The same with other industries, the path to success is persistence, great talent, great working attitude and an extreme ability to absorbed rejections.

This short guide is written for a beginner musician wanting to work in the music industry. This is by no means an official guide and this is based from my years of experience and interaction with this industry.

The best way to show how the music industry works is by showing them logically in a chart with the interactions of key industry players:

It all starts with a songwriter, and then the songs of the songwriter will be signed and marketed by a music publisher. The music publisher will then provide songs to the rest of the industry namely:

1.) The recording labels
2.) Film production companies
3.) TV production companies

Let’s discuss what happens in each by detail. Let’s start with the recording labels. Once the recording label gets the song from the music publisher; they will hire a recording producer to create quality recordings for a certain artist. The overall product of the recording label is an album.

It will then be released either as an album/single to record stores which fans can buy. Alternatively, it will be released in iTunes as a digital album or single. Radio stations and music television also gets songs from the record labels for promotions.

For film production companies, once the song has been received from the music publisher, it will then be included in a movie sound track and it will be distributed; finally it can be seen in the movie theatres.

Same thing with TV production companies, the producer or director will get songs from the music publishers then add that songs to their TV programs, it will then be aired in their TV channels. Some film and TV production companies will work with recording labels to get licensed for a major label recording material.

The gold rectangles in the chart are the ones which music consumers/fans and normal people like you will interact with the products of the music industry. Those behind the box (in light blue shaded), you normally won’t notice their contributions as they are behind the action.

But those components are vital to keep the music industry alive. So if you are planning to join this industry, where would you be? If you are artist, you will be working with recording labels; the same thing with recording producers, mixers and engineer.