The music industry is big business, and Cal State Fullerton students have the opportunity to gain an interdisciplinary perspective on this field through MGMT 477 – Music Business, a new course offered within the College of Business and Economics but also open to music students within the College of the Arts.
Amani Roberts, the management lecturer who is teaching this course, shared with us about the course and what students are learning.
When did this class start?
Fall 2023 is the first semester of this class. We have been working on getting this class added to our EHM curriculum since fall 2020. It has been quite a journey. Initially, we were hoping for 15-16 students for this first class. We have 29 students, which is amazing!
Even better is that we partnered with the School of Music within the CSUF College of the Arts to advertise the class. We have seven students from the music school, so this is interdisciplinary, and those students are being exposed to a business education.
What do students learn in this course?
Students learn the business aspect of the music industry, including the various types of royalties (mechanical, streaming, performance, etc.), live events/touring, artist management (A&R), music marketing, music copyright, data analytics, music supervision, merchandising, music publishing, and record deal analysis.
What kind of jobs are there for business students in the music industry?
Students can work in the music business in various roles, including tour managers, artist management, data analysis, festival managers, record label executive administrators, assistant music supervisors, and music publishing administrators.
How are Titans positioned to take advantage of these opportunities?
The fact that this class is offered within the business college, which is very rare in the Cal State system, will give Titans a competitive advantage.
The required business curriculum, combined with this class, will allow students to be prepared to be executives within the music industry upon graduating.
In fact, my commitment to the students is to prepare them to be ready for more than entry-level jobs in the music industry upon completion of the course. It is a fact that the majority of existing musicians and artists (beginners and veterans) have extremely limited knowledge of the content that we teach in this class. The focus is to prepare our students with the knowledge so that they can accurately advise their future (or current) music clients about the music decisions they are faced with throughout their careers.
What have you found students enjoy most about this class?
The most enjoyable aspect of this class from the students’ perspective is learning about the different revenue streams available to all musicians and seeing how much influence record labels have over musicians and their creative work.
Also, the students are surprised at how difficult it is to earn a living in the music business.
We have a long list of guest speakers who visit in person or via Zoom, ranging from Spotify, The Rose Bowl, Warner Chappell Records, Night Bass Records, The Recording Academy (The Grammys), Amazon Music, and more.
Students love to hear about their career journeys and where they see the music business heading in the future. Finally, the class is about music, so we discuss current artists and legendary artists and examine various business stories from artists of the past, which allows us to apply lessons learned in the class.
Taylor Swift is an artist who continues to rewrite how the music business is done, and students enjoy learning all of the different business decisions she makes, which are ahead of the curve. I also create very engaging activities to teach further, and this makes for a memorable class experience each day. We love learning about the music business together.
