Wish 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 actual fact!
Whilst you ought to, in fact, prioritize sure income streams as an artist who creates authentic music, there are occasions — maybe whenever you’re first rising your profession —whenever you simply gotta pay the payments.
And in that case, placing your music expertise to make use of certain beats a job exterior of music, proper? Particularly if your musical side-hustle helps you keep sharp as an instrumentalist, arranger, producer, educator, or content-creator.
That can assist you get a way of the wide selection of choices on the market, I’ve put collectively an inventory of 75 methods you can also make cash out of your music, grouped by class for simple scanning.
Streaming & Digital Gross sales
1. Streaming Income: Earn cash from streaming exercise whenever 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 individuals 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 expertise to work for different artists. Receives a commission in factors, upfront charges, co-writer splits, or no matter different association is sensible 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: Acquired abilities as an instrumentalist or vocalist? Are you fast at studying and arranging tunes? Recording periods might be a good way to receives a commission whereas not tying up an excessive amount of of your time without delay. You possibly can attend periods in individual, or do distant session work from your personal house studio.
8. Studio Operator: Do you personal quite a lot of recording gear that goes unused whenever you’re not making music? Possibly it’s time to contemplate 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 wish to flip it right into a studio”) or capturing stay audio for different bands at their reveals, typically having a transportable studio could make all of the distinction in getting the job.
Music Publishing & Licensing
10. Mechanical Royalties: Accumulate 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 stay in venues or publicly broadcast on radio and TV.
12. Sync Licensing (Songwriter Aspect): When you write your personal songs and retain the publishing rights, you may get paid an upfront price — and in some instances, ongoing royalties — when your music is positioned in movie, TV, video games, commercials, and many others.
13. Sync Licensing (Label Aspect): Identical goes for the “recording” aspect of the equation. When 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 can write music for music collections which are 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 massive vendor. (New Age Piano, anybody?) However don’t simply consider notation; you can additionally do chord-charts, tablature, lyric sheets, and extra.
Stay Music Performances
16. Touring and Stay Reveals: Play stay and receives a commission. This income might come within the type of ticket gross sales, door splits, bar percentages, or a assured price from the venue proprietor.
17. Residency Gig: Identical type of cost choices as above, however a residency is a commonly 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 concert events in non-public houses. These might be nice fan-building experiences and assist you promote quite a lot of merch, whereas lowering strain for big turnout. Plus it can save you on journey bills if the host places you up for the night time.
19. DJing: When you’re not touring, you may DJ occasions, events, or venues in your hometown. On the highway? Do a DJ set at a pageant or venue between your tour dates.
20. Company Gigs: Wish to receives a commission massive bucks whereas coming into The Twilight Zone? Play at a company perform. It’s surreal. And profitable.
21. Weddings and Non-public Occasions: Carry out at weddings, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, household Christmas events, birthdays, and other forms of personal occasions. These can typically pay higher than an ordinary venue gig.
22. Metropolis or Municipal Occasions: The annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, the summer time beer backyard within the park, the Arts Stroll. Test along with your native chamber of commerce or metropolis council for alternatives.
23. Festivals: It’s nice to play music festivals, in fact, but in addition analysis non-music gatherings which have stay music as a element. Beer festivals. Balloon festivals. Meals festivals.
24. Busking: Play in a public area with a lot of foot site visitors for suggestions. Subway stations. City squares. Boardwalks and piers. Simply test the native ordinances first. Get a allow, if required.
25. Be within the Home Band: Just 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. Could possibly be live-band karaoke, an enormous band or jazz group, and many others.
26. Play Cruise Ships: When you don’t thoughts small rooms and lots of months at sea, cruise ship gigs offer you an opportunity to play rather a lot (typically a number of gigs per day), and supply downtime to concentrate on observe, recording, studying, and many others.
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 effectively, are normally shorter units, and have the potential to turn into reliable repeat gigs.
28. Digital Performances: Wish 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 many others.
Music Merch Gross sales
29. Artist Merchandize: Promote merch at gigs, in your web site, and on platforms like Instagram and Spotify. Objects might vary from t-shirts to mugs to books.
30. Bodily Music Codecs: Regardless of what you might have heard, followers nonetheless buy CDs, vinyl data, and even cassettes. Supply them in all the identical locations you’ll 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 can promote tour-specific recordings that can by no means once more be accessible to buy.
32. Digital merch: Not all merchandise should be bodily. You possibly can supply PDFs of your tour diary or poetry. A digital cookbook. An unlock of a secret video.
33. Digital “Field Set”: Identical goes for music recordsdata. 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 symbolize possession or engagement in some piece of music, imagery, neighborhood, paintings, or monetary association.
Music Schooling
35. Educate Music: Whether or not it’s non-public classes or a teleconference tutorial, you may assist different individuals get higher at an instrument, music manufacturing, or songwriting.
36. Music Remedy: Put your expertise to make use of in a therapeutic means that helps individuals 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 expertise. A number of upfront work, however with the potential for it to turn into extra “passive” earnings as soon as your advertising and marketing funnel is up and working.
38. Music Workshops: Host IRL or on-line neighborhood gatherings the place studying and suggestions occurs in a bunch setting.
39. Visitor Lectures: Communicate at faculties, schools, or music seminars. These are sometimes paid alternatives, however even if you happen to’re an unpaid speaker at a music convention, you must have the possibility to make a fast gross sales pitch on the finish of your speak or promote books afterwards.
