Music Business Education in the Global Creative Industries: Curriculum design, inclusive practice and measures of success

Music business as a topic of academic study and research is a relatively new, but growing field that is concerned with those activities we may associate with industries concerned with the creation, production and dissemination of music as artistic, cultural and economic products. This field of study is placed within the academic context of higher education institutions, although germinated from a range of significant industries and broader disciplines. The emergence of music business as a subject in academia can be seen in the current context of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes available in a growing number of UK institutions, as well as in international contexts. The International Journal of Music Business Research attests to 14 years of explicit study of the music industries, their concerns and activities. However, there is very little written on the subject of music business education itself. This article intends to ask the community of music business educators the following question: what is the purpose of our discipline?

This question is predicated on the grounds that definitions of music business are contentious, that there are a range of claims of what constitutes the music industry or industries and that music business has emerged from a family of subjects—music, music performance, music production, popular music, songwriting etc…—as a catch all for what might be described as the non-creative or non-music-related elements of the collective activities of musicians and associated stakeholders. Whilst almost all music-related programmes have always had a percentage of curriculum activity that relates to the organisation of resources, audience relations and regulatory and financial requirements of being a musician, the subject of music business as its own standalone programme implies a curriculum that concerns itself with only these elements.

Furthermore, in the landscape of a wider set of cultural and creative industries central to the modern information age, we need to assess the extent to which students of music business programmes need to be musicians and how we might calculate the extent of the musical knowledge they need in order to be successful in developing a career working in industries that are based on communicating and exchanging cultural value through creative processes. It is possible that an anachronistic understanding of the music industry—one that revolves around the words on a label stuck to a vinyl record—produces a dominant but restrictive discourse defined by actors motivated primarily in profiting from an investment in publishing catalogues. If we are to provide an education to students that best benefits them, we will need to ensure we prepare them for working (through employment and entrepreneurship) in contemporary and future environments, whilst retaining the creative spirit and cultural significance that many would associate music making activity with.

The research presented here was prepared for the 14th International Music Business Research Days conference and was intended to provide an evidence-based foundation for a discussion of the purposes of music business education, by considering the outcomes for a selected group of graduates from a music business programme. The primary goal was to identify the perceptions of success held by this group of graduates who had progressed from their study into employment with established organisations within the music industry. The research project was designed in this way to provoke debate about what subjects and pathways are most relevant to students of music business and therefore what curriculum should be delivered and how this might be best supported through research. By giving agency to the views of graduates, future policy development can also account for student experience throughout their studies and consider ways in which we can measure the successfulness of our programmes.

Two key themes were evident through the presentations at the research days: intellectual property rights and artificial intelligence. Whilst both topics are pertinent to the operation and pressing contemporary issues facing the industry, there are many other discussion points that might be useful to students hoping to work in the industry in the future. Regarding copyright especially, this is the core revenue stream for the industry, revolving around the songwriting, production, performance and recording of music, although, in fact, it seems many graduates of music business programmes appear to be employed in the management of the portfolios of artists, not their own intellectual property. The diversity of actual roles within the industry is rather phenomenal. The nature and type of roles are continually evolving along with the technological and social landscape as innovations, such as artificial intelligence, appear and impact on industry processes. How do we account for the different pathways, developments and ambitions of students of music business programmes?

In the wider economic context of creative and cultural industries, there is further need to consider the breadth of knowledge and skills the music business curriculum is designed to produce in graduates. Many concerns of music institutions and music business educators are addressed in debates in these wider fields. The value of music, intrinsic and extrinsic, in policy making and from funding providers, the estimation of cultural importance or utilisation of particular musical styles or activities are all evident when considered as artforms in the cultural theory literature.

Perhaps most fundamental though is the need to account for the design and delivery of the curriculum by education leaders in music institutions. There is always a need to report on the successfulness of the programmes being delivered, although this is often through externally determined crude statistical measures, perhaps from government surveys of employment categories and earning outcomes of graduates. It was also evident from the conference that internationally, globalisation is bringing increased commonality for people working in the music industries, and there are educators in territories who are pioneering music business education in their localities, which provide local populations with a much greater understanding of how to access and reach audiences across the world. There is more than ever a need to consider what we mean by music business education and how that meets the needs of students, entrepreneurs and employers in the plethora of musical spaces and contexts that exist across the globe. There is also an imperative to ensure that any definition and resultant discourses include the needs of the creatives, audiences and workers who provide the materials and services that contribute to cultural activities through the lens of music.

