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3. COUNSEL

You cannot rely on the remainder of your team to give you solid objective advice nor to set you up with the aforementioned opportunities. Agents, publicists, and lawyers are great at what they do (more about them in future articles) but only represent the parts of your career that fall into their respective fields. Furthermore, they may be more interested in earning commission and fees, rather than necessarily furthering your career; they may steer you towards decisions that ultimately will harm your career. In contrast, a manager has a fiduciary obligation to you; he or she has a legal duty to act in your best interest and help you further your goals.

Your primary goal should be getting your music heard, rather than simply making money. If you were thinking to yourself, “Record companies are very influential and powerful, so they can get me the exposure I need”, think again. These days, record labels are losing money out of every pore; with the recent layoffs and cutbacks, you should consider yourself lucky to even be signed, let alone be the source of any attention. Labels are also quite slow in catching up with technology and the trends of the online community, so they may not be the best source of advice, as advice will usually be offered 6 months after the fact. Your manager’s job is be up to date with new occurrences in the digital world, especially as it relates to technology, file-sharing, licensing, and media exposure, spotting and pursuing opportunities for you to shine. Thus, a manager ends up being your best route to gaining listeners and a bridge between you and your team, reducing the number of people you have to deal with while you made educated career decisions.

Hopefully that gave all you guitarists and musicians out there a perspective on why management is important as well as some insight into the music business. While you don’t necessarily need to know the ins and outs of the music business, it’s always nice to know what to look for in agents, managers, and lawyers. For those of you who are interested in the business, stay tuned for more articles to come!

This site is of interest to those who want an example of how an artist can attain “overnight” fame through the internet. www.esmeeworld.com

If you want to learn more about building your team, I would highly recommend Everything You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman.

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