How Do New Musicians Make Money? Is It Enough To Live On?
The music biz these days is a bit of a double-edged sword for new musicians. While you no longer have to land a record deal to reach an audience and make a living, today's world of self-publishing and streaming creates a lot of competition and noise to beat out. So, if you don’t need a record deal to build a music career, how do new musicians make money with music?
Performing is the primary way for new artists to earn a music-related income; playing small venues, private events, and broadly gigging. With 70% of independent artists earning less than $10,000 annually, most music industry newcomers supplement their music income with a non-music job.
There's nothing worse than having to sideline your passion for music, only to be forced to work a job to make ends meet. The only remedy is earning enough income from your passion, in order to be able to focus on it full-time. And that's what this article is all about - helping new artists earn more during live performances, so they can afford to focus on their music without financial constraints.
I'll walk you through three new ways to approach performing and provide you with clear steps on how to take action.
3 Live Performance Hacks For New Career Musicians
You most likely know that records no longer sell - they were replaced by streaming, but music streaming requires an insanely high volume of streams to see a livable wage (more on that in a bit.)
So by default, performing live immediately looks far more appealing as a method for earning an income - in fact, it's hands down the best way for a new artist to earn more. Don't take my word for it though, trust and follow the data.
A study of 5,000 musicians showed that the largest source of revenue for musicians came from performing. And it's not only the largest source but the largest by a significant margin.
This study was open-ended in terms of the experience of respondents, there was a wide range from newbies to those about to retire. For the sake of argument though, let's imagine this is a remarkable truth for all experience levels, including neophytes like yourself.
That is, performing is the primary path for new musicians to earn an income from music.
Great, so what now? I know what you're thinking, "This better not be one of those articles that tells me to book more shows and earn more money." It's not that, I pinky swear. Well, sort of.
I'm going to show you how to book more shows and earn more at those shows, BUT in a different way than you would normally go about it. Think of the following more as hacks to higher income as a musician.
1. How To Book More Dates
It's easy to think of venues you want to book - be it in town or even the world - but extremely difficult for a new artist to land them. What's even more difficult though, is the feeling you get from constantly waiting for venues to tell you when they need acts.
Being at the mercy of a venue's calendar, instead of your own is a drag.
You could certainly reverse engineer with venues if that's the direction you want to go, but what you're about to read focuses more on shifting your general approach to booking.
Putting you in the driver's seat, and having you dictate booking dates, rather than venues.
First and foremost, for this to work it requires you to think local and actively reach out. And if that makes you queezy, just think of how much you despise your second job that pays the bills - let that be your fuel.
Ready to proceed? Perfect.
1a. Local Church Festivals, Events, Gamedays
Yes, I said church. Pick your jaw up.
Playing a church festival doesn't mean you have to sing hymnals. I mean sure, if your set is an NC-17 rating, maybe skip the church festival circuit, but if you play at a bar or restaurant, this experience will include a similar crowd.
And maybe cut back on some songs with questionable language or strong innuendo.
Church festivals make for a perfect environment if you currently take live requests - here's what I mean.
In my small hometown, the twin pillars of civilization are football and the Catholic church. And every year, the Catholic church in town has a weekend festival that is the big event for the area, regardless of spiritual affiliations.
It has all the trappings of a carnival - games, rides, and of course funnel cakes. But it also has blackjack tables, beer by the keg, and most importantly, live music...
The doors open at 9 AM (as I said, it's a big deal back home), and wrap up around 11 PM. That's a wide window, especially since it lasts for three days - which means they need a lot of music.
Every year, the festival actively pursues acts to perform - which is great for growing your brand, and since they allow tips, it's prime real estate for artists of any skill level.
This isn't restricted to my hometown either - this happens in nearly every town and city across the country.
Did you know there are over 20,000 catholic churches in the US? I did some research on 15 churches in my current area (not just Catholic) - and every single one had an annual festival with live music, from local bands.
