Five minutes is an eternity in popular music. Five years is a not-unheard-of higher education degree path. Now imagine having an impact on popular music through higher education for five decades.

Two area institutions – Belmont University and Middle Tennessee State University – are both in the midst of celebrating the 50th anniversaries of their music business programs, efforts that sought to fulfill educational and business needs then and serve to propel professionals into a rapidly changing industry now.

“Middle Tennessee takes it for granted that it has both MTSU and Belmont here,” says Beverly Keel, dean of the College of Media & Entertainment at MTSU. “Sometimes they don’t realize that we’re two of the best programs in the world for what we do.

“We have a friendly rivalry between us, but we certainly support and respect each other,” says Keel, who’s been in her role since early 2020 after starting with the university as an adjunct instructor in the early 1990s. “Keep in mind that there are universities now still just starting music business programs. There are private universities throughout the nation with no ties to a major music center who are starting or who have music business programs. Tennessee is fortunate to have two of the best in this area.”

Brittany Schaffer, Keel’s counterpart at Belmont, says pursuing an educational path in an area of passion such as music is still viable, even in this age of changing consumer and creator habits.

“It’s a great question as we as a culture are really asking the question about what is the value of higher education,” says Schaffer, dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. “When you take the perspective of an industry that is changing rapidly with the evolution of technology, it makes it really exciting. I think that’s a really important thing for the industry to engage in, but it also, in my opinion, makes the educational component that much more important.

MTSU Recording Industry faculty Odie Blackmon works with students in the new Songwriting Center in the on-campus Miller Education Center.

-- Photograph Provided

“The fundamentals are more important than ever because the reality is that when a student enters as a freshman, the landscape is going to look different by the time they graduate,” says Schaffer, who came to her role in May 2023 after years as an entertainment attorney, then head of artist and label partnerships with the Nashville office of Spotify. “So while the technology may look a little different or new platforms may emerge, it doesn’t change the underlying business principles that you learn.

“Accounting is still accounting; marketing is still marketing. And I think that’s one of the strengths of Belmont’s music business program, is that you’re still getting a bachelor of business administration,” Schaffer continues. “You are still getting that fundamental business degree that should, hopefully, give you the baseline skills to help you evolve through changing technologies.”

’70s changed everything

Nashville’s transformation into “Music City USA” was a slow process over several decades but really gained traction in the early 1970s as national exposure for more country artists happened via television, radio, retail and live performance.

The city had become the central hub of both recording and business operations for country music, but a growing need for more operatives with grounding in business practices quickly emerged.

“Because they had a need, how to get college-educated executives in country music when that industry was full of an ex-fiddle player running a business,” Belmont music industry professor Don Cusic says in a video the university produced celebrating the anniversary.

MTSU and Belmont both took unique paths to getting their music business programs up and running.

In 1970, MTSU president M.G. Scarlett commissioned a feasibility study on the concept of a communication program at MTSU and established the department the following year. In 1972, the program was expanded to develop a curriculum for a recording industry degree, which was approved by the state Board of Regents in 1973. The first recording industry management degree was awarded in 1974.

The Belmont program’s origins are both a little murkier and a little more direct. As Cusic tells it, record producer and promoter Cecil Scaife, who was involved in the early days of Sun Records in Memphis before relocating to Nashville, attended church with Belmont’s Robert E. Mulloy, founder of Belmont’s music business program and longtime associate dean, and convinced Mulloy of the need to start a music industry program.

“The music business faculty had to create these courses from scratch because there weren’t any books,” Cusic says. “But Bob took it and ran with it.”

“From the beginning, there became a logarithmic growth of this program because it was so unique, honestly, because it was in a business school and not a music school, and you had a merge of people from all over the country,” says Doug Howard, Schaffer’s predecessor as the Curb College dean, who retired in 2023.

Growth, then contraction

Each program would experience significant changes in the 1980s, 1990s and early Aughts as their parent institutions grew. Each would expand their academic offerings and facilities, undergo name changes to reflect shifting positions within their universities – MTSU’s became the Department of Recording Industry in 1992, while music exec and philanthropist Mike Curb would lend his name and resources to Belmont’s program in 2003 – and would continue to attract students from all over the world who wanted to chase their musical dreams, be it in performance, songwriting or business operations.

At the same time, the music industry itself experienced radical change due to the advent of digital music, online piracy and changes in consumer behavior. The decline in sales of physical media – CDs, vinyl and cassettes – dramatically affected the industry’s main revenue source and shifted the number and kinds of jobs available.

The emergence of streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify as consumer’s primary music consumption avenue, paired with the democratization of recording technology – used judiciously, we all carry around exceptional content creation devices in our pockets daily – has necessarily shifted the focus of both Belmont and MTSU’s music industry programs.

“My years run together, but maybe 15 years ago or so we actually put in an enrollment management plan because we had so many students that it was almost more than we could handle,” Keel says. “Plus, you also have to look at ‘are there jobs available for everyone?’ So we made our standards even higher and we purposely shrunk their program by about a third.

“I’m glad we did that because, with the changes of the industry, it’s a more appropriate size all the way around,” she continues. “The Department of Recording Industry has about 1,200 students. It also has recording arts and technologies, and we have a music business MBA program that’s a joint program with the Jones College of Business.

“That is so important to our success because nothing exists in a silo now. Are the Grammy Awards music business or TV? Well, they’re both. Whether it’s satellite or terrestrial radio, is that broadcasting or music? Well, it’s both.

“If you think about it now, video is a component of everything you do. So, we collaborate more and more every year.”

