How to make money with a musical side hustle
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If you are a musician looking to make additional income at home, you may wonder what you can do, especially during the times when it’s more challenging to find that all important paid work as a musician.
You’ll want to find ways to advertise your services, so take the example from musician, rapper and music producer, Scotty Li who made money from his love of music from an early age.
Thanks to online platforms, you can build a successful music career as either a composer or musician for your side hustle, or even eventually your main source of income. There are endless opportunities to build your business when you meet people while gigging, on social media, and through specialist websites for musicians that are open to work.
For some ideas where you can get started, follow some of these tips below.
Sell your music online
Whatever your style of music- contemporary pop, indie, jazz, country, or R&B, with a huge demand for new music all the time, there will be a market for your music.
Recording your music to a high enough quality to sell will require having access to professional quality recording equipment and/or renting studio time. Once you have your recordings, you may be able to sell your music online through services such as bandcamp, itunes, and spotify.
Write and record music for other people
If you have access to your own studio and want to make some additional income, you can technically ‘rent’ your space out to other artists. If you are an instrumentalist you can offer to pay accompaniment for an additional fee. This alone could end up being a full-time job if you get enough interest.
You could also team up with fellow musicians who don’t have writing skills to put out tracks to sell. It will be up to you and the other musician(s) to decide how you will split the fees.
Make videos of your music
Many of today’s music artists had previously been discovered by record agencies after they gained popularity on video sharing sites such as YouTube. Examples of these musicians are; The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, and Ed Sheehan, whose lives have been drastically changed as a result of posting their music online.
As your following grows and your videos begin to rack up more views you can then take advantage of the monetization offered through YouTube advertising.
Become a record producer at home
Even the most talented musicians or sometimes need help making sure their music is of the highest quality. If you have the skills to produce music and get other artists' recordings in shape to release, or even produce remixes, then you may be able to offer your services as a professional music producer.
Gone are the days of spending hours and hours at professional recording studios when most things can be done at home and even collaboratively across the globe with the help of the Internet. By producing music you will get to use your skills as a musician to generate an income, support other artists and develop connections and ties that will help you to develop your career further.
