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Category Archives: The Business Side of Music
Do You Manage like a Conductor or like a Composer?
Do you remember when you were a kid, playing some sort of improvised back yard version of baseball? Before the game started, everyone had to have a discussion of what was in bounds was out of bounds. The apple tree … Continue reading
Posted in The Business Side of Music
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Who do you have to tell you the bad news?
I spend a fair amount of time reading books and blogs about management. Make no mistake, I get a lot out of what I read. But I will say, there’s an awful lot of emphasis on high-minded strategy, and not … Continue reading
The Future of Management by Gary Hamel
So I was reading Jamie Notter's Blog, and he talked about a book by Gary Hamel titled The Future of Management. The book cites a sturdy where 85% of workers are giving less than their full commitment, and the possible … Continue reading
Orchestra Conductors and Some Common Mythologies of Leadership
One of the most commonly asked questions I get when I give a presentation to an outside-the-music-business audience is, “what exactly does the conductor do??” The mythology of conductors, which has been fertilized for eons by orchestral press offices, is … Continue reading
Listing in the International Musician
Well I was sitting here wondering why, in the midst of a recession and January etc., I was getting so many orders for Real Men Don’t Rehearse . . . At long last I was informed, it’s listed in the Feb … Continue reading
Dealing with Gatekeepers
The topic for today’s blog on originality is “gatekeepers.” Gatekeepers affect just about every aspect of your life. Everything you see in a store was selected by a “gatekeeper,” that is to say, someone that you may have never met … Continue reading
Bad guys aren’t always all bad
I think it was a Niccolo Machiavelli who first said, “no man is entirely good or entirely evil.” And if I have not said this to you before, Machiavelli’s Discourses is one of the best management books ever written. Anyway, … Continue reading
Issues of copyright
Being a writer, playwright, and occasional media producer, I of course have to deal with issues of copyright on a fairly regular basis. Just to bring you up to speed on the most important basics of copyright issues: 1) when … Continue reading
The Heart of an Orchestra Contractor
(Justin Locke spent 18 seasons playing bass with the Boston Pops, and is the author of Real Men Don’t Rehearse, a laugh-out-loud inside look at the secret world of professional orchestras–now in its 8th printing!) One of the parts of the … Continue reading
Posted in The Business Side of Music
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There’s way too much excellence around here
Since I work around various artistic organizations, I run into the word "excellence" a lot. You often hear phrases like "seeking the highest levels of artistic excellence." Another example: I recently heard about a music school that was "nurturing excellence." And … Continue reading