The majority of these churches also held Friday-Sunday events in the summer, with the majority falling within a 12p-10p window. So I feel confident estimating that you, the reader, have a high chance of finding a similar situation in your area.
If this is something you might explore, here's a simple way to figure out the opportunities around you.
Jump into Google Maps and search "church festival." If you don't get any hits, try searching "churches near me." This will quickly pull up locations within your vicinity.
Scroll up and down on the results, looking at the comments. Google will most likely pull information from reviews that people have left about festivals at churches, which I find amusing.
Once you have a confirmed target, click on the site. In some cases, you'll be pulled directly to a page about the festival, but if you aren't, look for a place on the site that says "events" or "calendar."
From there, locate the contact information. Most of the time, the festival landing page will have at least a contact email or phone number. But at best there will be a form field or button for people wishing to be a part of the next festival. Bingo.
If you hit a dead end when you get to the site, go to their Facebook page. Most of these organizations use Facebook as a way to recruit bands, and many church festivals even have a separate Facebook page dedicated to the 3-day event.
So, playing at a church wasn't in your vision, I get it. Remove the church part of this example if you like; this tactic works on so many levels for booking locally - gamedays, town festivals, parades, and more.
If you have any sort of minor league team nearby, they will love to hear from you, and are a perfect fit for an up-and-coming artist like yourself.
Minor league baseball or basketball teams have an insanely high amount of games per year. Plus, there is an expectation from fans that these teams not only play a sport in front of them but put on a show during downtimes.
Which means they are constantly hunting for new experiences.
Focus on where you and your neighbors regularly congregate, and odds are good that live music is part of the event. Fourth of July Parade, food festivals, Labor Day parties, local marathons, etc.
1b. Record Stores, Coffee Shops, Music-Centered Environments
Even though digital downloads have been the primary way people buy music for well over a decade, vinyl has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years. The phrase "record store day" wasn't even coined until 2008, and it's grown exponentially since then.
Record stores are great for new artists because they first and foremost love music, and I've never been to a record shop that wouldn't do just about anything to help a local group.
That's why you'll find record stores frequently have small in-store performances to help promote an artist or a new album release.
This may not be a paying gig on all occasions, but the audience that goes in and out is comprised of audiophiles, presumably there to spend money, so if you or you and your band play for tips, there's no shame in that game in a record store.
And obviously, if you have a way to further monetize or connect - take advantage of this space and audience. Bring your merch, and bring cards with QR codes to your Instagram or TikTok. Hell, stream it live.
Coffee shops, breweries, and wine bars are other great examples of this - as they are always looking for local acts to perform since music helps set the tone and atmosphere of their businesses and industries.
The theme here is thinking about local places where music is part of the experience.
1c. Businesses Built For The Community
In my current city, I can easily name five businesses that are all about supporting the city and propping its citizens up. This isn't limited to my experience either, it's a human truth to want to be proud of where you are and help make it better, by helping those around you.
You want to seek out the less-than-obvious options - no community centers or government-related organizations. What you're after ultimately is a business that will be having, or regularly has reason to celebrate.
Here's the approach to take to inject your brand into the local business community.
Head over to your local business-centric news Facebook page. or business publication. Because news, even at a local level, is so connected to their parent company's national news, it's going to be painful if you head to your local news website to find the right target. Oddly enough, local news is no fuss on Facebook.
Scroll or search for announcements. No ordinary announcement will do, you want to look for headlines about a local business expanding its office space because it's growing, or has started construction on a new office building. And a prime candidates will be businesses that are celebrating milestone anniversaries. Once you find them, time to reach out.
Contacting smaller organizations: If the business is smaller, you may be able to call or email to get in touch.
Contacting larger organizations: If it's a larger organization, bite the bullet and head to LinkedIn - you'll want to find a contact in HR, internal public relations, or event management. If you can't find anyone in that capacity, you could seek out someone in their organization that holds the public relations position - since they were most likely responsible for getting the story picked up in the news in the first place. If they aren't responsible for planning the actual event, they will at least know who to put you in touch with.
