Music Business Commons^™

The Changing Landscape Of Artist Success: Evaluating Independent And Label-Signed Career Paths, With A Focus On The Christian Music Industry, Nicholas Ty Brueggemann

Senior Honors Theses

Traditionally, record labels have propelled the music industry (Christian and secular). They established themselves in the late 19th century, allowing artists to accumulate acclaim more efficiently. Since their inception, labels have connected artists to a support network that delegates career-related tasks. Getting signed to a label has historically been the industry standard career path for artists wanting to become successful enough to live off making music full-time. However, with the recent emergence of the digital landscape, more promotional methods, opportunities, and tools have become available to artists. Through this study, insights will be gained into the necessity of signing with …

The Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet: Its History And Legacy In American Saxophone Quartet Performance, James M. Lawhn

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The saxophone quartet has emerged as a legitimate chamber ensemble in the United States through the sustained efforts of a small number of pioneering professional groups. Despite the central role these ensembles have played in shaping repertoire, performance standards, and public perception, their histories have often gone undocumented. Among the most influential of these groups is the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, an ensemble that maintained an unusually active national and international touring career for nearly four decades and helped establish the saxophone quartet as a viable professional model.

This document addresses a significant gap in the scholarly literature by presenting …

Supersuit Up Or Get Left Behind: Why A Personal Agentic Os Is Required For Commercial Viability In The New Economy, Gary Sheng, Ron Roberts

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

In my first article, The Writing on the Wall, we laid out the case: self-improving AI has arrived, the economy is splitting, and every organization faces an existential choice. This paper answers the question we heard most after that piece: “Okay, I believe you. What do I do on Monday morning?” The answer is your Personal Agentic OS. It is the minimum viable infrastructure that turns you from a passive consumer of AI into a sovereign operator of it. And in April 2026, three events converged to make this the most urgent professional skill in the world: Andrej Karpathy’s LLM …

From Altamont To Astroworld: An Analysis Of Management Issues In Large Scale Music Festivals, Jennifer Morriss

Honors College Theses

The most common problems in music festivals can largely be broken into two categories: risks to the individual and risks on a grand scale. It is the responsibility of event managers to consider how to best keep everyone safe and maintain proper organization. Risks to the individual are often things like substance use and abuse, harm reduction, and sexual assault or harassment. Meanwhile, broad risks tend to be issues of evacuation and emergency management, crowd safety, stampedes, and casualties or violence. It is crucial to reflect on prior common safety and security issues when setting out to produce a large …

How To Industry Plant Yourself, Ted Childish

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

Ted Childish is an artist, creative mind, and cultural organizer working at the intersection of digital culture and contemporary creative economies. His practice spans from conceptual ideation to visual production and designed objects, all approached with a distinct material sensibility. How to Industry Plant Yourself is an analysis of the contemporary creative landscape, delivered in the format of a 'how-to' presentation — a familiar trope of the social media era. This work employs graphic design strategies akin to a pitch deck, symbolizing the increasingly transactional and performative environments in which creatives navigate their careers today.

A Conversation With Loe Gino, Loe Gino, Seb Taylor

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

LOE Gino is a Bay Area native from Berkeley, California and an independent artist. He has been a pioneer in the music industry for new age artistry. His ability to be a voice for independent artists parallels his wordsmith-skills as a rapper. As a part of the Bay Area cultural scene, he is a real life example of how to set a vision and build it as you go. Every aspect of his creative vision is thought out and executed with the accuracy of a freestyle. LOE Gino stands as an example of what it means to never conform to …

Behind The Lens, Jolie M. Adams Miss

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

What Fuels Me as a Photographer?

Many photographers don’t realize their ability and opportunity to give back and make a difference. I believe photography extends beyond taking a series of photographs. For me, it is my way of serving others, connecting with people, and sharing their stories. I believe photography is a powerful tool to inspire change in communities—especially in those that are underserved. Photos are visual statements of humanity: an abstract of our failures, ignorance, arrogance, compassion, resilience, progress, and so much more. I want my photography to go beyond a small circle of influence. All of us have …

Timing Matters: Applying Musicians’ Insights To Business, Ray Haeng Soo Seol Edd, Barry Van Zyl Mba

Faculty Works

Timing, a critical aspect in social contexts and human cognition, has been extensively studied across diverse fields, such as biology, neuroscience, and business. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary approaches that offer fresh perspectives on how timing works. Music performance, being inherently temporal in nature, presents a unique opportunity to bridge this gap and explore timing mechanisms in a multifaceted context. This research explores how professional musicians understand and utilize timing in their training and artistic development, and how these insights can be applied to business contexts, bridging the two fields to understand timing more comprehensively. Through a qualitative …