40. Music Transcription: Are you good at determining complicated harmonies, blistering bluegrass breaks, or well-known saxophone solos? You can earn cash transcribing that music note-for-note. It may be work-for-hire earnings, or you can publish these transcriptions in a e-book. Or on YouTube (with the potential of incomes advert income).
Crowdfunding & Fan Help
41. Mission-Based mostly Crowdfunding: Use platforms like Kickstarter or GoFundMe to boost cash from followers to assist a selected recording, tour, advertising and marketing, or video undertaking.
42. Membership Golf equipment: You should use a subscription-model platform like Patreon, or construct your personal on-line fan subscription by means 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 immediately from followers by means of platforms like PayPal or Venmo. These hyperlinks might be listed in your web site, livestreams, and even pinned to the highest of your Spotify profile.
44. Livestream Help: That is income followers offer you for livestreaming. However in contrast to the Venmo or PayPal suggestions talked about above, it may possibly come within the type of a platform-specific forex or motion: Stars, Bits, Subs, and many others.
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, pictures and autographs.
Music Composition
46. Songwriting for Different Artists: When you’re a prolific author, you might 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 quite a lot of 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 reveals, and documentaries. Like many areas of specialization, this discipline can require quite a lot of time and dedication. Think about accordingly how typically and whenever you wish to settle for scoring work.
49. Video Sport Music: In principle, this isn’t that totally different from movie scoring. Besides that gaming has its personal musical tropes, so the reference factors could differ from cinematic orchestration and sound design. Many video video games additionally characteristic songs that turn into a part of the sport’s soundtrack, which refers again to sync licensing. Lastly, there’s a entire large ecosystem of VGM covers on YouTube, the place artists do their very own artistic preparations of well-liked online game music. So if you happen to play a singular instrument, this would possibly offer you a option to differentiate your self: Halo on accordion, Closing Fantasy on steel 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, corresponding to hip-hop, pop, or EDM? You possibly can 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 customized songs for particular events like weddings or birthdays. Simply you should definitely 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 expertise to make sound results and audio environments for media, public areas, or different commissioned initiatives.
Retail & Venue Work
53. File Retailer: Gig at night time and work at a file retailer through the day. You’ll keep on prime of the newest music releases, as effectively brush up on the classics.
54. Music Retail: Relatively 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 can begin your personal enterprise or work out of an current store or retailer.
56. Expertise Purchaser: Already in communication with a big community of gifted musicians? Put these social and group expertise to make use of reserving the acts at an area venue.
57. Venue Employees: Favor extra of the “on the bottom” venue expertise? You can be a bartender, bouncer, field workplace assistant, or venue supervisor.
58. Stay Sound Engineer: Each good venue wants good stay sound. You can be the important thing to creating that occur. Bonus factors if you happen to’re not a grump!
Different Music Professions
59. Music Journalism: Write present previews, album opinions, characteristic interviews, and extra. Chances are you’ll discover a possibility to do that as a side-gig to your native newspaper or arts weekly.
60. Musicology, Criticism, Editorial, and Curation: Put your deep information and keenness for a specific style to make use of. Educate 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. In case you have nice technical facility in your instrument and reliable sight-reading expertise, you can make a residing in a big ensemble.
62. Spiritual 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: In case you have singing voice, you would possibly be capable to translate these dramatic expertise to supply voiceovers, audiobook readings, or character voices.
Model Collaborations
64. Model Sponsorships: Associate up with some firm who shares your values and aesthetic, and receives a commission whenever you rep their merchandise, companies, or mission.
65. Endorsements: Get discounted (or typically free) services corresponding to 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: 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?” Simpler stated than finished, however… if in case you have a big social following, you could possibly monetize that focus by doing product placements or promo shoutouts.
Miscellaneous
68. Books, eBooks, & Audiobooks: I suppose this might go beneath the “merch” part, however that’s extra in regards to the last product and gross sales. Changing into an creator is an endeavor all its personal, in fact. However if you happen to already show a knack for lyric-writing, you might 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 can write opinions for an current publication, however you can additionally host opinions by yourself web site within the hopes of monetizing your weblog by means of advert placements and affiliate income.
70. Podcasting: Begin a podcast about your music, adventures, or different pursuits. When you get ample engagement, you may monetize by means of adverts, sponsorships, or listener assist.
71. Competitions: These may very well be rap battles, songwriting challenges, bluegrass competitions. There could also be an entry price, however that additionally means there may very well be an enormous payout if you happen to win.
72. Interactive Music Experiences: In case you have combined media or web-development expertise, you can create an immersive real-world or digital expertise. Emma McGann’s multi-player “Monsterverse” RPG in Discord is a good instance. You possibly can 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 Providers: Musicians need assistance, stable 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 price.
74. Open-Supply Collaboration: That is whenever 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 possibly can 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 area, as a result of if there are 75 gadgets on this checklist already, there’s sure to be many extra methods to generate income out of your musical expertise. And I needed to depart room so that you can think about your personal potentialities. Have enjoyable!
Conclusion
Most musicians won’t ever sort out each merchandise on this checklist, and that’s utterly tremendous. They shouldn’t. All of us have our personal specialties and pursuits. Greatest to concentrate on what’s rewarding, each when it comes to private progress and revenue.
However hopefully this lengthy checklist provides you an outline of your choices as you make a profession of your music, and as you complement your major music earnings sources with extra income streams.