What you should say? This isn't as daunting as it might seem, but here's a quick script to start the convo: "Hi, I'm Kelly, and I saw your story in the Boise Cadette. I wanted to reach out and say congratulations. That's a real milestone, and I can appreciate it, as I'm starting my journey of building my business in music. Your achievement is definitely a cause for celebration, and I'm actively seeking out opportunities to perform at live events. I'd love to share some of my music with you, in the event that you all are celebrating this big moment and looking to spice it up with live music."
Milestones for local businesses that are newsworthy are often reasons to celebrate, and nine times out of ten, they are on the hunt for live music.
If it's not clear by now, you have to be proactive in your local community to make performing work hardest for you and your income. While you may be friends with local bands and musicians, you are all competing for the same audience and venues.
So shifting your performing strategy to include the not-so-obvious venues will help you reach your income goals, and quit that other job once and for all.
2. Livestreaming - From Local to Global
Thanks to the pandemic, a swelling of streaming gamers and everything under the sun, and a budding metaverse of virtual concerts, fans have more than warmed up to the idea of attending a livestream. And I won't take you through the nuances of how to live stream, that's been done too many times.
Instead, what I think is most valuable here for a new artist is building the live stream in reverse. So, what do you want to have to happen at the end of your show? Do you want 10,000 people live-streaming? Do you want $300 of tips after an hour-long set?
Well, in the spirit of getting you closer to full-time with your passion for music, I'll focus on the latter, which is a formula of listeners and engagement.
And while this may also seem extremely localized, as you continue your virtual gigs, your reach will move far beyond the confines of your location, because there are no geographical bounds to performing online.
For a new artist, your approach will need to rally around whatever strength you have in the engagement and reach department - and at a local level, here's what that could look like.
2a. Create Engagement Locally
Pick a streaming platform. Once you've landed on your platform of choice for streaming, you'll need to figure out what makes that platform click at a local level. In other words, how does your local community discover local content on that platform?
An appropriate example might be hashtags. Try to understand the trending hashtags at your local level in advance of your show.
What's hot on some platform in San Francisco is going to be different than what's popular in New York, and so on. You'll want to use this method to let the area know when you're playing and hit them with that message at frequency.
There's far more involved in hyping your community for a live-streamed show, but you get the gist.
Now comes the important part. Assuming you've got more of a local audience showing up to your stream, this is where you need to take your local knowledge and use it as ammunition for engaging your audience at the show.
Between songs, opening, closing, or even during songs, this is your time to shine on local knowledge. And I don't mean pointing out landmarks or anything like that.
Ask your audience where they're from - like what part of town level - hopefully, you know a bit about it, and can ask a question that shows you know or even crack a joke. Just something to really bring this to a one-to-one level with your listeners.
After all, that's the power of streaming music live.
The great part of this is there is very little prep needed because you live in an area that you know. And On the off-chance, you ask someone and they reply "Bulgaria" and you can barely find that on a map, let alone keep the convo rolling, I've got you covered there.
If you're completely new to engaging an audience while performing, start here. This includes a practical guide for speaking to your crowd during a performance - with tips throughout your show.
If you're all good in the "what to say" department, but looking to engage your audience more fully while on stage (or video)- then this other article on moving a crowd and building the "feels" will be helpful in your quest.
Alright, you've got the engagement part down - let's look at a way to get more people to the stream because this is where the magic happens.
2b. Partner Locally for Expanded Reach
Ok, so I dropped a hint of this above in the record store snippet, but this is one of the best ways for you to get expanded reach.
The ask here is rather simple - partner with a local business that you think would be a good fit for your music. It could be a bar, it could be a coffee shop, it could even be a clothing store.
As long as they have foot traffic moving through their location and an internet connection - you're in business.
Because a store with foot traffic often means they have online traffic - whether that's the obvious social media platforms, or the often overlooked email subscribers, they have a built-in audience that they can easily communicate with.
