Roles to understand the Music Industry

Whether you are a musician and you are looking to make a living from your songs, or if you dream of one day finding a job in the industry, the music industry has many variations and it is often easy to get lost among the different roles that exist. Here are some of the most important ones to better understand the sometimes complicated musical organization chart.

Manager

Managers are very important and frequently they become one more member of the band. It's their responsibility to ensure that everything runs smoothly and basically they coordinate all the people and projects around the band and record company. They have to remain focused on the bigger picture all the time, and there is no need to say that they must have a great understanding of the music industry, be very organized and be great with people since they are going to bring together a lot of different individuals and organizations. 

Road Manager

Road Managers take care that everything is organized and under schedule when a band is touring. Road Managers are those who deal with the venues and media and take care of the equipment, accommodation, itinerary, payments (if needed), personal issues and of course they coordinate the rest of the staff too.

Promoter

Promoters are those who put up the shows and they work directly with Booking Agents. The Promoters take care of all the logistics, make sure that the tickets sell out and in the last term they are also the ones paying the musicians. They take the biggest piece of the cake but they are also the ones taking more risks.

Booking Agent

A Booking Agent works booking shows for the musicians. They can represent a band or several bands either independently or on behalf of an agency. Booking Agents are basically those who listen to what you need and then fight for you to find the right dates, venues and festivals to play. But Booking Agents get a percentage of the money you make while touring, so unless you´re making real money it will have to be you, the person trying to find a venue to play at.

Booker

Bookers works for festivals and sometimes also for venues. They are in charge of booking shows for clubs and festivals, which means that they are always in constant search of those bands taking risks, being different and maybe creating the next sound. Bookers obviously have to attend lots of shows.

Record Label 

There are three major labels (Universal, Sony Music and Warner) and then there are a bunch of all sorts of different ones. When an artist gets signed to a Record Label means that someone is going to pay for making, distributing and marketing the recordings and music videos. Basically it's an investment Record Labels do expecting artists to pay them back with a big part of their earnings. Record Labels engage in a wide range of functions in the music industry, including A&R, music publishing, copyright enforcement, marketing, and a long etcetera.

A&R 

A&R stands for Artist and Repertoire and are basically those who try to find the next big thing in music for the record labels or music publishing companies. They are basically scouters, they listen to a lot of music, follow media and blogs, go to many shows and festivals and stay updated in every possible way but also they are the ones overseeing the artistic development of recording artists (singers, instrumentalists, bands, and so on) and songwriters once these are signed.

Publisher

Publishers basically are in charge of managing the royalties (royalty payments is the money paid to songwriters when their songs are sold, distributed, embedded in any media or monetized in any other way). So, if you write songs and have certain success you are probably going to need a Publisher but watchout, getting a Publisher will increase your income but they will also get significant revenues from the songs, so deals are often very complex and it's always advisable getting legal help before signing any contract.

Press Officer

A Press Officer works as liaison between a band and the media and they take care of everything media related, which usually goes from preparing press releases, organizing press conferences and interviews to monitoring all the media coverage of the band.

Artist Aggregator

Streaming’s a hefty piece of the pie nowadays and if you already have a Record Label they will take care of getting your music into the streaming platforms but if you go solo, you will need the help of an Artist Aggregator to distribute your songs through digital stores and streaming platforms. They usually charge the songwriters a flat yearly fee or a percentage of the revenue earned.

Cover photograph by Matias Altbach