Need to receives a commission to your musical abilities?
As a musician, there are extra methods to earn cash than ever earlier than. Dozens upon dozens of how, in reality!
When you ought to, in fact, prioritize sure income streams as an artist who creates authentic music, there are occasions — maybe if you’re first rising your profession —if you simply gotta pay the payments.
And in that case, placing your music abilities to make use of positive beats a job outdoors of music, proper? Particularly if your musical side-hustle helps you keep sharp as an instrumentalist, arranger, producer, educator, or content-creator.
That will help you get a way of the big selection of choices on the market, I’ve put collectively a listing of 75 methods you can also make cash out of your music, grouped by class for straightforward scanning.
Streaming & Digital Gross sales
1. Streaming Income: Earn cash from streaming exercise if you get your tracks onto platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, or TIDAL.
2. Digital Downloads: Promote MP3s, WAVs, or FLACs of your tracks on platforms like iTunes, Amazon, ReverbNation, Bandcamp, or your personal web site.
3. Social Video Monetization: Receives a commission when folks create social content material utilizing your music in movies on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Fb, and extra.
4. Monetize Your YouTube Channel: Generate promoting income from viewer exercise by yourself YouTube movies, and use extra creator instruments to monetize subscriber engagement.
Music Recording Work
5. Music Manufacturing: Put your producing abilities to work for different artists. Receives a commission in factors, upfront charges, co-writer splits, or no matter different association is smart for you and your collaborator.
6. Engineering: Are you good at recording, mixing, or mastering? Let different artists know! This generally is a nice income between your personal recording initiatives or excursions.
7. Session Participant: Received abilities as an instrumentalist or vocalist? Are you fast at studying and arranging tunes? Recording classes may be an effective way to receives a commission whereas not tying up an excessive amount of of your time directly. You may attend classes in particular person, or do distant session work from your personal house studio.
8. Studio Operator: Do you personal numerous recording gear that goes unused if you’re not making music? Possibly it’s time to think about renting out your studio to different engineers, producers, and artists.
9. Cell Recording: Whether or not it’s vacation spot recording (“My band rented an airbnb and we need to flip it right into a studio”) or capturing reside audio for different bands at their exhibits, typically having a conveyable studio could make all of the distinction in getting the job.
Music Publishing & Licensing
10. Mechanical Royalties: Acquire this type of publishing royalty when your authentic songs — together with covers by different artists — get streamed, downloaded, or pressed on CD/vinyl.
11. Efficiency Royalties: Earn this music publishing cash when your authentic music is carried out reside in venues or publicly broadcast on radio and TV.
12. Sync Licensing (Songwriter Aspect): In case you write your personal songs and retain the publishing rights, you will get paid an upfront charge — and in some instances, ongoing royalties — when your music is positioned in movie, TV, video games, commercials, and so forth.
13. Sync Licensing (Label Aspect): Similar goes for the “recording” aspect of the equation. In case you personal your personal tracks, you’re the label, and might receives a commission for sync placements.
14. Compose for Music Libraries: Prolific composer or producer? You may write music for music collections which can be particularly curated for sync licensing alternatives.
15. Promote Sheet Music: The unique supply of “music publishing” income! Relying in your style, this generally is a large vendor. (New Age Piano, anybody?) However don’t simply consider notation; you may additionally do chord-charts, tablature, lyric sheets, and extra.
Stay Music Performances
16. Touring and Stay Exhibits: Play reside and receives a commission. This income might come within the type of ticket gross sales, door splits, bar percentages, or a assured charge from the venue proprietor.
17. Residency Gig: Similar type of cost choices as above, however a residency is a repeatedly scheduled factor. It may very well be “7 nights in a row in July” or “Each different Thursday all yr.”
18. Home Concert events: Play intimate live shows in non-public houses. These may be nice fan-building experiences and provide help to promote numerous merch, whereas lowering stress for big turnout. Plus it can save you on journey bills if the host places you up for the evening.