And that's where you come in.
You'll be performing at their location - streaming through the web - and in exchange for the performance and venue, you ask that they promote your show to their audience on their platforms, hang a sign in the window, and hand out flyers at the register, etc.
Most likely, you won't be compensated by the business for your time, but that's totally fine, you'll make up for it with tips during the stream (more on that next)
Pro Tip: If you can get the business to do some sort of promotion tied to your performance, such as an exclusive discount code that's revealed during the show, this is going to further cement that you aren't playing to crickets.
Partnering locally doesn't just rely on a business though. Even collaborating with local bands, especially ones with a broader reach than yourself, can be a great way to drive traffic to your stream.
Before you know it, your focus on working with the local community to build an audience online will naturally payoff. Your audience will expand beyond state lines and timezones, and you'll be selling out those arenas you always dreamed about.
3. Earn More Per Show.
You've now got the gigs. You're playing all around your local scene, and you've even managed to get some out-of-towners tuning in.
You're regularly packing the house - whether that's a coffee shop or the annual festival. But there's just one problem - you're still not earning enough to quit that dreaded daytime job.
This is the time to start making sure that every gig is paying you more than ever before. Actually, that time started the moment you did your first gig - be it online or physical.
For a performer getting their start, tips are going to be what makes or breaks your month. There's only one way to go about this, and it starts and ends with your listeners' tipping behaviors.
3a. Go Digital With Your Tips
Thanks to the pandemic and a budding metaverse, fans have more than warmed up to the idea of attending a concert virtually - which is great for your live-streaming ambitions. And you know what pairs perfectly with a virtual concert? A virtual tip jar!
So yes, SongMe is a virtual tip jar, but it was built by and for live musicians. It's for those who take song requests, who play in local environments, and for those who need an easy way to build demand for their music with no fuss.
As a newcomer to performing, if you don't know already, tips are the lifeblood of financial independence at the start of your music career. But you need to stop thinking of pickle jars and start thinking of digital wallets.
Don't believe me? Check this out...
Here are five facts to convince you to put down the jar and pick up the app... straight from "5 Reasons Audiences Want A Virtual Tip Jar":
Nobody has cash on them - Only 16% of Americans always carry cash
The younger the person, the less likely they use cash - 60% of millennials sometimes, rarely, or never have cash on them
They don't carry cash for tips - Only 10% of people that carry cash will use it for tips
They like cards over cash because of convenience - 59% of people prefer cards to 29% of people preferring cash, with 52% citing ease and convenience as their motivation to use a card
Covid killed cash - 58% of all adults in the US planned to stop using cash completely after Covid-19
Let's quickly replay this - if you live in the US and play for tips, you can assume your audience doesn't carry cash. If your audience is younger, there's even less of a chance they have a fiver on hand, and even if they do, it's not for you. They prefer to pay with plastic because it's just easier. And in this post-covid world, the majority plan to never use cash ever again.
If that's not a compelling argument to go digital with your tips, then I don't think you'll ever be convinced.
This isn't to say you couldn't still have a physical tip jar (I was just using hyperbole when I said to get rid of your pickle jar.) You'd be best served to keep both. But creating a convenient way for your audience to tip you for the experience you create is a must.
And, if you're streaming the experience, cash tips won't even be an option. If you go the Songme route for your digital tips, a bonus is that your tips and song requests instantly become more manageable and seamless.
Your fans/listeners can request songs from your library. They can assign a tip value to the request, and you can choose to accept the request or not. As soon as you do, the money goes into your wallet and you can quickly start playing the requested "Achy Breaky Heart."
3b. Don't Forget To Ask For Tips
On a separate, but related note (music pun), if you're newish to playing for tips, I know how it feels to talk about tips with an audience. It's like having "the talk" with your parents.
Back to music and tips though.
In your head you'd love to scream at the top of your lungs "You've enjoyed the show - so don't be cheap and throw some cash my way!" but instead, you try to avoid the subject altogether because it feels awkward.
