BUSINESS OF MUSIC

LECTURE - WEEK 1
Your Lecturer – Andrew Watt
 Context of this Unit

• I’m assuming that some of you are musicians, some of you are
marketing students, economics students, law students and some of
you are students from all sorts of diverse faculties. Some of you might
not even be students – just some randoms from the internet?
• I’m assuming that some of you are based in Melbourne (where it’s
Friday afternoon) and I’m assuming that many of you are overseas
and are watching this at very different times.
• I’m assuming that some of you just got the link from your friends and
you are here for the lol’s.
• I’m assuming that some of you are asleep. Wake up.
 Intended Learning Outcomes

At the completion of this unit, students should be able to:

• articulate the relationship between music creation and
commercialization.
• identify and contextualize key elements of the music industry.
• critically analyse various examples of music business practice.
 Generic Skills

At the completion of this unit, students should have developed:

• skills in accessing current music industry research from international
databases, websites, journals and texts.
• the ability to analyse and critique creative and commercial music
projects
• high-level conceptual and applied skills
 Assessments

• Assessments
• Weekly participation in web-based multiple choice quiz questions
(40%). Each question is weighted at 1% (10 weeks x 4% = 40%).
• Written assessment, length (60%). The essay is 2400 words and is
due during the assessment period.
Context
 Bruce Springsteen’s Magic Trick

• “DNA, your natural ability, the study of your craft, a development of and devotion to an
aesthetic philosophy, balls, naked desire for fame, love, adoration, attention, women,
sex, a buck, and then if you wanna take it all the way 'til to the end of the night you will
need a furious fire in your belly that just don't quit burnin'.
• These are some of the elements that will come in handy should you come face to face
with 80,000 (or eight) screaming rock 'n' roll fans. Because these are fans who are
waiting for you to pull something out of your hat, out of thin air, something out of this
world, something that before the faithful were gathered here today was just a song-
fueled rumour.
• Now, I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud.
So am I. 1972 I wasn't any race car drivin' rebel. I was a guitar player on the streets of
Asbury Park, but, I held four clean aces. I had youth, I had a decade of hardcore bar
band experience already behind me, I had a great group of musicians and friends who
really knew my playing style, and I had a magic trick.
• Now I'm here tonight to provide proof of life, to that ever-elusive, never completely
believable, “us” - that's my magic trick, and like all good magic tricks, it begins with a
setup.”
 Bruce Springsteen’s Magic Trick

• But Bruce isn’t the only one with a magic trick.

• The business of music also sees it’s best practitioners performing magic
tricks daily.
• Taking a busker from the streets of Melbourne to the stages of festivals
across the world, facilitating the rise of a bedroom producer to the top of
the Billboard dance charts, navigating a path for a shy kid from the
Melbourne Conservatory of Music to being the lead in a Broadway
musical…those too are magic tricks
• And like all good magic tricks these begin with a set up…
ORIGINS OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRIES

• The Music Industries have always been - and will always

be - about one thing:

Connecting the Creators of Music

with the Consumers of Music.
• Every job, role and function in the music industries is in
some way involved in making that connection.
 ORIGINS OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRIES

• We refer to the music industry in plural – the “music industries” – because there is
two quite distinct music industries:

The Live Music Industry

The Recorded Music Industry

• While both music industries have the same core product – music – the way the
connection is made between the creators of music and the consumers of music
in the two industries is very different – from an economic, legal, commercial and
functional perspective.
ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• There is many ways you can look at the live performance of music.

• Some of the key considerations are:

• The human pleasure derived from listening to or making musical sounds
• The development of musical instruments
• The significance of music as a social narrative device
• Political, national or religious implications of music
ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• Consider this statement taken from an essay about the performance of

music:

“For some people musical performance is essentially private,

requiring no confirmation in the form of audience approval. The
musical pleasure of such people rests solely on performing, either
alone or with other musicians. The need for audience approval
has led to innovations as well as some decadence in its impact on
the musical scene: innovation, if the performer is led to discover
imaginative and fresh means of attracting public acclaim;
decadence, if the devices for audience attraction become
cheap and thinly spectacular, when the performer may distract
the audience from more deserving work and debase its taste.”
ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• The live performance of music does not necessarily require an audience –

it can be a solitary pursuit – it’s only when the pursuit of an audience
becomes part of the desire of the musician that the “industry” of live music
starts to evolve.
ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• You will recognise that artists, managers, agents, concert &

festival promoters, venue operators etc. in the live performance
industry are always grappling with the same issue:

How to attract an audience in a

sustainable way that enhances the
experience of both the creators of the
musical performance and those that
are witnessing or consuming it.
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ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• So once we have established that

the performer seeks to perform in
front of an audience they then must
ask themselves what is required for
that performance to take place –
and then what services do they need
to source from third parties to
facilitate that performance.
• If the performing artist is able to
provide all the necessary services
themselves then they have no need
to interact with the “live performance
industry”.
ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• From the earliest performances of music to today’s global touring business

performers have had the same requirements to allow them to perform:
• Somewhere to perform
• Someone to schedule and arrange the performance
• The necessary staging & equipment
• A way of letting the audience know about the performance
• A way of providing access to the performance
• A way of making the performance financially viable
 ORIGINS OF THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• Or, to look at it another way, performers need:

• Venue Operators
• Agents & Managers
• Production Suppliers
• Promoters
• Ticketing Providers
• These are the services that have always made up the live performance
industry
GRATUITOUS TAYLOR SWIFT PIC
ORIGINS OF THE RECORDED MUSIC
INDUSTRY

• So the performance of music was became an industry based around the

fact that the connection between live musicians and a live audience was
a desirable and valuable one – and people and services were needed to
facilitate that connection.
ORIGINS OF THE RECORDED MUSIC
INDUSTRY
• But what about when the musicians and audiences couldn’t always be in
the same place at the same time.
• Clearly there was a need for people to have music in their lives and
equally musicians wanted their music to be appreciated – but it wasn’t
until the invention of “sound recording” that this became possible.
ORIGINS OF THE RECORDED MUSIC
INDUSTRY

• In 1877, Thomas Edison, America’s famous inventor, developed the

phonograph and recorded a very early recording of the human voice –
his own voice reciting, Mary Had a Little Lamb.
ORIGINS OF THE RECORDED MUSIC
INDUSTRY
• From there it was only a matter of time before that invention – the
mechanism to make sound recordings – evolved into an industry.
• That industry – the recorded music industry – essentially consisted of four
functions:
• The creation of Sound Recordings
• The Manufacturing of Reproductions of those Sound Recordings
• The marketing of those reproductions of sound recordings
• The distribution of those reproductions of sound recordings to those
consumers who want to own a copy of those recordings
 ORIGINS OF THE RECORDED MUSIC
INDUSTRY

• Again this industry became a series of services that were available to

recording artists and various business models that supported the provision
of those services.
• The nature of those services haven’t really changed since – only the way in
which they are provided.
• We will investigate this in more detail as we go along, but it is constantly
evolving
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