19. DJing: In case you’re not touring, you possibly can DJ occasions, events, or venues in your hometown. On the street? Do a DJ set at a competition or venue between your tour dates.
20. Company Gigs: Need to receives a commission large bucks whereas coming into The Twilight Zone? Play at a company perform. It’s surreal. And profitable.
21. Weddings and Personal Occasions: Carry out at weddings, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, household Christmas events, birthdays, and other forms of personal occasions. These can usually pay higher than a typical venue gig.
22. Metropolis or Municipal Occasions: The annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, the summer season beer backyard within the park, the Arts Stroll. Examine along with your native chamber of commerce or metropolis council for alternatives.
23. Festivals: It’s nice to play music festivals, in fact, but additionally analysis non-music gatherings which have reside music as a element. Beer festivals. Balloon festivals. Meals festivals.
24. Busking: Play in a public house with plenty of foot site visitors for ideas. Subway stations. City squares. Boardwalks and piers. Simply examine the native ordinances first. Get a allow, if required.
25. Be within the Home Band: Much like a residency, the place you keep put and totally different audiences come to you, hunt down efficiency alternatives the place you back-up different singers. May very well be live-band karaoke, an enormous band or jazz group, and so forth.
26. Play Cruise Ships: In case you don’t thoughts small rooms and plenty of months at sea, cruise ship gigs provide you with an opportunity to play quite a bit (typically a number of gigs per day), and supply downtime to concentrate on apply, recording, studying, and so forth.
27. Nursing Houses: Whereas these aren’t glamorous gigs, they are often very significant for the viewers and also you because the performer. They’ll pay properly, are normally shorter units, and have the potential to turn into reliable repeat gigs.
28. Digital Performances: Need to mix the unique and intimate feeling of a home live performance with the comfort of livestreaming? Play a personal, digital efficiency on Zoom, Google Hangouts, and so forth.
Music Merch Gross sales
29. Artist Merchandize: Promote merch at gigs, in your web site, and on platforms like Instagram and Spotify. Gadgets might vary from t-shirts to mugs to books.
30. Bodily Music Codecs: Regardless of what you’ll have heard, followers nonetheless buy CDs, vinyl information, and even cassettes. Supply them in all the identical locations you’d your merch, in addition to in file shops by way of bodily distribution or consignment.
31. Restricted-Version Releases: Supply limited-edition or signed bodily copies of your music to followers. For example, you may promote tour-specific recordings that may by no means once more be accessible to buy.
32. Digital merch: Not all merchandise should be bodily. You may supply PDFs of your tour diary or poetry. A digital cookbook. An unlock of a secret video.
33. Digital “Field Set”: Similar goes for music information. You will have a trove of unreleased recordings. Give followers paid entry! Or bundle all the pieces you’ve ever recorded right into a digital bundle with bonus tracks.
34. NFTs: “Non-Fungible Tokens.” These are crypto property on a blockchain that signify possession or engagement in some piece of music, imagery, group, paintings, or monetary association.
Music Schooling
35. Train Music: Whether or not it’s non-public classes or a teleconference tutorial, you possibly can assist different folks get higher at an instrument, music manufacturing, or songwriting.
36. Music Remedy: Put your abilities to make use of in a therapeutic means that helps folks enhance their well-being.
37. On-line Programs: Create and promote a digital course. It may very well be about your instrument, or your music-biz and promo abilities. Numerous upfront work, however with the potential for it to turn into extra “passive” revenue as soon as your advertising and marketing funnel is up and working.
38. Music Workshops: Host IRL or on-line group gatherings the place studying and suggestions occurs in a gaggle setting.
39. Visitor Lectures: Converse at faculties, schools, or music seminars. These are sometimes paid alternatives, however even in case you’re an unpaid speaker at a music convention, you need to have the possibility to make a fast gross sales pitch on the finish of your discuss or promote books afterwards.
40. Music Transcription: Are you good at determining advanced harmonies, blistering bluegrass breaks, or well-known saxophone solos? You may earn cash transcribing that music note-for-note. It is likely to be work-for-hire revenue, or you may publish these transcriptions in a e-book. Or on YouTube (with the opportunity of incomes advert income).