It's A Bitter Sweet Symphony: Licensing Complexities And Copyright Law In The Music Industry., Sadie Lorence

Honors College Theses

Historically, there has consistently been tension in the music industry between the ideas of ownership and accessibility. This past semester, I researched the history of copyright law and how it has evolved in regard to the licensing of musical works. I have conducted a content analysis of The U.S. Copyright Act in the last century to gain insight into its evolution and advancements. After I gathered an adequate understanding of intellectual property law within the realm of the music industry, I focused my case study research on one milestone example of copyright law’s relationship to issues of licensing and ownership …

A Musician’S Livelihood: Bringing Together Educators And Leaders To Examine Perceived Barriers To Profitability Through Musicians’ Lens, Wyvonne M. Hawkins, David Cross

Publications

Building, maintaining, or scaling a sustainable music ecosystem business can be challenging due to a lack of resources to improve business operations, a lack of consistent goals, or know-how to capture and enhance customer value in an oversaturated and competitive music industry. According to Amy Wang, most musicians in the United States make $25,000 a year or less, and Next Big Sound follows up by stating that approximately 91 percent of artists go undiscovered. This study interviewed twelve independent musicians and used four common themes of the business of music, access to resources, digital technology, and performing rights organizations to …

Rock On: The State Of Rock Music Among Generation Z, Gianna Cicchetti

Honors College Theses

Rock music is a significant part of American culture and has always had ties to the socialization of the youth since its rise in the 1950s. Many musicians and music journalists have pushed forth the opinion that the genre is “dead” as its relevance in young adult culture has faded away in favor of different genres of mainstream music. However, rock artists have seen more success and virality in the past few years. This is primarily true through the social media platform TikTok, the largest platform of its kind with most young people as part of its userbase. The following …

The Benefits Of A Professional Website For A Musician, April C. Cain

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

For my capstone project at Boise State, I decided to create a website for my music. I am a music producer and needed a professional web presence for promotion, current and future fans, professional contacts, and to also serve as a portfolio of my work. There are also added benefits for future projects in the form of a blog and file selling features. I researched web-building platforms and methods as well the benefits of having a website for not just myself but for fans and other consumers of music and developed an action plan to create my own professional website. …

Time Machine, William B. Sims, Joseph P. Robinette, Reid W. Sorel

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

The album will be organic, raw, gritty country sound, inspired by vintage country/folk and bluegrass and encouraged by modern underground/alt country and new-wave folk.

Improving Arts Management/Marketing Efficiency: Optimizing Utilization Of Scarce Resources To Produce Artistic Outputs, Theresa A. Kirchner, Linda L. Golden, Patrick L. Brockett

Marketing Faculty Publications

Purpose

This longitudinal research examines US symphony orchestra sector organizations to determine individual efficiencies in allocating resources (donations, governmental/private funding, etc.) for desirable outputs (concerts, educational programs, community outreach). It provides researchers and managers with a tool for identifying, assessing and mitigating organizational inefficiencies.

Design/methodology/approach

This study assesses relative efficiencies in performing arts organizations using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a widely-used nonparametric data-intensive benchmarking technique that determines an optimal “production frontier” of best-practice organizations among their peers and assesses their abilities to turn multivariate inputs into multivariate desired outputs.

Findings

This analysis highlights efficiency differences in a wide range of …

Building A Record Label Website In An Evolving Music Industry, Zachary Mouton

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

The basis of my capstone project is to build a website for my record label Play-Yah Records. My major focus for the website is to find more options for monetization for the bands on the label. During the process I conducted research on NFT’s, music licensing, website construction, logo design, and made-to-order merchandise. I am excited about what I have learned in this project and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Intellectual Property In The Digital Streaming Age: How Music Becomes A Lawsuit, Alexandra Tasev

Honors College Theses

A mix of both entertainment business and law, the purpose of this review is to address the question of “are current copyright laws and procedures too restrictive of new and smaller-name artists from entering the market?” Through a law review and analysis of the history of copyright law, this thesis outlines the issues new, smaller music artists face as a result of rapid digital evolution paired with a slow-moving legal system. Failing to amend the current standards for dealing with old copyright cases will cause further issues with the growing popularity of digital platforms like YouTube, Soundcloud, Spotify, and TikTok. …

The Lack Of Asian American Representation In American Pop Music, Victoria Noriega

