3 Free Music Business MOOCs Worth Your Time
As great as they may be with music theory, recording techniques and post-production, when it comes to the music business and licensing, many audio professionals find themselves in the dark about what it really takes to survive and thrive in the 21st century.
Image by Flickr user Jonathan Grado
While a little bit of guesswork and off-the-cuff innovation will always be part of any business, you still owe it to yourself to find out what the experts can say about how to effectively market—and protect—the fruits of your labors.
Here are three Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which, with any luck, will help demystify the business aspects of the audio industry and help you move your career forward.
The best part? They’re all free, so explore any one, or all three. What do you have to lose?
The latest versions of the first two of these course are getting started right now, with free enrollment continuing all week. The final one is available anytime, on-demand.
Berklee College of Music: Music Business Foundations
First on our list is the Berklee’s Music Business Foundations MOOC, offered through coursera.org, one of the most popular platforms for free and low-cost online courses from major universities from around the world.
This course was developed to help get musicians and producers better antiquated with the ins, outs, and structure of the music business, and to explore the best ways for creators, consumers, and facilitators to navigate their way through this nascent resurgence of one of the world’s most exciting industries. In this course you’ll learn:
- The history of the music industry;
- Today’s business trends;
- How recording agreements are formulated;
- The basics of copyright law as it pertains to today’s music business;
- The roles of agents, managers, attorneys, and business entities in your work.
The course’s author, John Kellogg, is an administrator, educator, entertainment lawyer, performer and radio/TV personality.
In addition to his book, Take Care of Your Music Business, Kellogg has written numerous legal articles and editorials, and has been profiled in Billboard, Ebony, and Jet magazines. He is a “Hall of Fame” member of the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyer’s Association and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association.
The next offering of this 4-week course starts today January 25th, 2016, and new versions are available for free periodically throughout the year.
As with many free online courses, if you’re interested in a credential to go along with your education, verified certificates of completion are available for a modest fee.
BerkleeX: Creativity & Entrepreneurship MOOC
The second MOOC on our list, Creativity & Entrepreneurship MOOC (OENTR-391x), comes from BerkleeX, and is offered through both coursera.org and edx.org—the educational nonprofit launched by Harvard and MIT in 2012.
This free course features interviews with world-renowned entrepreneurs, innovators, songwriters, producers, creative directors, educators, performers, chefs and visual artists as they discuss parallels between their creative and entrepreneurial journeys. They also discuss why entrepreneurship—much like music or creativity—is something we all possess, and can unlock. In this course you’ll learn:
- How to approach your career or startup as if learning a musical instrument;
- How to apply “the musician mindset” to collaboration and creative problem solving;
- Why songwriting is a perfect parallel to career along with product development,
- How entrepreneurship is a form of creativity we all possess;
- Why there’s more to entrepreneurship than business plans and spreadsheets—much like there’s more to music than scales and lead sheets.
The course’s author, Panos Panay, is the founder of Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and the founder of Sonicbids. He has been featured in the Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40” and has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal.
This course promises to help you tap into your inner creativity and learn how to leverage it for audio career development or business innovation in any field.
Once again, the latest version of this course launches today January 25th, 2016, and is available periodically throughout the year, free of charge.
West Virginia University: “New World, New Map: GPS for Today’s Music Industry”
The third MOOC on our list is West Virginia University’s New World, New Map: GPS for Today’s Music Industry, offered through coursera.org.
This course provides students with engaging insight into the past and present developments and trends in music culture and the commercial music industry.
At five weeks in length, this MOOC is arguably the most in-depth of the three listed here. It is divided into five academic units, each of which consists of three learning segments: “the roots”, “the regulations”, and today’s “methods and practices.”
The course’s author, Darko Velichkovski, is an internationally renowned classical and jazz clarinetist who has preformed with music industry greats including the New York Philharmonic, the Juilliard Orchestra and Pete Fountain. Velichkovski also serves as the Music Industry Program Director for West Virginia University.
Initially offered in late 2014, an archived version of this course is available at all times through coursera.org.
Why should these MOOCs matter to you?
These MOOCs are a valuable resource for both students and audio pros looking to increase their knowledge about the business and licensing sides of the music industry.
Armed with the information from these free courses, you should be better able to advance your career and protect your intellectual property without spending thousands of dollars by attending a degree program to learn the same information.
For those who are interested in a credential as well as as some education, verified certificates of completion are available for a modest fee.
Ryan Merriweather is an audio engineer, tech enthusiast, and writer.