Agreements, convenants, contracts, promises

Students in my Intro to MuBu class are just now beginning to think about the prospect of putting together a letter of agreement between a "manager" and an "artist." In most cases, the manager is someone with an interest in (or a major in) business. The artists are, for the most part, music majors. I have asked them each to consider realistic projects that they need to think about and then to create a letter that would articulate their deal.

Hard part is, that the students are slightly confused about whether they are working in Fantasyland or RealityWorld. Rather than put the managers in the position of authority, I have asked the students to think about what music projects appeal to the artist. This puts music first, where I believe it belongs. We call the field and practice Music Business, not Business Music. Can you imagine what it would be like if the world of music put business ahead of the music? Oh, right. Sorry. I was losing my mind there for a second.

I guess I have skewed the world to reflect my fondest wish -- or I am trying to teach the students that music comes first, the deal follows.

So how does someone build a business plan around the feathery wispiness of a musical ambition, dream, or idea? In my own experience, good people have tried mightily to create business around some of my ideas. Where it has worked best is when the music is in existence and then the business has a commodity that can be "exploited" (in the best sense of that word). When a work is in the process of coming into existence and is not a commodity yet, the business people can get involved in the creative process -- this is usually bad news.

I can imagine that my students are slightly confused as to how to proceed when music has not been created yet. I have asked the managers to listen to their artists' music and to get engaged in the excitement of creation. If we can find a way to teach the business end of MuBu to get passionate about music, then I think we should figure out a way to bottle it. We could sell that for considerable amounts of money.

But first, we have to be creative. How to teach passion?