The Music Industry - The Freelance World.
In the Music Industry, there are four main fields that collectively take the "raw" materials and convert them into the end product (The Album or Artist), These are, the Record Companies, the Publishing Companies, Artist Management and Live Performance. Although they are separate units within the industry, they combine to create the whole "package".
Record Companies.
The main function of Record Companies is to Find and sign acts to there "stable", Find them appropriate material, and record the material professionally and to release the song/album through retailers.
Record Companies find their artists using an in-house department called the A&R department.
The A&R Department.
This department has several ways of finding artists. The first way is to listen to "demo" recordings sent to them from aspiring act, or from a professionally produced press package, designed to tweak their interest. They may attend "live" performances (gigs), or view video footage of a gig. They may even attend a rehearsal session to get some idea of the style or range of styles the act covers, obviously there are many different genres of music and therefore there are many record companies with A&R departments that specialise in these genres.
A&R doesn't just deal with finding the artists, they also co-ordinate the recording sessions, hire producers, choose or commission the songs to be recorded, deal with booking the session musicians, engineers etc. and help to control the budget of the sessions.
There are several other departments within a record company; they are generally, the Marketing department, Sales & distribution, Subsidiary labels (if it is a major Label) and the Management & administration department.
The Marketing Department.
This is the group of people that will decide upon and create a strategy to market the artist/band. This may involve many factors such as creating an image for the act (if they don't have an image already), this would include poster, sleeve and logo design, depending on the size of the label it may be contracted out to external specialists who will produce several alternatives for the department to decide over.
