Well, we all know it has to start somewhere.  And what better place to start then at the beginning?  So here ‘goes…

My name is Glenn MacRae and my aim is to provide a platform to educate, mentor, teach, assist, guide, and overall do my little part to make the next generation of music business people amazing.  Sure, there are a lot of great websites where you can learn a lot about the industry (See Blog Roll–>).  However, I strongly believe there is something missing.

Let me tell you a story that might sum up where I’m coming from.

The year was 2003.  I was 16 and on top of the world.  My band, Apeface, was the talk of our high school and I started to realize my dream of becoming a record producer would and could not go unfulfilled.  One day, inspired to take my music desires to the next level, I did what any young musician with a couple bucks to burn and a yearning to learn would do.  I went to Guitar Center.  Before you tune out and think, where is this going?!…Bear with me.  It’ll all be worth it- I promise. 

I had been to GC before- after all I had been a bass player for three years and needed strings and the like.  But this time, I went with a different purpose- I had recently learned that a program called Pro Tools was the industry standard recording software, and I was determined to buy it.  At GC in Orange, CT, I spoke with a GC employee who happened to be a Full Sail graduate (leave the jokes for later, please).  What he would tell me would change my life in a small, but dramatic way.  After drawing a diagram of how a very basic signal chain and the recording process works (most musicians are visual types anyway), he urged me NOT to pursue a sound engineering/music technology degree, as I had intended, but to look elsewhere.

He explained success could be achieved if I studied business and music together and that my desire to work in recording studios would be fulfilled outside of the classroom.  I heeded his advice and began to seek out music industry specific programs. Two years later, in the August of 2005 (days before Hurricane Katrina, but that was other story), I was on a plane to New Orleans to attend Loyola University where I had found a home in their burgeoning Music Industry Studies program.

Looking back, I wonder what would have happened had I not met that helpful Guitar Center Employee.  For some reason, his advice and that memory stuck in my mind, setting off a series of events that continue to this day.

I’m grateful and blessed to have had several people pay it forward to me.  Now I will simply pass it along.  MusicBizWizKids is me ‘paying it forward.’  I deeply feel the need to help out the next generation who may not have guidance of any sort, whose parents urge them to pursue more practical careers, and who are convinced that their dream to become a producer, or own their own label should stay just that – a dream.  This generation is also the one will not only ‘figure out’ the full digital, cloud-based, viral music industry, but truly own it.