Wish to receives a commission on your musical abilities?
As a musician, there are extra methods to earn cash than ever earlier than. Dozens upon dozens of the way, actually!
Whilst you ought to, in fact, prioritize sure income streams as an artist who creates unique 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 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 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 further 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 generally is a nice income between your personal recording tasks or excursions.
7. Session Participant: Received abilities as an instrumentalist or vocalist? Are you fast at studying and arranging tunes? Recording periods might be an effective way to receives a commission whereas not tying up an excessive amount of of your time directly. You’ll be able to attend periods in particular person, or do distant session work from your personal house studio.
8. Studio Operator: Do you personal a whole lot 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. 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 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 unique 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 unique music is carried out stay in venues or publicly broadcast on radio and TV.
12. Sync Licensing (Songwriter Aspect): For those who write your personal songs and retain the publishing rights, you may get paid an upfront price — and in some circumstances, ongoing royalties — when your music is positioned in movie, TV, video games, commercials, and so on.
13. Sync Licensing (Label Aspect): Similar goes for the “recording” facet of the equation. For those who personal your personal tracks, you’re the label, and may receives a commission for sync placements.
14. Compose for Music Libraries: Prolific composer or producer? You may 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 could possibly additionally do chord-charts, tablature, lyric sheets, and extra.
Dwell Music Performances
16. Touring and Dwell Reveals: Play stay and receives a commission. This income may come within the type of ticket gross sales, door splits, bar percentages, or a assured price from the venue proprietor.
17. Residency Gig: Similar type of fee choices as above, however a residency is a usually 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 personal properties. These might be nice fan-building experiences and enable you promote a whole lot of merch, whereas decreasing strain for enormous turnout. Plus it can save you on journey bills if the host places you up for the night time.
19. DJing: For those who’re not touring, you may 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 perform. It’s surreal. And profitable.
21. Weddings and Personal Occasions: Carry out at weddings, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, household Christmas events, birthdays, and different kinds of personal occasions. These can typically 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 stay music as a part. Beer festivals. Balloon festivals. Meals festivals.
24. Busking: Play in a public area with a lot of foot 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. Could possibly be live-band karaoke, an enormous band or jazz group, and so on.
26. Play Cruise Ships: For those who don’t thoughts small rooms and plenty of months at sea, cruise ship gigs offer you an opportunity to play so much (typically a number of gigs per day), and supply downtime to concentrate on observe, recording, studying, and so on.
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 nicely, are normally shorter units, and have the potential to turn out to be 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 so on.
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 information, and even cassettes. Supply 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: Supply limited-edition or signed bodily copies of your music to followers. As an illustration, you could possibly promote tour-specific recordings that may by no means once more be out there to buy.
32. Digital merch: Not all merchandise should be bodily. You’ll be able to provide 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’ll have a trove of unreleased recordings. Give followers paid entry! Or bundle every little thing you’ve ever recorded right into a digital bundle with bonus tracks.
34. NFTs: “Non-Fungible Tokens.” These are crypto belongings on a blockchain that symbolize possession or engagement in some piece of music, imagery, neighborhood, paintings, or monetary association.
Music Training
35. Educate Music: Whether or not it’s personal classes or a teleconference tutorial, you may 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. Numerous upfront work, however with the potential for it to turn out to be 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 gaggle setting.
39. Visitor Lectures: Converse 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 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 complicated harmonies, blistering bluegrass breaks, or well-known saxophone solos? You may earn cash transcribing that music note-for-note. It may be work-for-hire earnings, or you could possibly publish these transcriptions in a e-book. Or on YouTube (with the potential for incomes advert income).
Crowdfunding & Fan Assist
41. Venture-Based mostly Crowdfunding: Use platforms like Kickstarter or GoFundMe to lift cash from followers to assist a particular recording, tour, advertising and marketing, or video challenge.
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 alternate for month-to-month fee, followers get unique or early entry to content material and different perks.
43. Fan Donations: Settle for donations straight from followers by way 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 Assist: That is income followers offer you for livestreaming. However in contrast to the Venmo or PayPal ideas talked about above, it could possibly come within the type of a platform-specific foreign money or motion: Stars, Bits, Subs, and so on.
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, photographs 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 a whole lot of dedication, however may 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 a whole lot of time and dedication. Think about accordingly how typically and if you wish 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 characteristic songs that turn out to be a part of the sport’s soundtrack, which refers again to sync licensing. Lastly, there’s a entire huge ecosystem of VGM covers on YouTube, the place artists do their very own inventive preparations of standard online game music. So if you happen to play a novel instrument, this may offer you a option to differentiate your self: Halo on accordion, Last 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, reminiscent of hip-hop, pop, or EDM? You’ll be able to 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’ll want to cost sufficient on 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 night time 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: 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 may 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 abilities to make use of reserving the acts at a neighborhood venue.
57. Venue Workers: Favor 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 stay sound. You may 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 evaluations, characteristic interviews, and extra. You might discover a possibility to do that as a side-gig on your native newspaper or arts weekly.
60. Musicology, Criticism, Editorial, and Curation: Put your deep information and fervour 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. When you’ve got nice technical facility in your instrument and reliable sight-reading abilities, you could possibly make a dwelling 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: When you’ve got a very good singing voice, you may have the ability to translate these dramatic abilities to offer 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 reminiscent of devices, music advertising and marketing instruments, or music manufacturing software program. In alternate, 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 evaluations, 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 completed, however… you probably 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 underneath the “merch” part, however that’s extra concerning the last product and gross sales. Turning into an writer is an endeavor all its personal, in fact. However if you happen to 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 could possibly write evaluations for an current publication, however you could possibly additionally host evaluations by yourself website 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 may monetize by way 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: When you’ve got blended media or web-development abilities, you could possibly create an immersive real-world or digital expertise. Emma McGann’s multi-player “Monsterverse” RPG in Discord is a good instance. You’ll be able to 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, 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 alternate for a price.
74. Open-Supply Collaboration: That is if you make some inventive work out there for others to make use of, with no clear thought of who will collaborate, or what precisely will consequence. Making stems downloadable for remixers is an apparent instance. You’ll be able to 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 objects on this checklist already, there’s sure to be many extra methods to generate income out of your musical abilities. And I needed to go away 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 fully 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 development and revenue.
However hopefully this lengthy checklist provides you an summary of your choices as you make a profession of your music, and as you complement your major music earnings sources with further income streams.
