocked end of the bamboo. Mark the next spot at a distance of 6" from the first one, and five more, spaced at intervals of 1" from each other. Next, use the steel rod to burn the fibrous material, by heating one end of the rod and inserting it into the open end of the bamboo. Then heat the drill bit and drill out the holes at the previously marked locations. With the help of a sandpaper, remove the charcoaled bamboo from around the holes, smoothen the surface and your flute is ready. Coat linseed oil on the finished flute. The process of making this musical instrument looks quite complex, but the melody in its music is worth the effort!

How to Make a Guitar?
This is more of a craft idea which children will surely enjoy. The procedure is simple; all you need is an old shoe box, rubber bands, a pencil or a piece of wood, paper and a pair of scissors. Get hold of an old shoe box and cut an oval-shaped hole in the top. Stretch the rubber bands around the box, such that they stretch over the hole. Place the pencil under the rubber bands on one side and the guitar is ready. For the neck of the guitar, use a paper tube. If you have long rubber bands, you can stretch them up to the neck as well. The same procedure can be followed for a making a wooden guitar. Here, you will require a bit of woodworking and the rubber bands will be replaced by real strings. String your guitar and string along!

I know you were familiar with all these musical instrument names and well-aware of the type of music played on them. But did you know that making musical instruments was so easy? Actually, you can build on the procedure for making a guitar to design other string instruments and extend the idea of making a drum, to make similar percussion instruments. Similarly, the procedure for making a flute will help you make other wind instruments. The very obvious advantage of making homemade musical instruments is that it is a cost-effective alternative to buying them. Also, in the process of making musical instruments, you gain knowledge of their construction and working. There's a major difference between making musical instruments and buying them. In fact, this difference applies to any kind of 'buying' and 'making'. With 'buying', you'll feel happy; with 'making', you'll feel 'satisfied'.