5 Underappreciated Professions in the Music Industry

1. Crew

You may be familiar with them. After all, at the end of a spectacular concert, any mature music celebrity will remember to thank their crew – all the people involved in making the concert happen and, more importantly, making the tour happen. These absolutely indispensable hard workers of the music business include all the technicians (sound or light) and roadies, such as stage builders, heavy box and sound system carriers, tour bus drivers, stage managers, local helpers, accountants, cooks, hairdressers and others. For large productions, these are huge teams of hundreds of people. Their roles are absolutely vital and without them, nothing would get done.

Next time you go to a concert, try to look around and count how many people are actively involved in the running of the event. It's an incredible symbiosis, a machine organized to perfection that delivers the best shows in the world. However, even at local and smaller events, you always need people to ensure everything runs as it should. Reward them with either a loud appreciation or at least respect for their work. And always spend some of that money at the merch booth. It will make both the artists and the people who help them happy.

2. Accompanying musicians

As I mentioned above, the crew can include the celebrity musician's backing band. They are professionals who are among the top in their field. They are usually hired for the duration of the tour, and if working for bigger stars they even have a monthly salary with the understanding that they are available 24/7 not only for touring needs but also for creative studio sessions or rehearsals. Few of you will probably know the bassist playing for Ariana Grande or The Weeknd, let alone the percussionists, backing vocalists and drummers. These fantastic musicians create the groove, the sound, and most importantly, the perfect live renditions of songs that often involved big production teams that conjured up studio gems. And it's not easy to translate these radio and Spotify megahits into live versions that will work just as magically with the audience in any given concert hall.

3. Managers

This is where the many forms of people in charge of organizing and, more importantly, ensuring the functionality of the entire team come into play. It's a thankless and often hated role. In movies, managers are often caricatured as neurotic people with phones glued to their ears, yelling at everything moving around them. There is definitely a high level of stress and, more importantly, responsibility for running things that come with the job. Top managers are a rare commodity that only people who know the industry can appreciate. With their help, artists and bands can go from the local round to the biggest stages in the world.

I know a few managers who have built brick by brick the careers of many aspiring (and in truth, not very promising) musicians just based on their personal beliefs. They liked them personally and just wanted to help them. This is an incredible phenomenon and a spark of hope for all aspiring musicians. Appreciate people who believe in you and are willing to risk a triple bypass for you.

4. Advisors

Again, a very hard-to-define category of people whose contribution is sometimes esoteric, other times very practical and extremely important. It all starts from the support in the family, which we can be put in this category (however, it probably deserves its own). If you have parents active in the business, many doors can open for you thanks to their contacts and well-placed advice. But they can also discourage you from pursuing a career, which is quite often the case. Paradoxically, this negative motivation can be an even stronger driver for an aspiring musician than loving support. We are all different and we all have to find our path.

Mentors are also important for artists, who are often their instrument tutors or vocal specialists. These "advisors" are like mythical fairy-tale creatures who suddenly appear at the moment when our hero is leaking in their shoes and help them with some miraculous piece of advice or gadget. And then they quietly disappear again into the mysterious nebula of dreams.

5. Technicians

I once spent a week on a recording session with a French singer in Marseille. His very close friend, with whom we stayed and who took care of everything from a logistical point of view, was the embodiment of my dream of the perfect technician. This guy had the looks and physique of an MMA fighter, drove a van like Schumacher, worked magic with objects like the mythical MacGyver (the hero of the show who could make a nuke out of matches when needed), could sound and light everything on stage, and was a musician himself, so he understood all aspects of the instruments and the needs of his bandmates.

Having someone like him on the team is obviously fantastic. But you don't exactly have to be a Superman, you just need a helping hand and most importantly a practical mind to help you solve any problem on the road, during soundcheck and of course at the gig. People with technical knowledge of how things work are a necessary counterpoint and guarantee of functionality in the real world that we artists try so hard to escape from.

Have I forgotten an important but overlooked profession in the music business? Let us know in the comments below the article.