And awkward is the last feeling you want to have while performing.
So your jar sits there looking like the loneliest glass in the bar, and you go the whole night without asking for tips in any manner. And it shows as you count the personal til at closing time...
If that sounds like you, I'd advise you to buy a shovel and bury that feeling deep inside, never to think of it again.
While you wait for your shovel to arrive from Amazon, check out numbers 4 and 5 in this article about earning more money as a musician.
The 4th bullet point is about how to get over the hump of being shy when asking your audience for tips, and the 5th bullet point is for those who faint at thinking of asking for tips, and how they can still talk about tips with an audience without verbalizing it.
Whether you're playing in-person or on the internet, you can utilize a virtual tip jar to pull in extra money (because who carries cash these days? That's right, nobody!) and interact with your audience by accepting song requests.
Seriously though, if you aren't going digital with tips, and how people support your music, you're leaving money behind.
Let's Do A Quick Recap
For a new entrant, local festivals, and event performances all tend to draw large crowds, which is the best way to plus up your earnings. And even when you get to the point where you're selling tickets to a show, and the price is at a premium, there will always be an audience eager to jump in.
It's the experience of live music that can't be replicated elsewhere. The reality is that fans crave something more than a Spotify playlist.
The experience of going to a local dive bar or a full-fledged concert and screaming your favorite song with a thousand others creates long-lasting memories. Everyone has the entire musical world at their fingertips, but nothing can replace that distinct feeling of live music.
And this is why performances are still the biggest source of income for musicians today, despite all of the digital advances.
Regardless of the stage or where you're at in your career, performing live music is one of the most common and thankfully lucrative spaces for musicians to earn money, especially compared to all the alternative income options available to musicians today.
So, How Do Musicians Get Paid From Gigs?
Typically, new artists will be paid in tips. As experience and demand grow, musicians will either be paid a flat fee for their performance, or they will earn a percentage of the profits made from ticket sales or merchandise sales, or both.
I've rolled through tips ad nauseam above, so I won't make you read through that again.
Regarding entrance fees though, they aren't the norm for anyone at the very beginning of their music career, but as you become more established, playing in front of an audience that actually knows who you are can demand higher ticket prices, and in turn, your cut of that.
Merch should most likely be your second focus for building income at performances. You'll want to have a product to sell that your fans will want to buy, and that won't put you in the poor house to produce. More on that in a minute.
I know the goal is to make this your full-time focus, but it's important to remember that every little bit helps when you're starting out. You could be playing gigs for free or very little just to get your name and music out there. And that has value.
Every booking has a compounding effect on your future work.
Once you've got your name out to the public, you become far more hirable for more gigs and private events. Weddings, school events, parties, or even benefit concerts, just to name a few. Any of these can bolster your brand and income. These opportunities will present themselves as time goes on, but they are by no means the only way to make money as a new artist in a new industry.
3 Additional Ways New Artists Can Earn An Income With Music
Performing live is the breadwinner for artists, but it's not the only way to make an income in music. There are other avenues open to newbies and more experienced artists alike that can help pad your wallet or even become a primary source of income.
While some require quite a bit of activity and attention, others behave more passively; generating income while you sleep, which is always a great feeling.
Let's first have a closer look at the shiny object known as "music streaming royalties," then dig into merchandise and sync royalties.
1. New Artists And Streaming
I bet streaming your music is one of the first things that come to mind when thinking of ways to supplement your music career income. I get it. Making your music available on the platforms where you probably experience music in your daily life is a logical progression.
And if you were looking online for how new musicians earn money today, you'd be served with countless search results that list a dozen or so ideas, with streaming as the first result.
I'm afraid I have bad news though. That's all clickbait, appropriate for the top .001% of artists.
It's completely irrelevant for 99.999% of artists today, but even more for the artist just starting. Don't believe me? Well, among the four largest music streaming services (Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify) the highest-paying platform doles out $.01 per stream, and the worst-paying (Spotify) pays $.033 per stream.
