Author - Ramon Ricker

1
You Want Younger Audiences? Time to Start Listening!
2
Technology in Music – The Wave of the Present
3
Why 2012 will be year of the Artist-Entrepreneur
4
A Record Label with Real Ideals
5
Being a Successful Entrepreneur – Don’t Be Embarrassed about Making Money
6
Being a Successful Entrepreneur— Think Big—or Go Home
7
Being a Successful Entrepreneur— Envision the Future
8
Being a Successful Entrepreneur— There Is No One Model for Entrepreneurs—Gain Experience First
9
“You’ve Cott Mail”
10
Being a Successful Entrepreneur— Don’t Be Embarrassed about Making Money

You Want Younger Audiences? Time to Start Listening!

Shoshana Fanizza is the founder of Audience Development Specialists (ADS for short). It’s a company that provides services to help organizations and individuals learn how to apply audience development to their art. Find ADS here. As is the usual case now-a-days, she has a blog, and last June I stumbled across what I thought was […]

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Technology in Music – The Wave of the Present

Ask any musician who is ten years older than you how business is, and he or she will probably say, “It’s okay, but it was much better ten years ago.” If that same person asks the identical question to another musician ten years older than he is, he will probably get the same answer. “It’s […]

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Why 2012 will be year of the Artist-Entrepreneur

Here’s an interesting article I stumbled upon a few weeks ago. It was in GigaOM. The title really caught my eye because it is upbeat at a time when one sees so much negativity about making a living in the arts being talked about.  It’s easy for musicians to bemoan the current economic state and […]

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A Record Label with Real Ideals

If you’ve read my book, Lessons From a Street-Wise Professor, you may recall some space given to the balance of power shift in the record business from label control to artist control.  Here’s a new record label that is committed to operating in the artist’s best interests.  .  .  .and it is set up as […]

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Being a Successful Entrepreneur – Don’t Be Embarrassed about Making Money

My previous blog referenced Grammy-winning composer Maria Schneider. In talking with her further, she had an interesting take on the stereotypical starving artist.  She theorizes that part of the reason record companies are able to make huge profits while the artists often make so little is because many musicians have the idea that being a […]

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Being a Successful Entrepreneur— Think Big—or Go Home

When I was younger I’m sure I didn’t think “Big Picture” as much as I do now, but today with countless projects under my belt, I’m always thinking big.  I suppose it’s also a function of my job at the Eastman School.  As a senior administrator and Director of the Institute for Music Leadership, it’s […]

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Being a Successful Entrepreneur— Envision the Future

When I was a doctoral student, I was in a class that had an assignment that asked us to think into the future twenty years and forecast what the music profession would look like.  I wish I still had that paper.  It would be fun to see how far off I was.  Anyway, one student […]

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Being a Successful Entrepreneur— There Is No One Model for Entrepreneurs—Gain Experience First

If you have read my book, Lessons From a Street-Wise Professor, think back to Chapter 9: “Five Non-Linear Career Journeys.”  These are stories of very successful entrepreneurial musicians.  I chose to include them because they represent five different areas of the music business, but I had a secondary reason as well.  They all have reached […]

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“You’ve Cott Mail”

One of the listservs to which I belong is Thomas Cott’s, “You’ve Cott Mail.”  As Cott says, “It’s a free service for professionals in the arts,” and he sends it most weekdays. I’m interested in it because it doesn’t just cover music, and we musicians can learn from our brethren in other areas of the […]

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Being a Successful Entrepreneur— Don’t Be Embarrassed about Making Money

My previous blog referenced Grammy-winning composer Maria Schneider. In talking with her further, she had an interesting take on the stereotypical starving artist.  She theorizes that part of the reason record companies are able to make huge profits while the artists often make so little is because many musicians have the idea that being a […]

Read More