Posted on by jamesehearn

Project Management for the Music Industry

Let’s face it: A lot of us musicians really aren’t that organized. And that lack of organization can cost us – money, time, opportunities.
How many times have you heard of an artist that had a chance to take advantage of a big opportunity, but missed out on it because they weren’t ready – their demo wasn’t finished, they were “still in the songwriting phase”, or they weren’t happy with the results of their last recording session, and had to go back i and spend more money and time getting what they want?

ALL of these problems can be mitigated via effective project management.

I, as an engineer and music producer, have seen, first-hand, the ill effects of poor (or, usually, no) project management activities inside of projects undertaken by musicians.
Using project management techniques does several things for the musician who uses them:

It will help you spend your time and money more wisely.

The lack of planning and control leads to wasting time and money in the recording studio, whether it be from spending time recording songs that really aren’t ready to be recorded yet, spending time on using the wrong studio or engineer on the session, or not having a clear idea of what you want to get out of the session time you’re paying for (and trust me, studio owners are more than happy to let you waste time in their studio you’re paying for by the hour).

It helps you track your progress towards your end-goals.

Using project management techniques will help you know when you’re meeting your goals as a musician. Is your goal to quit your “day job” and become a musician full-time? Do you want to know when you’re easy to release your next album and go on tour? Proper project management techniques help you define your goals and track progress toward those goals.

The use of project management for your music projects revolves around using techniques that will ultimately:
  1. Decrease the rate of failures with your projects
  2. Decrease the amount of money you need to spend to complete your projects
  3. Increase the quality of your music
  4. Increase the speed at which your projects are complete
I hope this series of blog articles will help improve you music by teaching  you techniques for managing projects in the music industry.
Got a comment for me? Let me know what you think!

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