Music For Music’s Sake, Or Music As A Business?

Last night I was discussing sales & distribution for a record company with my students (who were enrolled in this course), and as always, the discussion veered into discussing about the industry in general. Among other takeaways, I said the whole idea of having a Music Business course at a school with generally more skill-based courses was that musicians/artistes/bands need to understand the business side of things.

One of my students asked, but how do we convince artistes/bands to think about business, when they want to focus on creating the music? Another student challenged, isn’t it difficult for a band to think about creating music, but also think about copyright, sales, merchandise, contracts, and so on?

Well, first of all, I said, is that it’s not the issue of doing everything yourself, but it’s about being aware and understanding the business. If a band member studying music business still wants to play in a band, it’s A-OK, but he will have a better understanding of the business and at the least, figure out when he’s being ripped off. This is why there are band managers, booking agents, record labels, etc, who are experts at what they do, that can help bands (not the other way around).

Second, it all comes down to money. Creating a recording master costs money, even if you’re using free studio time with your dad’s guitar. There are always costs involved, as nothing (at least in the context of the music business) is really free. So if creating a recording costs $X, and any income related to that recording, say, from merchandise, live shows, etc gets you $Y and $X minus $Y equals $Z, then $Z is the loss incurred. Numbers don’t lie, so is $Z a worthwhile price that you yourself have to pay for your music?

Musicians create music as an art, and art itself has its own merits, whether for the listener or the musician. But creating music into any form requires some sort of expenditure; even keeping the music in your head requires your body to continually live and retain the music. Playing the music to others require musical instruments. Costs, costs, everywhere.

Bands need to decide early on, the earlier the better, on whether they are creating music for music’s sake, or whether they need to calculate a return on investment of the time and money spend making that music (and usually recording it). If it is music for music’s sake, then to hell with cost, and go ahead and create, and be grateful for whatever crumbs of money you may get, because the music is more important than profits.

But once you commit to recording a master, and then investing in the production of, say, 1,000 CDs, then you need to figure out how to get a return of investment of the time and money you spent for doing all that. Yes, even the pizzas bought when waiting for around for the drummer to nail that drum line. And to figure out how to get your money back from your music, at the least, well then you need to understand the business side of music.

Some indie bands (I won’t say names) pride themselves on being “non-commercial”, not caring about profits from sales of… whatever, at the same time insulting the bands they few as “commercial”. They must, of course, eat some time this week, with money they pay to someone to get food, unless they are totally rich and own their own farm (of which, they still need to pay wages to the employees maintaining the farm as the band is busy touring). This is of course a choice, and not making money directly from your music is just one of many options. That said, their money must come from somewhere.

More prudent bands that understand themselves as businesses or brands, understand that as a band, ideally they need to do activities that ensure that the band makes money to pay a living wage to each member (and the support team, if any). It could be merchandise. It could be live shows — it doesn’t always have to be selling CDs or music downloads. The band could even be doing it through another party, not by themselves. But once a band wants to make sure that their music makes money for them, then they need to understand business, and thus understand the music business.

There could be a hundred middlemen between the band and the fans, but this time, with a better understanding of the business, the band can decide their own fate, with these middlemen acting as business enablers for various aspects of the band’s business.

There’s no right or wrong, of course — it’s simply about choice. But every choice has its pluses and minuses, and it all comes down to this: if you’re making music for music’s sake, get a day job — if you want to make money from playing and creating music, learn the business. Don’t be ignorant.