Music & Song Works

By Diane Rapaport

© 1999-2000, Diane Rapaport. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.

**Please note: Diane has not had time to write an article for this column in quite some time (understandably. She's a very highly sought-after public speaker and has a number of projects on the go). Therefore, since this columnist section has been sitting idle for so long, I've decided to officially take it out of the columnist roster. If Diane has more time at some point, I'd certainly love to bring her column back - but for now, it's officially halted.  Sorry about that, folks. --Jodi

My 'raps' are going to focus on how songwriters can use 'indie' recordings to further their songwriting careers. I want the raps to be interactive-I'll write a 'rap' on a particular subject and invite you to send stories about your real world experiences on that subject. We'll post the stories as add-ons to my rap.

Most of us learn this business from the good and bad stories of others and the Internet is a great storytelling vehicle. I'll add comments as appropriate to each of your stories.

On the following month, I'll start a new rap and a new addendum. I'll also take questions and post answers to five questions a month on the site.

First rap: "The Songwriter as Businessperson." (This is the subject that propelled me out of the major label business when I worked for Bill Graham's Fillmore Management in the early seventies and into a new career to teach artists business. I saw too many naive songwriters and musicians get taken for too many rides because they were conditioned to be anti-business.)

A short bio

A short bio:
Diane Rapaport, author of How to Make and Sell Your Own Recording, is considered a music business pioneer. She began her career in the music business began in the late sixties when she worked as an artist's manager for Bill Graham and his Fillmore Management company from 1967-74. She then quit and began teaching music business courses in the San Francisco Bay area. Her mission was to educate musicians and teach them to approach their art as a business and help them to avoid poor business decisions.

Throughout the years, Ms. Rapaport has lectured extensively and given numerous seminars in the United States and Canada. In 1988, she founded Jerome Headlands Press, a company that has designed, produced, and copublished several books for musicians and artists, including The Musicians Business and Legal Guide, a presentation of the Beverly Hills Bar Association Committee for the Arts and The Acoustic Musician's Guide to Sound Reinforcement and Live Recording by Mike Sokol.