On 1700s and 1800s

Until the 1700s, the process of composition and printing of music was for the most part supported by patronage from aristocracies and churches. In the mid-to-late 1700s, performers and composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began to seek commercial opportunities to market their music and performances to the general public. After Mozart's death, his wife (Constanze Weber) continued the process of commercialization of his music through an unprecedented series of memorial concerts, selling his manuscripts, and collaborating with her second husband, Georg Nissen, on a biography of Mozart.[4] In the 1800s, the music industry was dominated by sheet music publishers. In the United States, the music industry arose in tandem with the rise of blackface minstrelsy. The group of music publishers and songwriters which dominated popular music in the United States was known as Tin Pan Alley.