Wish to receives a commission in your musical skills?
As a musician, there are extra methods to earn cash than ever earlier than. Dozens upon dozens of the way, the truth is!
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 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 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 may make cash out of your music, grouped by class for simple 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 individual 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 sensible for you and your collaborator.
6. Engineering: Are you good at recording, mixing, or mastering? Let different artists know! This could be a nice income between your individual recording tasks or excursions.
7. Session Participant: Bought skills as an instrumentalist or vocalist? Are you fast at studying and arranging tunes? Recording periods could 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 particular person, or do distant session work from your individual residence studio.
8. Studio Operator: Do you personal plenty of 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. Cellular 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 dwell audio for different bands at their exhibits, generally 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 dwell in venues or publicly broadcast on radio and TV.
12. Sync Licensing (Songwriter Aspect): For those who write your individual songs and retain the publishing rights, you will get paid an upfront payment — 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. For those who personal your individual 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 might be particularly curated for sync licensing alternatives.
15. Promote Sheet Music: The unique supply of “music publishing” income! Relying in your style, this could be a massive vendor. (New Age Piano, anybody?) However don’t simply consider notation; you might additionally do chord-charts, tablature, lyric sheets, and extra.
Dwell Music Performances
16. Touring and Dwell Reveals: Play dwell and receives a commission. This income may come within the type of ticket gross sales, door splits, bar percentages, or a assured payment from the venue proprietor.
17. Residency Gig: Identical type of fee 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 12 months.”
18. Home Concert events: Play intimate concert events in non-public properties. These could be nice fan-building experiences and assist you to promote plenty of merch, whereas decreasing strain for big turnout. Plus it can save you on journey bills if the host places you up for the evening.
19. DJing: For those who’re not touring, you’ll be able to DJ occasions, events, or venues in your hometown. On the street? Do a DJ set at a pageant or venue between your tour dates.
20. Company Gigs: Wish to receives a commission massive bucks whereas getting into The Twilight Zone? Play at a company operate. 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 usually pay higher than a regular venue gig.
22. Metropolis or Municipal Occasions: The annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, the summer time 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 in addition analysis non-music gatherings which have dwell 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 verify 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, a giant band or jazz group, and many others.
26. Play Cruise Ships: For those who don’t thoughts small rooms and plenty of months at sea, cruise ship gigs provide you with an opportunity to play lots (generally a number of gigs per day), and supply downtime to concentrate on apply, recording, studying, and many others.
27. Nursing Properties: Whereas these aren’t glamorous gigs, they are often very significant for the viewers and also you because the performer. They will pay nicely, are often 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 may vary from t-shirts to mugs to books.
30. Bodily Music Codecs: Regardless of what you will have heard, followers nonetheless buy CDs, vinyl data, and even cassettes. Provide them in all the identical locations you’ll your merch, in addition to in file shops through bodily distribution or consignment.
31. Restricted-Version Releases: Provide limited-edition or signed bodily copies of your music to followers. For example, you might promote tour-specific recordings that may by no means once more be obtainable to buy.
32. Digital merch: Not all merchandise must be bodily. You possibly can provide 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 package deal with bonus tracks.
34. NFTs: “Non-Fungible Tokens.” These are crypto belongings on a blockchain that characterize 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’ll be able to 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 method 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. Plenty of upfront work, however with the potential for it to turn into extra “passive” revenue as soon as your advertising funnel is up and operating.
38. Music Workshops: Host IRL or on-line group gatherings the place studying and suggestions occurs in a gaggle setting.
39. Visitor Lectures: Communicate at colleges, faculties, or music seminars. These are sometimes paid alternatives, however even when you’re an unpaid speaker at a music convention, you must have the prospect 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 could be work-for-hire revenue, or you might publish these transcriptions in a e-book. Or on YouTube (with the potential for incomes advert income).
Crowdfunding & Fan Assist
41. Challenge-Primarily based Crowdfunding: Use platforms like Kickstarter or GoFundMe to lift cash from followers to help a particular recording, tour, advertising, or video mission.
42. Membership Golf equipment: You need to use a subscription-model platform like Patreon, or construct your individual on-line fan subscription by way of your web site. In change for month-to-month fee, followers get unique or early entry to content material and different perks.
43. Fan Donations: Settle for donations immediately from followers by way of platforms like PayPal or Venmo. These hyperlinks could be listed in your web site, livestreams, and even pinned to the highest of your Spotify profile.
44. Livestream Assist: That is income followers provide you with for livestreaming. However in contrast to the Venmo or PayPal suggestions talked about above, it may well come within the type of a platform-specific forex or motion: Stars, Bits, Subs, and many others.
45. VIP Experiences: Provide your diehard followers the prospect 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: For those who’re a prolific author, you will 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 plenty of dedication, however may result in a publishing deal.
47. Write Jingles: Ya know, the catchy (and generally 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 area can require plenty of time and dedication. Contemplate accordingly how usually and if 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 might 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 complete large ecosystem of VGM covers on YouTube, the place artists do their very own inventive preparations of standard online game music. So when you play a novel instrument, this would possibly provide you with a method 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, equivalent 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 be sure you cost sufficient in 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 tasks.
Retail & Venue Work
53. Report Retailer: Gig at evening and work at a file retailer through the day. You’ll keep on high of the most recent music releases, as nicely brush up on the classics.
54. Music Retail: Slightly 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 individual enterprise or work out of an present store or retailer.
56. Expertise Purchaser: Already in communication with a big community of proficient musicians? Put these social and group abilities to make use of reserving the acts at a neighborhood venue.
57. Venue Workers: Choose extra of the “on the bottom” venue expertise? You may be a bartender, bouncer, field workplace assistant, or venue supervisor.
58. Dwell Sound Engineer: Each good venue wants good dwell sound. You may be the important thing to creating that occur. Bonus factors when you’re not a grump!
Different Music Professions
59. Music Journalism: Write present previews, album critiques, characteristic interviews, and extra. You might discover a chance to do that as a side-gig in your native newspaper or arts weekly.
60. Musicology, Criticism, Editorial, and Curation: Put your deep data and fervour for a specific 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. You probably have nice technical facility in your instrument and reliable sight-reading abilities, you might 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: You probably have singing voice, you would possibly 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 generally free) services equivalent to devices, music advertising 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 critiques, 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 carried out, however… 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 underneath the “merch” part, however that’s extra concerning the ultimate product and gross sales. Changing into an writer is an endeavor all its personal, in fact. However when you already show a knack for lyric-writing, you will 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 might write critiques for an present publication, however you might additionally host critiques 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. For those who get ample engagement, you’ll be able to monetize by way of adverts, sponsorships, or listener help.
71. Competitions: These may very well be rap battles, songwriting challenges, bluegrass competitions. There could also be an entry payment, however that additionally means there may very well be a giant payout when you win.
72. Interactive Music Experiences: You probably have blended media or web-development abilities, you might 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 need to 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 payment.
74. Open-Supply Collaboration: That is if you make some inventive work obtainable for others to make use of, with no clear concept of who will collaborate, or what precisely will end result. 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 listing already, there’s sure to be many extra methods to earn cash out of your musical abilities. And I needed to go away room so that you can think about your individual prospects. Have enjoyable!
Conclusion
Most musicians won’t ever deal with each merchandise on this listing, and that’s utterly wonderful. They shouldn’t. All of us have our personal specialties and pursuits. Finest 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.
