The Modern Mindset Music Business Class

This 8-week, hands-on class teaches you how the music business moves right now, from someone working actively in it, and helps you understand the mindset, techniques, and strategies of innovative artists and entrepreneurs making a serious impact in today’s marketplace.  The class will teach a way of examining the modern music industry landscape that is forward-thinking, real-world, real-time, relevant, and vital.

Your instructor believes that this is a Golden Age in the music business for creative people. Rather than lamenting a gloom and doom situation of shrinking revenues, he equips his classes with an inspired mindset, three-dimensional understanding, and an honest appraisal that leads to empowerment and momentum. This is not a class about passive learning; this is a real-world class equipping you to do the work on behalf of your art.

Class culminates in group Artist Case Study presentations, where class teams put to use the concepts, principles, and tasks of the class each week to generate detailed rollout plans for an artist. Groups present these proposals to the artists themselves on the final class. Led by instructor Gaelen Whittemore, artist manager and publishing/licensing for Ne-Yo's Compound Entertainment, class is offered on-campus and online.

Topics covered will include but not be limited to

• The Roles of Team (manager, attorney, agent, booking agent, label, PRO, publisher, radio promoter, label...) and each
• Copyright and Monetization: master recording and composition
• understanding, building, and promoting the BRAND of you
• ALL the possible Streams of Income
• Publishing
• Licensing
• Making and Releasing a Record
• Indie Marketing
• Distribution
• Touring
• Collaborative Projects with Real-World Pitches

The class will allow you to submit questions and topics in advance you would like dealt with, and as appropriate those topics and questions will be integrated into the curriculum.

This class is for me if I am...

• an artist contemplating how to build my team, roll out a single or a release, or even plot my very first steps thoughtfully
• a band member wanting to empower myself with more information about all aspects of monetizing my art and my skill-sets
• a producer looking to strengthen my business chops, get cutting edge ideas about how to develop and break artists, and to position myself positively for my future
• a manager looking for front-line, real-world training from someone at the highest level of artist/opportunity interaction
• a songwriter who understands the need to diversify and cultivate various skills to make a living making music I love
• a parent whose child is interested in the music business and wants to be empowered and informed when meetings and contracts and dollars are on the line
• a creative person looking to expand the scope of my thinking and generate ideas that will lead to real value for myself or people I associate with

As a student in this class, you will have the opportunity to submit a "package" in week 6 for direct and private feedback from the instructor, a head of publishing & licensing at Neyo's Compound Entertainment and himself an artist manager. The details of this assignment and remarkable opportunity will be outlined in detail during the first weeks of class.