All language subtitles for There Are ONLY 5 Ways to Make Money in Music

hi this is justin colletti of sonic

scoop thanks for joining me for this

week's episode of the sonic scoop

podcast and today we're gonna be talking

about how to make money in music the

only five ways actually to make money in

music i'm gonna make a bold claim this

week there are only five ways to make

money in music and pretty much anyone

you know of who is making money in music

whether that's at the highest levels of

beyonce or taylor swift or metallica or

kanye west or whoever and the most

humble music careers whether it's

someone you know personally or you're

like wow you actually make a living in

music and you're not super famous how do

you do that all of these people are

really making money in music in one of

these five ways and usually not just one

of these five ways most people who are

making a living or respectable income

and music have at least three of these

going on some of them four some of them

all five but it's rare that you'll find

people who are successful in music who

only are tapped into one of these

potential music income streams

now i'm cheating a little bit with this

list because under each of these five

broad categories there's a whole bunch

of subcategories or specific examples we

can give and i'm going to give you a lot

of specific examples but i think

thinking about the way that you can make

money in music as being basically one of

these five methods is a great conceptual

framework to have that's going to help

you think through this problem much more

clearly and along the way i'll give you

countless specific examples some of them

might be relevant to you some of them

you might not have thought of doing and

let's just get right into it the only

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let's get right into it what are these

