How to make money as a full time musician

Today I want to help you solve one of the single biggest problems the majority of independent musicians today face:. What are those things that will make you money from music? Imagine having the money to record good quality videos, build your own home recording studio, or simply support yourself and your family. These are proven business tactics that have allowed musicians in the know to earn part or full time livings from their music skill. Other musicians have already reached this stage, will you be next? For this guide though I wanted to give you additional actionable knowledge, so I teamed up with full time musician Ches Christian.

Sync/License Tracks

I know pretty much half of the musicians in existence have a side job of some sort. Almost none of them owned property themselves. Another job I do is setting up the backdrops for red-carpet events, which is my favorite job because I wear a tool belt and drive a giant truck. I feel the opposite way about it. What a limited view of reality. I want to keep it as a sacred space to heal myself through. I have friends who are famous rock stars who struggle financially. Any other job makes more money than being in a band. The industry structure is built against the artist. I still consider it a total privilege and luxury to be an artist. Cass McCombs Side hustles: truck driving; worked in bookstores, record stores, movie theaters, delicatessens; painter on the Trump Tower; demolition work; stable hand; projectionist; folded and licked invitation envelopes. But how do you unionize ducks? Maybe it should be a hobby. It means something more than money. Eva Hendricks, Charly Bliss Side hustle: stocking milk in coffee shops. When I was working at a coffee shop while we were making Guppy , I was writing songs while stocking milk. But the financial reality of being in a band is … not awesome.

3. I can write off all my clothes

When we think about what it means to make a living as a musician many people still conjure up ideas of selling plastic discs and endlessly touring the country. Well, that’s perhaps how things work at the top, but what about near the middle? Suzanne Lainson of BrandsPlusMusic has written a short overview of the more traditional ways that musicians make money and the paradox of taking such sources of income. Playing in multiple bands so that they gig as much as five times a week. Teaching music , as much as 20 kids a week. Church music director. Playing on cruises or in dinner theaters. Playing in a house band or being the solo piano player at a bar. However, these gigs are much harder to come by than in the past. The problem with all of the above is that the musicians who do it tend not to get a lot of respect, either from the music reviewers or from other musicians. Being a wedding musician tends not to be something musicians proudly announce. It’s not considered very prestigious. The non-famous musicians I know who are making the most money are viewed rather condescendingly by local music critics and by up-and-coming musicians who think that kind of thing is akin to selling your music soul to make a buck. But playing original music that the bloggers love tends to be the least lucrative kind of music you can do. The advantage of having a day job that pays the bills is that you can do the music you love without regard to whether it pays the bills. That can be very creative. What other ways do non-famous musicians make a living? Library or production music is another. Musicians with home studios working alone or in small partnerships. At the top end the names may be well-known but otherwise they are unknown, except to their film, TV, or advertising agents and their libraries and publishers. Waiters and waitresses come to mind.. Also some musicians end up working in studios doing jobs like mastering. Working at venues, running a cash register, booking, running sound, or even mopping floors, helps artists make valuable contacts while earning some money. I think the whole point here is that is not the case. Unless you mean that ironically… in which case point taken. So that was one perk. She was immersed in the music business as a bartender at the venue because she was surrounded by musicians and music every night, and it helped her in making contacts with other local musicians. They still saw her more as a bartender than a working musician. It was only after working at the bar for 10 years, quitting, and then doing music full-time gigging shows a year, putting out a CD every year , that she was able to get to the next level. However, since she was going to need a day job while building her career, that bartending job at a music venue was definitely more useful to her than other sorts of day jobs she could have had. So my point is that there are music-related day jobs you can get, and they will help your career, though not necessarily in a direct or immediate way. As long as you realize that they may be more helpful as a source of income and a learning experience than as a way to open doors, you can probably use those jobs to your advantage.

What Skills Do I Need to Make Money as a Musician?

Looking to turn your passion jusician music into a full-time job? From selling beats, sample packs, or merchandise, to offering production services, or even just collecting your royalties the right way, there are a variety of money making tactics that can financially benefit you.

However, with so many viable opportunities, how can you know which ones are the right ones for you? Thankfully, we have put a list together of seven different ways to start earning money through music production to allow you to find the best opportunity for you, given your individual mlney set. Making Money in The music industry has radically changed in the past decade. That is, by signing tracks to major labels or getting booked for festivals and world tours.

