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 how, actually!
When 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 big 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 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 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 is usually a nice income between your individual recording tasks or excursions.
7. Session Participant: Obtained 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’ll be able to attend classes in particular person, or do distant session work from your individual residence studio.
8. Studio Operator: Do you personal a number of recording gear that goes unused if you’re not making music? Possibly it’s time to contemplate 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 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: Accumulate 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 reside 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 price — and in some circumstances, ongoing royalties — when your music is positioned in movie, TV, video games, commercials, and so forth.
13. Sync Licensing (Label Aspect): Identical goes for the “recording” facet of the equation. For those who personal your individual tracks, you’re the label, and may receives a commission for sync placements.
14. Compose for Music Libraries: Prolific composer or producer? You possibly can 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 is usually a huge vendor. (New Age Piano, anybody?) However don’t simply consider notation; you might 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 price from the venue proprietor.
17. Residency Gig: Identical type of cost choices as above, however a residency is a repeatedly scheduled factor. It might be “7 nights in a row in July” or “Each different Thursday all yr.”
18. Home Concert events: Play intimate live shows in personal houses. These may be nice fan-building experiences and enable you promote a number of merch, whereas decreasing strain for big 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’ll be able to 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 huge 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 different kinds 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 season beer backyard within the park, the Arts Stroll. Verify together 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 reside music as a element. Beer festivals. Balloon festivals. Meals festivals.
24. Busking: Play in a public area with plenty of foot visitors for suggestions. Subway stations. City squares. Boardwalks and piers. Simply examine 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. Might be live-band karaoke, a giant band or jazz group, and so forth.
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 rather a lot (typically a number of gigs per day), and supply downtime to give attention to observe, 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 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 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 could have heard, followers nonetheless buy CDs, vinyl data, and even cassettes. Provide them in all the identical locations you’d your merch, in addition to in document shops by way of 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 can by no means once more be accessible to buy.
32. Digital merch: Not all merchandise have to be bodily. You’ll be able to 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 every part you’ve ever recorded right into a digital package deal with bonus tracks.
34. NFTs: “Non-Fungible Tokens.” These are crypto property on a blockchain that characterize possession or engagement in some piece of music, imagery, neighborhood, art work, or monetary association.
Music Schooling
35. Educate Music: Whether or not it’s personal 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 means that helps folks enhance their well-being.
37. On-line Programs: Create and promote a digital course. It might 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” earnings as soon as your advertising 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: Converse at colleges, faculties, or music seminars. These are sometimes paid alternatives, however even for those who’re an unpaid speaker at a music convention, it is best 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 possibly can earn cash transcribing that music note-for-note. It could be work-for-hire earnings, or you might publish these transcriptions in a ebook. Or on YouTube (with the opportunity of incomes advert income).
Crowdfunding & Fan Help
41. Undertaking-Primarily based Crowdfunding: Use platforms like Kickstarter or GoFundMe to lift cash from followers to help a particular recording, tour, advertising, or video challenge.
42. Membership Golf equipment: You should utilize a subscription-model platform like Patreon, or construct your individual on-line fan subscription by your web site. In trade for month-to-month cost, followers get unique or early entry to content material and different perks.
43. Fan Donations: Settle for donations straight from followers by 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 offer you for livestreaming. However in contrast to the Venmo or PayPal suggestions talked about above, it could possibly come within the type of a platform-specific forex or motion: Stars, Bits, Subs, and so forth.
45. VIP Experiences: Provide 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: For those who’re a prolific author, you could 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 number 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 exhibits, and documentaries. Like many areas of specialization, this area can require a number of time and dedication. Think about accordingly how typically and if you wish to settle for scoring work.
49. Video Recreation 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 complete large ecosystem of VGM covers on YouTube, the place artists do their very own artistic preparations of standard online game music. So for those who play a novel instrument, this would possibly offer you a option to differentiate your self: Halo on accordion, Ultimate 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’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 document 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. Document Retailer: Gig at night time and work at a document retailer in the course of the day. You’ll keep on prime of the most recent music releases, as nicely brush up on the classics.
54. Music Retail: Quite 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 possibly can begin your individual 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: Choose extra of the “on the bottom” venue expertise? You possibly can be a bartender, bouncer, field workplace assistant, or venue supervisor.
58. Stay Sound Engineer: Each good venue wants good reside sound. You possibly can be the important thing to creating that occur. Bonus factors for those who’re not a grump!
Different Music Professions
59. Music Journalism: Write present previews, album evaluations, characteristic interviews, and extra. You might discover a chance to do that as a side-gig on your native newspaper or arts weekly.
60. Musicology, Criticism, Editorial, and Curation: Put your deep data 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. When you have nice technical facility in your instrument and reliable sight-reading abilities, you might make a residing 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: When you have a superb 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: Associate 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 instruments, or music manufacturing software program. In trade, 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 evaluations, and hyperlink to the producer or retailer, and earn a fee on any gross sales.
67. Be an Influencer: “Influencer Advertising?” Simpler mentioned than finished, however… in case you have a big social following, you could possibly 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. Turning into an creator is an endeavor all its personal, in fact. However for those who already show a knack for lyric-writing, you could have longer-form literary expertise too. It might 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 evaluations for an current publication, however you might additionally host evaluations by yourself web site within the hopes of monetizing your weblog by advert placements and affiliate income.
70. Podcasting: Begin a podcast about your music, adventures, or different pursuits. For those who get enough engagement, you’ll be able to monetize by adverts, sponsorships, or listener help.
71. Competitions: These might be rap battles, songwriting challenges, bluegrass competitions. There could also be an entry price, however that additionally means there might be a giant payout for those who win.
72. Interactive Music Experiences: When you have combined 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’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 Companies: 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 trade for a price.
74. Open-Supply Collaboration: That is if you make some artistic work accessible 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’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 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 tremendous. They shouldn’t. All of us have our personal specialties and pursuits. Greatest to give attention to what’s rewarding, each when it comes to private development and revenue.
However hopefully this lengthy listing 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 further income streams.