Schaffer says the goal of educating music industry students goes far beyond learning performance, honing songcraft and negotiating deals.

“One of the areas that I think is changing and I know that Belmont is really focused on as well is how we think about the character traits of our students,” Schaffer says. “How do we teach them resilience? How do we help them understand what it’s like to network and how to do that effectively? I think we’re also starting to really take a more critical look at how we prepare students in their mental health upon graduation.

“We have a new class coming this fall that Al Andrews is teaching as he retires from (artist support and development nonprofit) Porter’s Call, and it’s called ‘Prehab: Preparing for the Artist’s Life,’ and he is truly walking students who had aspirations of being artists through all the things that they need to be considering if this is the career path they want to choose,” she continues.

“Because we all know that there are unique challenges that present for what does your life look like when success comes, and what does it look like when success doesn’t come?

“It’s hard to understate the network that you develop when you are around like-minded people who all have a passion of wanting to go into the same industry, and then you connect them with the industry that they want to be a part of.”

Hands-on experience

Both institutions offer students a chance to work with world-class technology while being exposed to the history and present of Nashville’s most visible cultural export.

Belmont has been instrumental in preserving some of Music Row’s most historic studios, notably the 34 Music Square East combo of Historic Columbia Studio A and Owen Bradley’s Quonset Hut. Students also have access to multiple on-campus audio and video production suites, including a Dolby Atmos mixing studio. The college also supports Belmont Showcase, a student-run effort that produces six shows per academic year highlighting various genres of music.

MTSU students have access to five full-scale recording studios, a postproduction studio, labs for mixing and mastering audio and video productions, a best-in-class animation studio and mobile video production truck, as well as the Chris Young Cafe, an on-campus teaching and practice space for artists and technicians during the day and a performance venue at night for music, broadcast, drama and entertainment.

But all the technology in the world matters little if the wielders don’t come to understand the opportunity placed in front of them to learn and grow while the stakes are low.

Two-time Grammy winner Brandon Bell, left, a 2004 MTSU grad, holds the special certificate he received from Beverly Keel and MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee celebrating his 2024 Grammy nominations.

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“I think the older you get, the more you realize how little you know,” Keel says. “You may know how to write a song, but if you’re going to negotiate a sync license for that song, do you know what a good rate is?

“That’s the kind of stuff that they quickly learn they don’t know. I think on occasion there are students that have learned a little bit of home recording, whether it’s a little bit of ProTools or a little bit of GarageBand or whatever,” she continues. “But we’re teaching them the physics of sound. We’re teaching them about signals. That way, as the technology changes, they still understand the science behind that.

“On the business side, they come in not knowing anything, and we tell them, ‘That’s OK that you do not know anything yet. That’s why we’re here,’ she adds. “People come to the recording industry program because they are passionate about music and that passion doesn’t change. Either you make music or you want to work in music because it means so much to you, so that is constant.

A camera operator waits for the next set-up at a 2023 Belmont Showcase performance. The student-run concert series gives students from all music industry disciplines real-world, real-time experience producing a show.

-- Photo Provided

“We’re fortunate in that we’re known around the world, and I’m very proud that we’re affordable.”

Schaffer thinks it vital for students to be exposed to the elements of the industry that don’t change as quickly as the tech goes.

“It goes back to understanding the fundamentals of whatever part of the industry you’re dealing with,” she says. “I think it makes your communication skills that much more critical. It makes your analytical skills that much more critical. So we want to make sure that we’re teaching our students underlying skills that are going to carry them through the transition.

“I think it’s also important to understand the structure of the industry: How does the money flow? How are rights held? And that’s not something that’s intuitive if you’re not in the music business,” she continues. “Even for people in the music business, it’s often a confusing landscape. And yes, there may be court cases interpreting portions of the law.

“We may get lucky on occasion and have something like the Music Modernization Act passed, but for the most part, the structure of our laws, how we handle copyrights and how we think about the flow of money from a streaming company through a distributor or label to the artist or to a publisher and then along to a songwriter and what it looks like to have a publisher share and a writer share,” Schaffer notes. “Those are all parts of the music business that aren’t changing as rapidly as the technology is changing. It’s still really critical, if you’re going to come out of college as a young person and enter the industry, to have a baseline understanding of how the music industry works.”

Ultimately about people

Both leaders say the best part about unearthing their programs’ five-decade histories has been hearing the stories alumni and faculty have shared.

“One of my favorite stories was Cindy Mabe (chair/CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville) and (artist) Brad Paisley talking about how they were classmates together, and when he signed at Sony and they said, ‘Oh, we’ve got this awesome marketing person that’s going to run your project,’” Schaffer says. “And when he found out it was Cindy, he was like, ‘No, no…we were classmates.’ And they were like, ‘Trust us. She’s who you want.’”

“When we were having those conversations, catching up with our former students last week, no one reminisced about a piece of technology,” Keel says. “It was all about stories with other students or faculty and that’s at the heart of what we are and who we are as people.”

Both Belmont and MTSU have lengthy lists of alumni who’ve gone on to great success behind the mics, in front of the cameras and in the boardrooms of entertainment entities around the world, something that keeps the wheels of interest in the programs turning.

“Our universities benefit from that, but the industry also benefits from the fact that we’ll continue to have students coming here who are interested in all of those different genres and parts of the industry, which only helps to further fuel the community right here,” Schaffer says.

“I think the music industry could use a lot more of Nashville’s approach to collaboration and to community, and I hope that through these programs that we can help infuse other communities with some of those same values.”