Crowdfunding & Fan Help
41. Undertaking-Based mostly Crowdfunding: Use platforms like Kickstarter or GoFundMe to boost cash from followers to help a particular recording, tour, advertising and marketing, or video undertaking.
42. Membership Golf equipment: You should utilize a subscription-model platform like Patreon, or construct your personal on-line fan subscription by way of your web site. In change for month-to-month cost, followers get unique or early entry to content material and different perks.
43. Fan Donations: Settle for donations instantly from followers by way of platforms like PayPal or Venmo. These hyperlinks may be listed in your web site, livestreams, and even pinned to the highest of your Spotify profile.
44. Livestream Help: That is income followers provide you with for livestreaming. However in contrast to the Venmo or PayPal ideas talked about above, it will probably come within the type of a platform-specific forex or motion: Stars, Bits, Subs, and so forth.
45. VIP Experiences: Supply your diehard followers the possibility to pay for an unique expertise. Backstage passes, meet-and-greets, watch the soundchecks, dinner earlier than the present, images and autographs.
Music Composition
46. Songwriting for Different Artists: In case you’re a prolific author, you’ll have concepts to spare! Pitch your unreleased songs to different artists, publishers, or labels. Or collaborate with co-writers to make new songs. Repeatable success on this space takes numerous dedication, however might result in a publishing deal.
47. Write Jingles: Ya know, the catchy (and typically annoying) music that performs throughout commercials? There’s cash to be made the place artwork meets promoting.
48. Movie Scoring: Compose music for movies, TV exhibits, and documentaries. Like many areas of specialization, this discipline can require numerous time and dedication. Take into account accordingly how usually and if you need to settle for scoring work.
49. Video Sport Music: In idea, this isn’t that totally different from movie scoring. Besides that gaming has its personal musical tropes, so the reference factors might differ from cinematic orchestration and sound design. Many video video games additionally function songs that turn into a part of the sport’s soundtrack, which refers again to sync licensing. Lastly, there’s a complete large ecosystem of VGM covers on YouTube, the place artists do their very own artistic preparations of widespread online game music. So in case you play a singular instrument, this may provide you with a technique to differentiate your self: Halo on accordion, Closing Fantasy on metallic guitar, Zelda on harmonica, Mario Bros on banjo.
50. Promote Beats and Pattern Packs: Are you a prolific producer in a style that depends closely on digital music, reminiscent of hip-hop, pop, or EDM? You may assist different artists get an enormous musical help by promoting your beats, production-starts, and pattern packs.
51. Write Customized Songs: Let your followers know you’ll compose and file personalised songs for particular events like weddings or birthdays. Simply you’ll want to cost sufficient to your precise effort and time!
52. Sound Design and Audio Branding: Create “audio logos” and “sound identities” for companies. Or use your manufacturing abilities to make sound results and audio environments for media, public areas, or different commissioned initiatives.
Retail & Venue Work
53. Report Retailer: Gig at evening and work at a file retailer throughout the day. You’ll keep on high of the most recent music releases, as properly brush up on the classics.
54. Music Retail: Reasonably be close to devices? Work at a music retailer and develop your experience within the newest gear, used instrument valuation, and extra.
55. Making or Repairing Devices: Good at fixing guitars? Carving violins? Soldering results pedals or synths? You may begin your personal enterprise or work out of an present store or retailer.
56. Expertise Purchaser: Already in communication with a big community of gifted musicians? Put these social and group abilities to make use of reserving the acts at a neighborhood venue.
57. Venue Workers: Desire extra of the “on the bottom” venue expertise? You may be a bartender, bouncer, field workplace assistant, or venue supervisor.
58. Stay Sound Engineer: Each good venue wants good reside sound. You may be the important thing to creating that occur. Bonus factors in case you’re not a grump!