The growth of music business as a subject in UK higher education institutions reflects its place in the emergence of broader creative industries and their relation to the knowledge economy and communications revolution through the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The music industry sits across many aspects of the creative industries (see Figure 1), providing the audio element to many other sectors in their communication through audio/visual mediums, as well as being a significant sector in its own right.

Figure 1.

The creative industries were defined through the UK government’s attempt to create an “alignment of arts and media policies with economic policies” with the specific intention of “drawing attention to the contribution of these sectors to job creation and new sources of wealth” (Flew 2012: 11). Creative industries are those “which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property” (DCMS 2001). Indeed “cultural goods and services such as artworks, music performances, literature, film and television programmes, video games … require some input of human creativity, are vehicles for symbolic messages to those who consume them … [and] contain, at least potentially, some intellectual property” (Throsby 2008b: 219).

It is a question then for music business educators on how and where we draw the line over who we take on to our programmes, what potential employment or entrepreneurial pathways they may progress into and whether we choose to include elements of the wider creative industries into our curriculum. There are many elements that are shared with other sectors, not least those of creativity, intellectual property, production and distribution, artist management, legal and financial, marketing and sales etc. However, there are some longstanding specifics to the music industry, as well as more contemporary peculiarities. Often these may crossover into related sectors, such as the digital distribution and streaming which the music industry shares with film and television (cf. Colbjørnsen 2021), or viability issues in grassroots performance spaces shared with the performing arts (cf. Bartley 2021; Guarisa 2023).

Then there is the question of people in a set of industries that are framed with an economic focus: how do we retain cultural value, creative space and ensure accessibility for a diversity of students? The creation of cultural goods has been democratised through the communications revolution, indeed “today anyone with a smartphone and internet connection can record and distribute creative outputs through digital means” (Roberts & Emden 2019: 122). This also means that our education institutions must recognise that “culture and how we relate to it can act as a gatekeeper to economic opportunity beyond the creative arts” (ibid).

It is the people within the music industry that forge these cultural practices, provide services and create products that constitute the music industry itself. As music business educators, how do we recognise the significance of our students’ cultural capital, networking and teambuilding attributes? As well as the “creative talent” of songwriters, performers and music producers, we need to consider the organisational frameworks that underpin the wide range of important roles found in the music business. We could do this by analysing jobs found in companies and organisations, but we need to account for those who bring scenes and subcultures together, human hubs (Kiwan & Meinhof 2011: 4) providing the fabric of musical innovation that operate at a local level, and also those “diasporic musicians and cultural operators [that are] concrete manifestations of cultural globalization” (ibid: 88).

There are, as of 2023, twenty-eight institutions in the UK that offer music business as a standalone programme at undergraduate or master’s level (see Figure 2). Of these institutions, there is a selection of larger universities, further education colleges and commercial institutions, as well as one music conservatoire where the author of this paper spent 8 years running their music business degree. The small, but growing, number of music business programme offerings shows an increasing appetite from the domestic and international population “to engage in real-world learning” (Colucci-Gray & Burnard 2020: 4) around the operations of UK and global music industries.

Figure 2.

In this way, music business perhaps fits into the very broad debate around educational value in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) subjects; fitting arts into social policy analysis and placing music business as a “boundary-object … shared by different communities and networks as they come to interact with each other” (ibid: 2). Music business can be seen within the “idea of education as stimulating thinking and practices of future-making” (ibid: 1).

Whilst there are a much wider range of institutions offering music-based programmes in conjunction with music business/industry/management/economics, this article is particularly interested in the arrival of “music business” as a discipline in its own right—such a particular linguistic form may invite consideration of “different affective states and thus different modalities for attending to, listening to and paying attention” (ibid: 6). As educators and academics, does the emergence of “music business” as a distinct area of study signal a moment to reconsider how we view music education for the 21st century?

The focus of much music business research is the development, promotion and management of the intellectual property (very commonly abbreviated to IP) of musicians, as this is seen as the key asset to be monetised. In the modern music industries, musicians are able to directly communicate and market their products to their audiences across the globe, with music fans utilising music for their own purposes. This is to say that “content is the main currency in the music business” (Tschmuck 2016: 28–29).

Major record labels, industry bodies and digital service platforms (DSPs)

Digital Service Providers (DSPs) are entities or companies that provide digital music services, such as Apple Music or Spotify. They are sometimes also referred to as platforms.

Figure 3.