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze why there are fewer East and Southeast Asian Americans in the American pop music industry compared to other ethnicities and to see what factors influence these statistics. The data analyzed consisted of five interviews, all of whom were involved in the music industry as either musicians or managers. Data from the most recently signed artists to the top three major music companies, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group, was also analyzed to see the most popular genre signed and most frequent ethnicity signed. From the data gathered from …

Dichotomies: Lessons From A College Life On Tour, Alexander J. Dontre

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In this unique memoir, the author reveals his struggles and triumphs as a touring musician pursuing a college education. From 2011-2017, Alex Dontre performed 505 concerts with his band Psychostick while simultaneously enrolled in rigorous online courses. It culminated with a master's degree in Business Psychology from Franklin University, at which time he gave the commencement speech at his graduation as valedictorian.

All Access: A Backstage Pass To A Collaborative, Undergraduate Music Journal, Michele Gibney, Keith Hatschek, Nicole Wasnock

Conservatory of Music Faculty Presentations

The number of currently publishing, student run music journals can be counted on one hand. And of those, only half are for undergraduates. At University of the Pacific, the Conservatory of Music started a music industry analysis and opinion journal in 2018. Edited and written by undergraduate students, Backstage Pass has published two issues totaling 47 papers. The benefits of journal writing, editing, publishing and hosting are numerous from many different stakeholder points of view. The collaborative effort is shared between the University Libraries (hosts the institutional repository where the journal is published and offers technical support) and the Conservatory …

An Examination Of Contemporary Christian Music Success Within Mainstream Rock And Country Billboard Charts, Megan Marie Carlan

Honors College Theses

Ranging from inspirational songs void of theological language to worship music imbued with overt religious messages, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has a long history of being ill-defined. Due to the genre’s flexible nature, many Christian artists over the years have used vague imagery and secular lyrical content to find favor among mainstream outlets. This study examined the most recent ten-year period of CCM to determine its ability to cross over into the mainstream music scene, while also assessing the impact of its lyrical content and genre on the probability of reaching such mainstream success. For the years 2008-2018, Billboard data …

The Pursuit Of Happiness: Asian Americans In Music, Belinda Ung

Honors College Theses

It is critical that we observe the expanding Asian American landscape in the context of today’s evolving music business. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze how and to what extent parental expectations, peer pressure, and levels of self-identity affect the career outcomes Asian Americans in their pursuit of music careers. The data analyzed consisted of five personal interviews, all of whom are involved in music production and/or performance. It was concluded that familial pressure impacted participants more so than peer pressure in their adolescence and self-identity became a more influential factor in adulthood. Additionally, the advancement of …

I Am An Artist! What Do I Know About Business?, Angela Wright

Dept. of Organisation & Professional Development Publications

What has business to do with art? Should artists understand business? This research is concerned with the world of the artist who must operate in a business world. In the words of the late singer, Luciano Pavarotti (2003), artists must „be heard and be seen‟ to be successful. Commercial entities expose their products and services to clients to survive, and for the artist, this is no different. The paper examines if there is a need to ensure that our artistic graduates are „market ready‟, and specifically examines this concept in the context of an Irish Institute of Technology (IT). Artists …

Hey, He Stole My Copyright: Putting Theft On Trial In The Tenenbaum Copyright Case, Peter J. Karol

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article approaches the well-publicized Joel Tenenbaum copyright case through an analysis of its highly-charged trial rhetoric. In particular, it argues that the case as tried was not really about Joel Tenenbaum or his actions. Rather, the trial was about whether, and to what extent, peer-to-peer (“P2P”) file sharing is “theft,” and the P2P sharer a “thief.” So approached, the case provides a captivating, perhaps unique, academic case study on the power of theft rhetoric in a copyright trial as advanced before a jury.

It first introduces the Tenenbaum litigation generally, and its place in the recording companies’ broad attack …

An Information-Gathering Approach To Copyright Policy, Peter Dicola, Matthew Sag

Faculty Articles

For over a century and with increasing frequency, major controversies have erupted between large distributors of copyrighted works (song publishers, movie studios, record labels, book publishers, etc.) and makers of new technologies for experiencing those works (player piano manufacturers, VCR manufacturers, the creators of file sharing software, Google Books, etc.). Usually, the copyright owners and the technology firms reach a licensing deal-but not without some form of government intervention. Various institutions within the federal government have become involved in these disputes, using a variety of different mechanisms. This Article is a theoretical investigation of government intervention in these content-technology copyright …