THE MUSIC BUSINESS

Professional Music Is A Business.  If you do not wish your Music to involve dealing with money then why would you ever choose this as a career move?

Pablo Picasso was a great artist.  He was also a great businessman.  So was Salvador Dali.  Business and art have lain side by side since the beginning of civilization.

Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel because of a burning desire to be creative.  This was a job.

Ludwig von Beethoven wrote his 9th Symphony to poke his thumb in the eye of the Catholic Church because of their presumptuous arrogance irritating his patrons at the Austrian Court.  This is the reason for the pagan imagery.  He was a businessman.  He had a publisher.  I learned these things in a university Fine Arts Music History course.

No matter how much you may dislike it everything you will ever be involved with will revolve around someone making money.  If you are good at Music and want to pursue it other than as a hobby bite the bullet.

At some point, if you have a successful business as an artist and a performer, you will most likely need:

• An attorney
• A booking agent
• A costumer
• A manager
• An office
• A publicist
• A publisher
• A record label
• A recording distributor
• A recording studio
• A road crew
• A security staff

There are probably more but this is just off the top of my head.  You should have gotten the point.  You will not have to deal with all of them personally but they will be there.  They will all have to be paid somehow whether it is directly by you or it is from your Music earning them money.  They will not work simply because they like you.

Form a business and open a business bank account to write off your expenses.  I formed my LLC directly with the State of Maryland using their online form for a filing fee of $100.

I average around $800 monthly in ordinary expenses which comes directly off my gross income as business related.  Most of my activities can be written off as education, research, all of my musical instruments, their upkeep, and accessories along with software subscriptions,  memberships, my web domains (5), my web hosting.  The list is endless.

I have $9,500.00 in business expenses to declare from last year which includes the studio in my home which formerly was only a bedroom.  There is no more bed, only a desk, computer, amplifiers, keyboard, work table, and an accessories cabinet.  I will have at least that much this year as I already have around $2,500.00 worth at the end of the first quarter.  This includes no travel or lodging expenses as I have not left home.

This is an international music forum with a 20 year history.  If I wanted, this Blog could become a business activity and the time written off as a publicity expense.  I could base the rate on previous tax returns and back the claim with a union scale chart.

Thank you and good evening ladies and gentlemen!

Encore