And here's the catch, a stream on Spotify is classified as 30-seconds or longer - so if you don't get a listen tuning in for longer than that, then you don't get paid.
I geeked out about this topic because I was initially curious which streaming service paid the best. What I discovered is that the best streaming payment is still terrible, and certainly not the first place to start a music career.
While each streaming service differs in how much they pay per stream, the vast majority of artists would need one million listens to make $10k a year from the most generous of streaming platforms, Apple Music, which pays out $.01 with every play. (To make the same amount on Spotify? Triple that number.)
When you consider that less than two percent of Spotify artists surpass one thousand dollars worth of earnings over a year, while music streaming services in the US had $12.4 billion in revenue during 2021, it might feel like a lost cause.
To be successful with streaming, you need high volume. Like higher than high volume. This isn't to say you shouldn't make your music available on Spotify or one of its greedy siblings.
I'm only suggesting that being new to the industry, streaming is not a reliable or lucrative way to bring in income, or get you out of a daytime job, so you can pursue music full-time.
Streaming Royalties and Musicians
I hope I'm not over-assuming here, but since you're new to the scene, you may want to know how streaming technically ends up in the wallets of artists.
Music streaming falls into two categories of music royalties - mechanical royalties and performance royalties. Which are the two most common music royalties, the other two are far less used.
Mechanical royalties used to primarily occur when a CD or vinyl was pressed and sold - paid by the company to a collection group on behalf o the artist/publisher/pantheon of ownership. Today, this same concept is what drives streaming services like Spotify, where every stream has a royalty fee.
Performance royalties have historically occurred when a song is played on a radio station, or at your local restaurant, you know, the music you wish they would turn down so you could hear your table. Yeh, someone is earning a royalty for that.
The entrance of digital streaming completely transformed the role of performance royalties, where music played in a digital environment mimics that of a radio station playing in public. Pandora Radio is the easiest way to understand this.
Mechanical and performance royalties drive the royalties business of music today, but artists rarely see all of the windfalls from this.
That money starts small and gets even smaller as it's usually carved up with a line of others involved in the process of making and publishing that music.
The takeaway here is that royalties are not the purpose of streaming if you are trying to build a music career. Your concern should be primarily on growing the listenership with streaming platforms, not the streaming revenue.
It’s most important to put yourself out there. Making yourself available on these streaming services is a great way to build your fan base and get your music in the ears of new listeners by creating playlists or even connecting with playlist curators.
But it is nice knowing that if you register your music, any time your music is played or distributed, whether it’s streamed online, or played in a bar or restaurant -- you’re not only getting more exposure, but you’re earning a couple of coins in the process.
2. Merchandise Is Great For New Musicians
Selling merchandise is another money-making strategy that artists have used for decades. And it's stronger than ever.
Both historically and today fans love to grab concert swag in the form of t-shirts, stickers, posters, and even perfumes to remind them of an amazing experience.
While that may seem to only apply to well-established acts, new musicians can also benefit from selling merchandise to their fans. You could just as easily set up shop while playing live, place your merch next to your virtual tip jar signage, or physical tip jar.
It acts as an alternative to directly tipping, and you will most likely make more on a merch purchase than a straight-up tip.
As a new artist, your number one goal should be to get your music in as many ears as possible or get your brand in as many hearts and minds as you can muster. And selling merch is a great way to do that.
When you sell someone a physical product, you're also giving them something to remember you by. The best part about merch for artists is that aside from the cost of goods of the physical item, you keep all the proceeds.
This is the primary reason artists of all popularities love to merchandise.
Leveraging merch as an income stream isn't confined to where you physically perform. You should heavily consider either creating a website for your music or using social to promote your band, with the additional purpose of having an online storefront on the platform.
Once you've set that up, you should make your merch available online.
