Releases and tours don’t just happen overnight. Our Entrepreneurship pathway enables learners to become the next generation of innovators by giving them a grounding in all aspects of the music business and preparing them to pursue a career that rewards creativity and business know-how with impressive results.

Learners will demonstrate:

• Sound business and financial skills

• Marketing skills

• Understanding of contracts and copyright

• Freelance practice

• Understanding of contextual issues relating to the music business and the wider music industry

• Further their understanding of the music industry

Unit example: Setting up a Music Business
This unit will identify the key entrepreneurial skills required for a music business startup and how to communicate a new business proposition. Through a comparative skills analysis, learners will establish whether they have the necessary abilities to run their own business and where their personal strengths and weaknesses are. They will identify a market opportunity for a new business and research and evidence a business case to demonstrate its viability.

Unit Example: Royalties and Music
This unit aims to develop learners’ understanding of revenue streams within the UK music industry by focusing on generating income from royalties. The purpose of the unit is to provide opportunities to explore the mechanisms for the collection and distribution of royalties, the main organisations involved in this area of the music industry and how this knowledge may be applied to generating income from learners’ own musical activity.

Example Skills Unit: Creating a Social Media (Content) Strategy
For an artist, having a social media strategy is an essential way for them to connect with their existing fanbase, and to reach new audiences. An understanding of what makes social media content effective for different audiences and destinations is a vital tool for the modern musician, whatever their specialism. This unit aims to build on previous learning by analysing how original and pre existing content may be used and/or repurposed to create new and exciting ways to engage with potential audiences by way of promoting brands, products or services.

Unit Example: Music Publishing
This unit aims to develop learners’ understanding of the publishing process and its use and application within the UK music industry. The purpose of the unit is to provide opportunities for learners to explore their own potential to exploit their output as writers in the future. An understanding of how copyright of original works can be exploited to create revenue, with an understanding of the diversity of the marketplace in publishing music and the different organisations and companies involved in the process, will combine to inform artistic and commercial decision making.