Instrument categories — called Specialties in BookLive — are the instrument types and roles (such as Violin, Piano, Vocalist, or DJ) that organize musicians within your personnel lists. When you build out your roster, each musician is assigned one or more specialties, and BookLive uses those categories to group your roster by instrument, filter availability, and match musicians to the right seats on each performance.
What Are Specialties? #
A specialty is any instrument, voice part, or musical role — whatever your group needs. BookLive comes with a broad set of standard specialties (strings, winds, brass, rhythm section, voice, etc.), but you can create custom ones at any time to match your group’s exact lineup.
Within each personnel list, musicians are organized into specialty sections. For example, your Regulars list might have separate sections for Violin, Cello, Piano, and Vocalist, with different musicians listed under each.
Viewing Instrument Categories in Your Roster #
- Navigate to your group’s Members page from the left sidebar.
- Select the personnel list you want to view (e.g., Regulars).
- Click the By Instrument tab to see your musicians grouped by specialty.
The People tab shows all members in a flat list; the By Instrument tab shows the same members organized under their instrument categories.
Adding a New Instrument Category #
Instrument categories are created automatically when you add an artist and assign them a specialty that doesn’t yet exist. There’s no separate setup screen — the category is created the moment a musician is saved with that specialty.
- Go to your personnel list and click Add Artist.
- Enter or select the musician’s details.
- In the specialty field, start typing the instrument name.
- If the instrument already exists in BookLive, select it from the dropdown.
- If it doesn’t exist yet, type the full name and BookLive will create it as a new specialty.
- Click Save. The new instrument category now appears as a section in your personnel list.
Assigning Multiple Specialties to One Musician #
Many musicians play more than one instrument. BookLive handles this cleanly:
- Add the musician once for each instrument they play — they’ll appear in each specialty section.
- Despite appearing in multiple sections, they’re counted as one unique member in your list’s member count.
- When staffing a performance, you can assign them to any of their listed specialties.
For example, if a musician plays both violin and viola, add them to the Violin section and again to the Viola section. They’ll show up in both but won’t inflate your headcount.
Understanding Parts Within Specialties #
Some specialties support Parts for more granular organization. Parts let you distinguish between roles within the same instrument. Common examples:
- Violin → First Violin, Second Violin
- Voice → Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass
- Saxophone → Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Baritone Sax
When assigning a musician to a specialty with parts, you can specify which part they perform. This matters for performances where you need a specific part filled — for instance, ensuring you have both a first and second violinist booked.
How Instrument Categories Affect Performance Staffing #
Specialties aren’t just for organization — they drive how BookLive staffs your performances:
- Seats on a performance are created by specialty. Each seat represents one musician needed for one instrument role.
- When filling a seat, BookLive shows available musicians from that specialty’s section in your roster.
- Availability checks filter by specialty — you can quickly see who in the Violin section is free for a given date.
- Auto-contracting uses specialty assignments to route contracts to the right musicians automatically.
Tips & Best Practices #
- Be consistent with naming. Use the same spelling for the same instrument across your groups (e.g., always “Cello,” not sometimes “Cellist”).
- Use standard names when possible. Standard specialty names integrate better with BookLive’s availability search and platform-wide musician matching.
- Custom specialties work great for unique roles — “Live Looping Artist,” “Emcee,” or “Sound Engineer” are all valid specialties if your group uses them.
- Parts are optional. You only need to use them if you genuinely need to distinguish between sub-roles within an instrument.