Most of the major labels now only want artists with a well-developed brand whose sound brings something new to the table but also works on the radio. Getting signed to a label and becoming a touring artist has its own unique challenges that varies heavily depending on what type of artist you are. Since this can be complicated and requires personalized advice, we are going to focus on other, simpler ways to make money as a gime producer. The good news is that we live in the era of accessible internet and easy sharing, so a whole new set of opportunities is present for talented producers to earn money doing what they love!

In the following sections, we will reveal seven techniques you can implement as an artist to earn money and hopefully get you closer to making a living off your music production.

As an example, whenever you listen to DJ Snake on Spotify, or download his latest track on iTunes, he is generating money off your stream or download. When one of his songs are downloaded, he gets yow percentage of the sale price. When his songs are streamed, he gets a pre-negotiated rate for each play. This is a process called Royalty Licensing, which is basically collecting your fair share of profits from an original piece of music. For now, all you need to know is that both services allow you to own the copyright to your songs and get paid for their use.

First of all, there are different types of royalties. However, nowadays this also applies to streaming plays Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and digital downloads iTunes, Beatport. Royalties are not always easy to track. They hkw to make sure you get paid when someone else uses your music. They are primarily concerned with the collection of performance royalties.

By doing hpw, they also handle the collection of your Mechanical Royalties. Using Independent Distributors is the easiest way for you to just concentrate on music and let these companies do the work for you. Upload unlimited songs. For more information about how to upload your music onto Spotify, click.

This is called Synchronization. But how does this work exactly and how do you get your music on these libraries? First of all, these tracks are not the same ones you would publish on a label or hear on the radio. Now, most professionals are not going to contact producers directly to get their music for the job, but they will rather go to their trusted Music Library, where they have a catalog of music available for them to dig through and purchase.

Usually, most music that you hear on commercials, movies, or even video games, has been picked from a stock library. Make sure to create a custom folder of stock music to show them how versatile you are as a producer. If you also released on labels, make sure to let them know. You can pick out any commercial or video that you find online, mute it, and try making a custom track that would fit with it!

This way you will start learning how to produce music, following the flow of an already existing media. Give it a go! Sample Packs The use of royalty-free samples has become a huge part of music production, especially in electronic music. Producers are always hunting for new, high-quality samples to develop their sound. Having professionally processed samples is essential to achieving a polished track.

If your pack contains a mix of elements, such as drums, vocals, instruments, loops, effects, and others, you need to kake custom folders so people can quickly navigate to the right section. Here are a few subfolders that you could create: Once you have done this, the final step is labeling the individual samples. Do you want better Serum presets? Download our free Ultimate Serum Library and improve your sound library today.

Back to Production. Popular Topics. Popular Courses. Tags blogs dubstep lfo-tool marketing massive microphones native-instruments resources sidechain sound-design muslcian xfer youtube. Invalid Password.

What Skills Do I Need to Make Money as a Musician?

This post is a guest post from Michelle, who writes at Savvy History. In this post, she shares her side hustle story. Starting a side hustle as a musician might be for you. Read on below to learn if you can actually make money as a musician! I play original music while selling my own CDs at festivals, private parties, coffee shops, bars, and colleges in the Midwest. Sometimes, I even get to ride on cruise boats going up and down the Mississippi! My husband used to play bass with me at most of the shows, but now, he stays home with our son or they come along to watch. I started playing the guitar at 17 because I had stress fractures in both my knees. Long story short, I felt useless on crutches and wanted to push myself in a different way than long-distance running. I was looking for a creative outlet after a unique upbringing. When I realized I could put my life-long love of poetry into music via learning to play an instrument, I was hooked on the guitar and played it every chance I could. After writing a few songs and garnering a positive response, I naively decided to be a singer-songwriter when I grew up. I pulled back on my interest in college and kind of did a with my life. For example, I how to make money as a full time musician visited Stanford and actually considered applying. Instead of pursuing an academic path, I started learning more and more on my own after school and looking at society differently all while forming an opinion about the type of life I wanted with the help of artists and music. By 18, I was making money off my music.