Different Music Professions
59. Music Journalism: Write present previews, album opinions, function interviews, and extra. It’s possible you’ll discover a chance to do that as a side-gig to your native newspaper or arts weekly.
60. Musicology, Criticism, Editorial, and Curation: Put your deep data and fervour for a selected style to make use of. Train others about that historical past. Or make music suggestions and thrilling connections for listeners.
61. Member of an Orchestra: Jazz, Classical, Ballet, or the pit-orchestra for Musical Theater. If in case you have nice technical facility in your instrument and reliable sight-reading abilities, you may make a dwelling in a big ensemble.
62. Non secular Music: Whether or not it’s the organist in a cathedral, the guitarist in a praise-and-worship band, the cantor at a temple,… many religions have music as a part of their common service.
63. Voice Expertise: If in case you have a superb singing voice, you may have the ability to translate these dramatic abilities to supply voiceovers, audiobook readings, or character voices.
Model Collaborations
64. Model Sponsorships: Accomplice up with some firm who shares your values and aesthetic, and receives a commission if you rep their merchandise, companies, or mission.
65. Endorsements: Get discounted (or typically free) services and products reminiscent of devices, music advertising and marketing instruments, or music manufacturing software program. In change, you agree to make use of that gear in public and supply testimonials.
66. Affiliate Advertising and marketing: Promote a sure product in your web site, do gear opinions, and hyperlink to the producer or retailer, and earn a fee on any gross sales.
67. Be an Influencer: “Influencer Advertising and marketing?” Simpler stated than accomplished, however… if in case you have a big social following, you might be able to monetize that spotlight by doing product placements or promo shoutouts.
Miscellaneous
68. Books, eBooks, & Audiobooks: I suppose this might go below the “merch” part, however that’s extra in regards to the closing product and gross sales. Changing into an creator is an endeavor all its personal, in fact. However in case you already show a knack for lyric-writing, you’ll have longer-form literary expertise too. It may very well be fiction, non-fiction about musicology, essays about band drama and tour mishaps, and even written instrument instruction with accompanying illustrations.
69. Music Running a blog: I discussed above that you may write opinions for an present publication, however you may additionally host opinions by yourself web site within the hopes of monetizing your weblog by way of advert placements and affiliate income.
70. Podcasting: Begin a podcast about your music, adventures, or different pursuits. In case you get enough engagement, you possibly can monetize by way of advertisements, sponsorships, or listener help.
71. Competitions: These may very well be rap battles, songwriting challenges, bluegrass competitions. There could also be an entry charge, however that additionally means there may very well be an enormous payout in case you win.
72. Interactive Music Experiences: If in case you have blended media or web-development abilities, you may create an immersive real-world or digital expertise. Emma McGann’s multi-player “Monsterverse” RPG in Discord is a superb instance. You may ask your followers to pay to take part, or you should use it as an opportunity to drive merch gross sales on the finish of the expertise.
73. Consulting Companies: Musicians need assistance, strong recommendation, and networking connections. Are you able to mentor somebody in administration, crowdfunding, digital promoting, or one thing else? Present that technique recommendation in change for a charge.
74. Open-Supply Collaboration: That is if you make some artistic work accessible for others to make use of, with out a clear concept of who will collaborate, or what precisely will consequence. Making stems downloadable for remixers is an apparent instance. You may approve your favourite remixes and formally distribute these tracks, splitting any income the remix generates. However artists like Holly Herndon and Grimes took it one step additional with AI fashions of their vocals.
75. __________: Sure, a clean house, as a result of if there are 75 gadgets on this listing already, there’s certain to be many extra methods to earn cash out of your musical abilities. And I needed to depart room so that you can think about your personal potentialities. Have enjoyable!
Conclusion
Most musicians won’t ever deal with each merchandise on this listing, and that’s fully high-quality. They shouldn’t. All of us have our personal specialties and pursuits. Greatest to concentrate on what’s rewarding, each by way of private progress and revenue.
However hopefully this lengthy listing offers you an outline of your choices as you make a profession of your music, and as you complement your main music revenue sources with extra income streams.