The music industry is far wider than just the intellectual property of music songwriters, composers, performers and producers. There is a breadth to the associated roles of people working across the industry and in associated creative and cultural industries. The impact of turbulence of technological and social change on the music industry has resulted in ongoing “major structural transformations” (Murphy 2020: 8). Ann Harrison’s Music: The Business recognises this spread across into other creative industries, with music publishers “reaching out more directly to the consumers of music such as advertising agencies, television and film companies, mobile phone companies, computer games developers, online company websites” (Harrison 2017: 135). Are people who work in roles in the wider creative industries and in the music industry, but not as creators of copyrightable product, still part of the music business and should they be considered in the design of music business curriculum?

The literature on music business tends to either focus around the concerns of the larger organisations, managing and producing content and associated rights, or look to the development of musicians who are at the early stages of their careers providing them with advice on how to develop their portfolio, build a fanbase and monetise their content. Yet, the breadth of opportunity awaiting graduates of music programmes reaches into many activities that are not delineated within this understanding of the music industries as revolving around the creation of the copyrightable content. Whether this be in the management of artists, the live events industry, within the community and arts sector, music journalism or the world of marketing and promotions, there are many different places you will find musicians and non-music creatives active in what could be incorporated into the term “music business”. Definitions could include the creators of communities both in physical cities and, as “digital technology is affecting artistic activity … allowing artists to collaborate and learn in new ways” (EPRS 2019: 7), virtual collaborations.

In the broader context of the creative industries, the European Parliament calls for us to recognise that “a hybrid mix of skills is important for work at the interface of art and technology … Allowing a greater scope to mix elements from different disciplines in education should encourage a wider range of skills. … even where comparatively basic skills are acquired there is still value in knowing enough to collaborate with others” (ibid: 25). The British government provides a categorisation of creative skills to be nurtured (see Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Music business curriculum may identify and teach how commercial assets may be defined and developed (see Figure 5); it should also ensure that it provides a basis for all its students to prosper in the variety of possible pathways they choose to follow as their careers develop. It is on this basis that the following research has been conceived—to create a base for a holistic framework of music business curriculum development that accounts for the core commercial considerations of the music industry, the artistic understandings that need to be brought to a creative field, the evolving place of music in the cultural sector highly entwined with technological innovation, and the educational concerns of ensuring wider social participation, access and enfranchisement to anyone who wishes to engage with music as a career professional or a social entrepreneur or for personal pursuit.

Figure 5.

The framing of this project is to deal with a dichotomy that is imposed by the idea that the music industry is intellectual property. Music as content is clearly what makes the “music” in music business, and any content creation is a copyrightable, monetisable activity. However, it remains important to ask who the curriculum serves and how discourse is used once established. The intention here is not to refuse the significance of major labels, distributers, platforms or publishers; it is rather to ask what do people who wish to study music business want to learn. It aims to frame music business as a signifier in response to the call of music educators who look to academic research for evidence to challenge conventional wisdom within the music business: “The role of researchers should not be to reject figures out of hand … [but] to find out what has been framed, what has been obscured and what is of consequence” (Osbourne & Laing 2021: 8).

In building a framework for music business education, we can look to a range of sources for inspiration that might include advocacy from the industry and policy makers (as discussed earlier), existing literature, curriculum that is currently delivered and thoughts of students and graduates from music business programmes. The small survey of music business graduates presented in this article provides some insight into the thoughts of those who study music business and have then gone on to work in the industry. Their understanding of success and what that might mean not only provide us a starting list of items we might want to include in our curriculum, it also provides a frame from which we can consider the usefulness and application of these other considerations. Given the cultural and creative nature of the work music business graduates may undertake, their perceptions of success are as valid as any other objective measures we may wish to include in designing the curriculum. Furthermore, this approach also is compatible with the needs of educational leaders to account for student voice in representing the effectiveness of their institution’s quality assurance processes.

In the literature, it is the case that “a variety of factors outside of instrumental and musical ability impact on the potential career development of musicians” (Hughes et al. 2013: 62) and that “contemporary markers of success are not only built on musical ability, but also more explicitly on business acumen and strategic planning” (ibid: 77). O’Hara (2014) surveys contributing debates to music business education, defining the field as “all of businesses that operate the managerial and organisational processes involved in the production, distribution, promotion and consumption of creative works and all of its sundry products, services and activities linked to the music industry” (O’Hara 2014: 29). This clearly puts the scope of definition way beyond musicianship and the question of whether music business education is just for musicians. Indeed, he identifies that “much of the literature focuses upon the artist manager as the entrepreneur”, that “there is less written about other music business roles or music business intrapreneurs” (ibid: 50) and that there is a need for “new dimensions to be explored in terms of curriculum mapping and adopting appropriate skills sets” (ibid: 55).

