Introduction

The music industry began with performance. In the middle of the 19th century, composers, mirroring the industrial revolution, began writing and selling music to a mass amateur audience. Music is a profoundly human phenomenon. Ethnomusicologists call music a key marker of humanity. People are always, always going to want to listen to music. Students are at least competent and likely brilliant on their instrument. Students probably play in a popular music genre such as jazz, rock, country, Latin, or whatever. There’s a music industry term: ‘musical wallpaper’; music that is in the background and exists but doesn’t particularly excite or inspire an audience. If students spend time working on their performance, they’ll get better. The process of commodification of intellectual property in the music industry occurs in two main manners. The first is through recording and release through industry channels. The other way is through the live performance of songs at gigs.