Music Management
Artist managers guide every aspect of their clients' careers, counseling them on professional decisions and opportunities, overseeing their day-to-day schedules and activities, and representing their interests within larger productions and teams. They often help clients book gigs, plan album projects, orchestrate record releases and tours, create marketing and merchandising strategies, get paid for their work, and establish long term career goals.
A&R/Music Label
An A&R (artists and repertoire) representative is responsible for finding promising new artists for a record label to sign. A&R representatives spend the majority of their time listening to music, scouring clubs, reading blogs, watching social media, and tracking industry buzz on the hunt for promising new musical artists. They are also responsible for developing the talent through sessions with other creatives, feature opportunities, etc. and they are responsible for making sure correct information is relayed to secure producer deals and credit information.
A&R/Music Publishing
Music Publishing is all about signing and developing songwriters and artists, protecting and managing song copyrights, placing and licensing compositions, managing catalogues and collecting and distributing royalty payments for musicians/songwriters.
Publicity
Publicists generate media attention and manage public relations for musical artists and music-related businesses. Publicists have two main goals in mind: to solicit attention for a client, product, or brand from the media, tastemakers, and customers; and to handle the situation when that attention becomes too negative.
Artist Relations
An artist relations manager (ARM) acts as the liaison between an arts-related company and an artist, ensuring that all of the artist's needs are met. An ARM might be closely involved in organizing the artist's marketing, promotion, media, management, publicity, and/or personnel, or could simply act as a direct line between the artist and the company, responsible for communicating feedback and decisions between the two groups and maintaining the artist's interest in the company.
Touring & Events - Agent
Music agents work with artists to schedule concerts, tours, and in-person appearances, and to negotiate fees and contracts for those bookings. For up-and-coming clients, this may mean working the phones to book a string of club dates or secure an opening slot with a more established act. For bigger artists, it could mean planning national or world tours, scheduling radio and television appearances, and securing advertising deals or sponsorships
Touring & Events - Tour Managers
Tour managers travel with musicians and crew members on touring journeys that can span the globe and last for months. Their job is to make sure everything runs smoothly, which usually means arranging travel plans, coordinating with venues, managing money, facilitating media interactions, and scoping out local services at each tour stop.
Video & Art Direction/Creative Direction
Art directors for video production are responsible for hiring and directing a team of assistant directors in the artistic arena, set designers and more to create the setting and feel that is desired by the artist in each particular situation.
Songwriter-Producer
Songwriter-producers are hired for their ability to shepherd a song from a germ of an idea to a finished product, produced and recorded. To do this, they employ a wide-ranging set of skills that includes programming beats and samples; playing instruments and singing; writing and revising melodies and lyrics; arranging songs; eliciting inspired performances from vocalists and musicians; and creating professional-level demos or master recordings.
Engineering - Recording
The recording engineer oversees many technical and aesthetic aspects of a recording session and is responsible for the overall sound of all recorded tracks, ensuring that the mixing engineer has good material to work with and that the final product satisfies the artists and producers.
Engineering - Mixing
The mixing engineer is responsible for combining all of the different sonic elements of a recorded piece of music into a final version and balancing the distinct parts to achieve a desired effect.
Engineering - Mastering
Mastering engineers use technical expertise and superb ears to make the final adjustments to a piece of recorded music before it's released, heightening its impact and ensuring that it will translate well to the variety of playback systems in use today.
Music Supervision - Film & TV (Sync and Licensing)
Music supervision is the art of selecting and licensing preexisting songs or recordings for use in visual media like film, television, video games, and advertising. A music supervisor has to choose the perfect song to enhance a dramatic television moment, help an advertising producer make smart, inspired music choices, or find a cost-effective workaround when a film's plot requires a particularly expensive, hard-to-license recording. Music might be selected based around a central guiding aesthetic, a sense of how the music would complement a specific scene, or knowledge that a certain new track is well positioned to succeed.
Marketing
Marketing managers work all over the music industry, where they design and implement advertising campaigns to promote products, artists, and releases. Marketing managers in the music industry, however, are more likely to spend their time developing and implementing creative campaigns to boost album or single sales. In so doing, they must consider the personality of the artist in question, the character and branding of any past campaigns for this artist, and the untapped audience for the artist's product.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing managers work with a mix of words, images, videos, and other media to create content for websites, apps, and social media pages. Digital marketers also work closely with social platforms such as Tik-Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, etc to maximize exposure. They work closely with the marketing manager as well in relation to the artist.
Brand Partnerships (Strategic Marketing)
Brand Partnerships Managers Identify, prioritize, and secure business opportunities. They must drive revenue for their client by seeking partnerships with various direct clients and agencies. It is important to create compelling sales propositions utilizing internal and external data for respective regions.
(Tik-Tok)
Music Tech (i.e. Spotify, YouTube, etc)
Music tech execs are responsible for getting music and content onto digital streaming platforms and then getting eyes and ears there too. Pair that with being in the center of the social media apps that fans use on a daily basis to connect directly with artists, and it’s a great way to work across many areas and be right in the center of getting music to consumers.
Entertainment Law
Entertainment attorneys provide legal advice and representation to individuals and businesses in arts and entertainment industries. While some entertainment attorneys specialize in litigation—defending their clients against lawsuits and pursuing court cases on their clients' behalf, typically concerning copyright infringement or contract disputes—most perform transaction-based work: making deals; drafting contracts for recording, touring, merchandising, and publishing; and ensuring that all parties honortheir obligations.
E-Commerce
These professionals are responsible for online brand sales and the maintenance of a consistent image and message on the internet, particularly on the company's website. They must know graphics and may manage teams of other designers.