History of the Music Industry, Music Business, Music Publishing.

The music industry is a term used to describe a range of music-related businesses and organizations. When term "music industry" is used in a narrow sense, it refers only to the businesses and organizations that record, produce, publish, distribute, and market recorded music (e.g., music publishers, recording industry, record production companies). This corresponds to the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) that includes sound recording and music publishing activities (J-59).

When the term is used more broadly, it refers to a range of sub-industries that come from a number of different industrial classifications, including Information and Communication (which includes sound recording and music publishing activities), programming and broadcasting activities (e.g., radio stations), education (e.g., music training schools), Arts, entertainment and recreation, and manufacturing and retail sales (e.g., of musical instruments). In this broader sense, the term usually also encompasses not-for-profit organizations such as Musicians' Unions and writers' copyright collectives and performance rights organisations.

Music is an art form that involves organised sounds and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture).

Music may also involve generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, ceremonial or religious purposes.

The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context, with varied interpretations of the term being accepted under sub-genres of the art. Within "the arts", music can be classified as a performing art, a fine art, or an auditory art form.