The downside of merch is that it costs money - it's an investment, and it might take a while to get your investment back. What I would recommend since you're just beginning your journey into professional music, is to look into a service like Printify.
With Printify (and there are lots of options here similar to Printify) you don't have to buy any inventory, whether that's t-shirts, mugs, or whatever thousands of items they have on their site.
You simply pick the items, submit a design you want on that item, and then connect your online storefront to the products. And that's all you have to do to set it up. This service is called print-on-demand and there's a lot to like about it:
You have zero risk: If you don't have the cash or don't want to risk the investment on swag just yet, there's no risk to this. You don't have to buy a single item to participate. The tradeoff is that a service like Printify will take a larger cut of the proceeds from every transaction, compared to if you purchased the item in full. But that's a very small downside for starting up.
Fulfillment is not your responsibility: If you've ever had to fulfill orders, you will appreciate this. Counting inventory, picking, packing, shipping, customer service - it's a nightmare. And with something like Printify, you don't have to do any of that.
Workings online and offline: Printify is certainly easier to promote online, but just because you don't hold physical inventory that shouldn't prevent you from still promoting your merch at your shows. You can order a sample of each, get a QR code going that links to your site, and if someone at your physical shows wants to purchase, they can get it just as easily online. Plus, they don't have to lug it around all night.
Pro Tip: Jump on Fiverr or any sort of graphic design freelancer site to get designs created for your swag. This will help tremendously with sales while doing so on the cheap.
Props to Printify for their article on how to make money with music band merch - definitely check it out. It's got some great tips that can help you save some cash on your merch.
3. Licensing Your Music For TV, Commercials, Etc.
Licensing music, which is a royalty that permits using your work for commercial purposes, takes many forms. And you might think it's unrealistic that you could get your music in a show or film, but this happens far more often than you might think.
Plus, it pays far better than streaming (licensing for TV/Commercials is classified as a sync royalty by the way) and acts as a springboard for exposure to your work.
Artists can license their music to television, movies, video games, and even trailers to bring in some bucks.
There is a negotiation that happens between a content producer, and the publishers and songwriters. A fee is paid upfront, and royalties are paid once the piece has been distributed to the media.
Licensing music is a great way for lesser-known musicians to have their music heard. As an example of this, many filmmakers generally choose music based on what they think fits the scene and the vibe of the movie. This means that they’re not necessarily going to pick the songs at the top of the charts.
The challenge is getting your music in front of the right person. And that's not easy. But there are publishers out there that focus on this, and they take on independent artists. Ditto Music is one of many in this space.
The steps are simple. You get your music into a production music library, and then it can be licensed for a variety of things - games, commercials, movies, etc.
A lot of independent musicians choose this as a source of income because they can make a decent amount of money, and in general, it's a pretty passive source of revenue compared to going on stage.
So, Can New Musicians Actually Make Money?
The bottom line is that new musicians can make money, but you have to be willing to put time and effort into it. You have to invest yourself fully in your craft and have a certain level of patience.
To make it happen more rapidly, have a strategy that looks at performing differently than your peers. Find openings that have less competition and more revenue yield.
And it's not just a numbers game - or in this case, not just the quantity of bookings you can get, squeezing every dollar out of every performance is just as important to the number of bookings.
Being smart and making real money means you need to maximize to the nth degree what you take home after every single performance.
While there are musicians that are consistently at the top of the charts, the vast majority are working towards a steady income but are all thinking about it in the same way. Use that insight to your advantage.
And Even though it can be a stressful career path, it is very rewarding all the same. I mean, you get to entertain so many people, meet new faces, and bring joy. That's incredible. And certainly beats any other job out there.
Every gig might not be the most successful, but the feeling of creating music is a wonderful gift of its own.
So can you make money as a musician? Yes. You may be a part-time musician for a while, but that’s okay. With a little patience, consistency, and focus, you can make a decent income. And while you may not become Stevie Ray Vaughn-level famous right off, it is worth putting in the time and effort to build your dream career as a musician.