If “success can be viewed as ‘whatever you want it to be’” (Hughes et al. 2013: 78), then in this new era of the knowledge and communication economy, where the creative and cultural industries envelope the specifics of a burgeoning music industry that contributes to major international financial revenues, the intimacy of cultural exchange and the wellbeing of communities, then how far do we define the bounds of what does and does not constitute music business education?

In my 8 years of running the music business programme at a UK music conservatoire, I decided to ensure it was as inclusive as possible by providing a definition for entry criteria that related to the ambition and goals of the applicants to the programme. Alongside a sufficient set of academic, literacy and numeracy skills that are required to complete the assessment process were two key criteria: a passion for music and a recognition of the need to be proactive in developing one’s career. Including the concepts of entrepreneurialism and intrapreneuralism (here through the term “proactive”) in music business curriculum is an important factor in ensuring there is an adaptability to the learning, that skills and knowledge need to be applied to an everchanging commercial landscape. An even more significant consideration of the curriculum design, essential to ensuring an inclusive approach to selecting candidates for entry onto the programme, is the definition of music knowledge that was required: “a passion for”, rather than some predetermined measure of music skill or knowledge.

The programme successfully recruited and progressed both musicians and non-musicians into industry roles; a proportion of the musicians were interested in developing themselves as artists following the more traditional sense of a music business student, but others did not want to do this. These students studied music business to ensure they developed careers in music, just not with songwriting, composing, performing or production as their main focus. The non-musicians had other creative skill sets, ranging from visual arts and photography to creative writing and events management. The marketing offer for the programme was specifically aimed at the broadest of cohorts including UK school-leavers, mature students who had experience in the industry and wanted to develop further and international students who had an interest in the UK-based industry as part of their global perspectives.

The programme was designed with five key pathways: entrepreneur, artist manager, event promoter, media specialist and researcher (see Figure 6). It was anticipated students would begin with a particular interest in one or two of these pathways, which they then could specialise in further or pivot after some period of study and define a niche through which they wished to develop their career. The curriculum provided key foundations in the first year relating to the structures and functions of the music industry, the academic, creative, cultural and marketing contexts, before looking at more involved matters of copyright, contract law, digital commerce and artist development in the second year, allowing for greater optionality and depth into the final year. It is students who have graduated from this programme that the survey draws upon.

Figure 6.

As Programme Leader: Business at the conservatoire, I was also responsible for the wider employability and industry curriculum across the music programmes, which included students studying (majoring in) subjects such as classical, jazz, pop, songwriting, music production, folk and film music. The recognition of the breadth of entry pathways into the music industry needed to be considered here too, even though this element constituted only approximately a fifth of this larger cohort’s credited study. Given this, I have included here the proposed curriculum developed for these students as it adds to potential framework considerations in developing the music business curriculum (see Figure 7).

Figure 7.

Included in the preparatory work for this research is also a consideration of existing curricula at some of the institutions, as listed in Figure 2, where programme specifications were available publicly. They show a similar consideration of core themes that have been identified and a variegation of associated areas of study relating to roles and organisations servicing the industry. The content does not appear to significantly vary based on the nature of the organisation, that is whether it is a large university, commercial organisation or further education institution. Rather, the nature of the curriculum seems to revolve around specific experiences of the development team in relation to their experience in the industry.

The survey was designed to identify a number of graduates who are now successfully working in the music industry. I decided to utilise the network of contacts that have been established through the programme of study at Leeds Conservatoire for which I was Programme Leader for 8 years. Many graduates use LinkedIn as a networking tool, and therefore, I had sight of a range of my ex-students and their career development as connections on the platform.

Fifteen people were identified as “successfully” working in music industry roles. This is based around my personal definition of success, but deliberately in a narrow sense: working in recognised companies such as record labels, publishers and collection societies. Also, I selected some students who worked with artists, as promoters, in music marketing and music education (see Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Whilst there is a much wider range of employers that could be considered, and that many entrepreneurs in the music industry are self-employed, I wanted to focus on the core companies that would be considered in the tighter definitions of the music industry by some of the parties described in the previous discussion.

The participants selected graduated between 2017 and 2021. I knew each respondent well and had worked with them through their studies. I recorded the role they were currently in based on their LinkedIn profile (see Figure 9), messaging each individually.

