How To Make Money With Music – For many musicians, the global pandemic has hit hard on their careers. Making music has had to change from in-person or live performances and gigs at locales to going completely virtual and online.
At this point, it seems like being a musician in today’s society is much too hard a career.
Making music is a true art form, however, and there are many ways that musicians can still dominate the market in entertainment by pivoting their music business to making money with music. Let’s explore many of the ways that musicians have for making music nowadays.
SELLING TICKETS ONLINE
If you have a band or a group, you can create an online concert or gig. You can also do this solo. You could post some “hype” on social media of you performing a song or two, to get people interested if you don’t have a large following. Create an email list and build up the anticipation of the upcoming “show” that you can stream online for fans. Selling tickets will help gain you profit without a lot of fees, either, since you don’t have to pay any venue to host you if you can just work right from home and perform.
You can take things a step further and pre-record all of the songs you want with your group, or collaborate with other musicians to make a group, and broaden your reach. This could potentially cost some money if you utilize any audio/video software to put it all together once recorded, but then you can easily create yourself a live premiere of your recordings for your fans to view after purchasing their “ticket” to see the performance.
LICENSING AND DISTRIBUTION OF YOUR MUSIC
If you have music to sell, finding a music licensing company to host your music for creatives is a fantastic way to make money. Marmoset Licensing Agency is one of the top licensing companies that hosts a plethora of independent artists to assist producers, directors, and managers in finding the “perfect music” for their projects.
You not only will have the opportunity to promote yourself as an artist but also achieve more visibility, and possibly find future means of income. When a business signs a contract to utilize your music for their next commercial, they can approach you again for more knowing that they’ve already worked with you. Licensing agencies also take care of all of the documentation, distributing and finding your work, so it makes the process very easy for you to focus on creating your music.
ONLINE COURSES AND/OR MASTERCLASSES
Extensive knowledge in music, such as songwriting, how to play an instrument, or even how to start a music career are things that people want to learn. If you haven’t already considered it, you can teach music lessons to those who want to learn, or who’s parents want to enroll them in music education. You could coordinate a songwriting class, over a course of lessons that you pre-record for students to learn, or in one webinar or masterclass, maybe even in collaboration with other musicians to provide their own insight and knowledge. It’s a lucrative business, especially now, that can earn you a great deal of income.
As an example – you can create a master course in songwriting if you write many of your own songs. If you don’t want to create a full course right off the bat, take to YouTube and create a channel, uploading mini videos of yourself walking your potential students through each part of the songwriting process, from how to come up with the idea for a song to how to get it written on sheet music, and give them an in-depth look into the inner workings of how you create a song like a true musician in the business. There are many musicians out there who don’t know the first thing about how to write a song and would be very interested in learning more about it.
The key to creating a course or hosting a masterclass is that you’re going to get out how much you put into it, so depending on how far you want to go or how you present yourself to your audience, you can stand to make courses or masterclasses that can be bought and used again and again. This is what is also known in the online world as “passive income” since their goal is that they will continue to bring you money after you’re done creating it.
SELL MUSIC/BAND MERCHANDISE
All bands, groups, and solo artists need to brand themselves. This is how you are recognized by your fans and followers. It is an easy enough feat to start your own store, either on a simple platform like Etsy or Shopify, and put your music logo on things like t-shirts and other apparel, mugs, glasses, and more for people to purchase. Maybe your group has a fun saying, or you can make a pun with the band name, or some lyrics from a popular song that you can also put on apparel to sell.
This might require the purchase of a press kit and whatever you plan to put the logo on (shirts, mugs, etc.) so that you can do it. It might be a great idea to reach out to someone who owns their own boutique business like this and see how they do things, maybe find out if they can help you get started. This is another good way to have potential passive income, where you can create new items for purchase as you continue to make new music and broaden your following.
DISCUSS IDEAS WITH OTHER MUSICIANS
Find out what other musicians are doing to continue to earn money right now, and do some research of your own to find the best ways to earn money with music. An important part of having a music career is knowing how to market well. Gaining an understanding of your ideal audience and knowing how to target and brand your music to grow your following is important, so that is another good place to start.
Other musicians’ suggestions may help you spark another exciting hobby that pertains to your music, whether it’s collaborating to perform for a charity, or submitting your writing for music blogs. There are many possibilities and opportunities to utilize music to earn income beyond the scope of live performance.