Figure 9.

Seven respondents provided detailed written answers to the following questions:

What skills and knowledge have been most useful to your career development?

These questions were chosen to illicit specific responses that may provide useful lists of activities, characteristics and traits that the graduates perceive to be significant to the work they now do and could be used by educators to inform future planning. They were also designed to encourage respondents to reflect and contemplate how they think success might be defined by themselves or others and relate that to their studies.

Analysis of data was conducted using the software programme NVIVO, which facilitates a thematic analysis of qualitative data and is an approach that “may assist those who engage in practitioner research to make active decisions” (Xu & Zammit 2020: 2). Thematic analysis is a very useful and flexible approach within a constructivist epistemology, which I had previous used in an iterative fashion to combine practical field data with conceptual processes found in Lacanian psychoanalysis (Timewell 2016).

Responses were compiled without inclusion of identifying markers of name, employer or job role. An initial word cloud (see Figure 10) was produced to provide a feel for the content of the data, before a process of inductive (open) coding was undertaken, with key themes identified as felt appropriate through an initial scan reading and then applied in repetition as similar portions of responses related to these themes. I was conscious that themes would likely be largely influenced by the choice of questions asked, and the use of open coding allows for these and other nodes to be produced. Several further scans of the data were conducted considering the ten themes that had been defined in the first reading (see Figure 11). Some data sets appear across multiple themes.

Figure 10.

Figure 11.

The key theme whose prevalence is under investigation in this research project, Intellectual Property “IP” and related activities of the industry (see Figure 12), was mentioned only twelve times throughout the data. It is obviously an important consideration for some of the respondents, and there are a couple of references to very specific activities.

Figure 12.

Dealing with copyright, publishing and royalty collection is amongst forty-five mentions of an Industry Role or Activity (see Figure 13), which include a much wider range of aspects of the industry, relating to management, analytics, marketing, legal etc. The variety of roles and activities within the data is also reflected in the thirty entries coded as Working Relationships and the suggestion that opportunities to meet and work with Professionals in the Industry, coded eighteen times, are very important to students and early career practitioners.

Figure 13.

Perhaps most significant is the forty-one entries relating to the development and application of Personal Skills (see Figure 14), which evidently are seen as central for the respondents in their ability to operate in the industry. Especially important are the abilities to plan, communicate, set goals, self-motivate, adapt, be creative and problem solve.

Figure 14.

The most populus theme was Success Indicators (see Figure 15), unsurprisingly as this was central to the questions asked, and perhaps the least concrete in providing clear definitions and delineations. Happiness, being appreciated, being empowered, feeling a sense of satisfaction, excitement and progressing in experience and seniority are all mentioned. There are also entries that express some frustration with the pace of development, the opportunities provided and how easy it is to get stuck in a particular specialised role.

Figure 15.

The meaning of success itself is also questioned by respondents; again, this is partly because of the deliberate provocation in the questions asked, but also speaks to the ongoing development and understanding that graduates in the early stages of their careers can reasonably expect.

There were some contributions made by respondents that highlight issues facing designers of the music business education curriculum that are worth taking into consideration. The question of expertise and currency of knowledge is one that requires careful navigation in the hiring and deployment of teaching staff by managers of departments.

Dealing with questions about contemporary processes in the industry can be tricky, as often new technologies mean evolving systems, different cultures and working practices in the varied organisations, opaque processes and competitive secrecy, all of which may contribute to individual teachers not possessing the specific and detailed knowledge of all aspects of the industry—even if they have recent professional experience of working in a particular area.

Then there is the question of the different ambitions and styles of learning of students in cohorts:

Everyone learns in completely different ways … “I learn in a very practical and ‘on the job’ way” [versus] “I feel like I could have been pushed more intellectually”.

We can ask if music business should be taught as an academic subject of study or a practical vocation for which students are being trained. Some respondents felt that there were specific skill sets required in their roles that may not normally be associated with a music-based programme:

Focus on hard skills, such as data analytics and digital skills, as it’s such an intrinsic part of the industry.

The question of what counts as successful could just be measured in terms of progress through an organisation, but does that lead to a satisfaction that might be expected? There doesn’t seem to be any certainty amongst respondents to this:

I’m definitely more senior now within my field but ultimately I don’t feel totally happy/invested in the job

Rather, there is a clear sense that a focus on self-development, identifying with professional practice and awareness of personal motivations, is important across the data:

Self-motivation and being proactive have also been important skills in my career development. I’ve worked in very fast paced roles and there’s not always someone to guide you, it’s important to be a self starter and to use your initiative in order to stand out and be successful.

This research project has been conducted to provide a basis for some evidence around the design of the music business curriculum on the basis of graduates’ perceptions of successful outcomes in relation to their own career. It is important then to recognise the scope and limitations within this data set. The respondents and researcher should, I hope, be recognised as valid contributors to knowledge regarding successful music business education outcomes, in their relationship as learners and curators of an institutional music business programme placed within an academic and vocational setting.

However, there has been, for rhetorical purposes, a deliberate selection of the stronger graduates, ones who have progressed into widely identifiable organisations in the UK music industry. A broader developmental discourse would also need to account for those students and graduates who were not as well focused in their studies, or who had weaknesses in their skill sets and opportunities that presented to them throughout and after the programme. Any curriculum should consider how it best provides a platform for all its students to achieve their potential and not just the best of any cohort.

There is also a specific bias in the selection of participants towards graduates who are working in IP-related roles, that is labels, publishing and collection, at least half of this sample, although this is not necessarily representative of music business graduates generally. Further research may need to be undertaken to better understand what the balance is in broader terms. Nevertheless in the data collected here, IP is significant, especially in roles where specialist knowledge is required, that is for the management of artists’ portfolios, whether in a dealing directly with their rights or other elements of royalty collection processes, on the one hand, or artist development, promotion and events based around artists’ brand and IP, on the other.

How many of the artists (whose IP is being managed by these graduates of music business programmes) are graduates of music business programmes themselves, rather than music performance, production or composing programmes, is another further question to be explored. Of course, many music artists may not have studied a music-related subject or any programme of higher education at all. It is clear though that music business programmes can, and do, cater to many people beyond the self-managed artists whom the current research covers and music business educators need to consider how their students may transition into successful careers and a diversity of ways, ensuring their curriculum is designed to support and prepare them for the uncertain and tumultuous terrain that the music industry inhabits.

Given the initial finding of this research, there are a number of important aspects of the future of music business education to reflect upon. It was particularly noticeable at the International Music Business Research Days conference that there is a truly international dimension to how the music industry operates and the need in many territories for the study and training for the music business profession. Whilst the contexts, culture and infrastructure may vary, the increasing globalisation has a common impact across localised music industries, which requires an understanding of these broader social, economic and technological trends as well as the historical and commercial relations from which they have grown. Music business education necessarily needs to centre itself around the manifestation of music as cultural exchange, both artistically and politically, as well as recognising discourses that package and commodify music. Music educators around the world will need to be increasingly concerned with the global business of music.

The creative and cultural industries need to be understood as a related intertwining field, of which music is a part, but also from which music is distinct in its own peculiarities and particularities. As music business educators, we need a framework within which we can place and shape what we do, whilst contributing to and taking from debates in related fields. It is not enough to say the music industry is the combined artists’ assets of composition, recording, performance and brand. We need to think more deeply about framing and consequences.

These questions for music business education are, of course, reflective of questions for music education more widely. Employability is a part of all curriculum, but more than this, the questions of value across different traditions, the symbiosis of technology and technique central to the development of style, the question of place and space relevant to how meaning is produced are all relevant questions in the way musicians operate, relate and are functions of wider society. How we define music and the music business affects how we measure our students’ progress and understand the success of our curriculum design. It is important that these measures include the widest possible conceptions of musicality, creativity, organisation and exchange in order to best serve the many potential future students who wish to study music.

Music business education then should contain the core of understanding of how music is made, functions and is transmitted. It should have an academic component to understand the historical contexts, social power of music and its role in identity formation. It should also be vocational, demonstrating how the assets contained within a modern musicians’ identity and brand is controlled and exploited, on the grand scale, at an independent level as well as in amateur and community settings. There must be a practical element that involves both simulation and actual activities that are intrinsic to the management of creative properties, including the artist development, marketing, promotion and organisation of recorded and live products. These activities should be assessed on the basis of developing personal, transferable, communication, teamworking, problem-solving, project realisation and evaluation skills.

Any curriculum framework must take account of the manifestation of individual students’ own measures of success seen through the perspective of their ambitions and understanding of how the industry they are working in operates. Given the everchanging nature of the hybrid global economic, technological and cultural topography of the near future, only an open-ended reflective pedagogy can successfully serve the next generation of creative and cultural music practitioners.