only five ways to make money in music

and what are some examples of them well

let's start with the most obvious the

most obvious thing that people have

stuck in their brains about how to make

money in music is basically number one

selling a product people still have in

their minds for whatever reason album

sales even young people who never really

bought albums a lot of them are

interested in making an album but i'm

finding more and more that it's people

in their 30s and up who are really

clinging to this idea of albums i think

finally some of the younger people are

kind of following the advice that i give

in this podcast which is not to try to

start out with an album but to really

think about your music career very

differently than being driven by albums

especially if you're new albums are

something to work up to once you have an

actual fan base who want a lot more

music from you but in the beginning most

of you not your best bet to go out and

focus on making an album right out of

the gate but there are things like album

sales single sales and we can put into

this category also streams even

streams you're not technically directly

selling a product but you are putting

out there here's the product listen to

my music and if you listen to my music

i'm going to get paid something so

streams we put into this category of

selling a product direct to end consumer

who wants to listen to that product

but there's other stuff that's just as

important in this area of selling a

product one of the big things here is

merch and it is a huge thing for artists

selling things like t-shirts or polo

shirts or beanies or stickers that kind

of stuff yes selling actual merchandise

whether in person at concerts or

online or as part of a patronage model

which we'll get into later is absolutely

huge for artists and you can make a

significant portion of your income off

of merchandise that isn't specifically

music

so this is the obvious one

album sales single sales streams

merchandise sales

also could be things like videos that

you're selling or special behind the

scenes content but some of that will get

into a little bit more deeply when we

talk about patronage coming up in number

three before we get to that i want to

get to what is probably the most

important source of revenue for so many

of the major career artists today and

that is not selling the product it is

selling experiences

often things like concerts in-person

concerts i know we just came out of a

period where in-person contracts really

took a backseat for a while as a whole

world practically shut down but the

world is coming back to life and one of

the things that people have reliably

sought out through all of human history

is communal group musical experiences

this is how most people have experienced

music for most of human history

going back you know not just a couple

hundred years but tried tens of

thousands of years where most music much

of the time was a communal enterprise

and people really just deep down in

their dna still hunger for connection to

live musical experiences where they're

resonating with other human beings in

real time like at the same frequency and

if you have ever had a live concert

experience that blew you away you know

what i'm talking about these are

life-altering never forget them for your

entire life experiences i'm not just

talking about going to see your crappy

friend's band play as a favor on some

weeknight at 10 o'clock and you're like

why am i

not home and why am i friends with this

person i'm talking about a musical

experience you sought out these when

they're done well blow people's hair

back and change their lives in that

moment and give a real lasting impact

these things can be like cornerstone or

kind of book and moments in their lives

i can't say enough about how much people

respond to live music and how big and

important it is to most artists relative

to things like direct sale of a product

so if you're able to create experiences

whether

in person or kind of live stream stuff

over the internet that can potentially

work as well

that stuff is big and it's bigger for

more artists today than our record sales

a funny thing happened in the

end of the 20th century beginning the

21st century for a lot of the middle of

the 20th century artists would put on

concerts almost as a lost leader to sell

their actual high margin product which

was a record and that's where they would

get maybe a bulk of their revenue but

today it's pretty much reversed we're

often recorded music which is cheaper

and easier to make than ever before and

easier to distribute than ever before is

often almost like a lost leader for

the live experiences for the concert

and this is not to say that you should

just think about throwing away money on

your recorded music if you're really

taking music seriously you want to be

smart about recording and producing

music to hopefully make that at least

break even if not profitable

but with that said

you don't necessarily look for all of

your significant income to come from the

sale of recorded music anymore that is a

mid-20th century idea that complain

about it if you want to is not the

reality in the 21st century the reality

in the 21st century is a lot of artist

revenue coming from number two which is

creating an experience in person

concerts or even online live experience

but there's also number three that we

have to talk about and this one is a big

thing in the 21st century and it was

also big hundreds of years ago and this

is the patronage model

and this is a huge factor for artists

today making a career especially at the

independent levels especially the lower

levels of income especially for new

artists but a lot of artists who have

become established in the past handful

of years even if they're big artists

this has been a significant part of what

they're doing and patronage could be a

few things it could be having a

subscription on youtube for special

behind the scenes content and extra

access it could be something like

patreon or locals or one of these other

websites that is based on a patronage

model can also be things like

kickstarter indiegogo or gofundme i'm

throwing out a whole bunch of names but

there's a whole bunch of websites that

basically take this idea and put their

own spin on it

so the patronage model basically means

that

people are giving you money

not directly just for a product

and that's the big difference between

selling a product number one and

patronage number three which is that

people are giving you money

not necessarily specifically in return

for something

now they are often getting something in

return for their dollars

but they know that it's

not as inexpensive as it would be to

just buy something they know that part

of what they're doing is supporting an

artist

so that artists can make awesome content

so that artist can continue to make

awesome art that they are a supporter of

the artist and helping to enable what

that artist does knowing full well that

some people are going to enjoy what this

artist is doing without paying for it at

all or paying a much lower price now

there can be some exclusivity in the

patronage model there might be kind of

limited edition releases that are just

for patrons there might be kind of

exclusive behind the scenes things or

exclusive live experiences just for

these patrons but part of the value that

someone is getting out of patronage is

just like the good feeling of supporting

that artist and the fact that other

people are going to be able to hear that

artist and part of it is kind of like

bragging rights to be able to say you

got one of these kind of exclusive perks

that maybe not every consumer out there

has access to

so that's patronage in the kind of

direct to consumer almost end of things

but there's also businesses that will

patronize artists

and there's a few different things you

could put into this category you could

almost see it like when an artist has

their song that was previously made put

into an advertisement you could almost

consider that patronage

the brand is kind of buying the goodwill

of supporting this artist and they're

using a little bit of that artist's

music in their advertisement so you

could almost look at advertising as

being connected to this patronage model

but there's also a lot of brands who

will pay

influencers online personalities some

amount of money to basically be users or

supporters of their product so that kind

of goes into patronage as well this is

where a brand isn't necessarily paying

for a specific new song to be created

for them but they're kind of throwing a

bone at the artist to be associated with

the artist and to be associated with a

good will of supporting that artist

now this does potentially get a little

bit messy and you could potentially

break this up into two categories

patronage and branding and maybe those

could be two distinctly different

categories but a lot of the times when

artists interact with brands it's

actually going to fall in the next

category for today's purposes and that

is providing a service

and there's so many ways you can do this

i mean an artist or a musician or a

player or a singer of some kind can

provide a service by guesting on another

artist's tracks playing guitar solo

doing a verse or singing the chorus on a

track or doing arrangement or some type

of writing or beat making for another

artist that's providing a service

music production in general the kind of

thing that i do

audio engineering

mastering whether you're producing or

mixing those kinds of things are

providing a service often to other

artists as a stream of revenue and it's

not just other artists either it could

be things like being like a wedding band

or a band for hire for some corporate

gigs there are so many areas in which

musicians make an income that aren't the

things that we think about when we think

about glitzy pop stardom or art rock

stardom or whatever you're into i mean

being the band for a cruise ship that is

selling your services as you know band

director to some cruise line like that's

a job that people do you'd be amazed at

how many musicians make a good living

doing wedding band stuff i mean those

dates actually pay a decent amount of

money to musicians who just like

learning a lot of songs and playing a

lot of songs and for some people it's

very fulfilling for some people they'd

never want to be involved in it but just

know that that is fits into that

category of selling a service and that

could be production it could be playing

and there's so many contexts in which

this might occur and a lot of those

contexts might not have even occurred to

you yet

i'd even argue that most audio jobs like

if you're thinking about i would love

like a staff job at a studio of some

kind those don't exist

that much they're often freelance

independent contractor work for hire

stuff but even if you do become like an

employee for some studio doing some type

of audio or music related job

you're kind of selling a service you're

selling your skills to some other party

who's ultimately selling a product and

you are selling your service to that

person who's selling a product or your

service is the product say in the case

of you know being a musician in a

wedding band so

that's number four providing a service

there's other areas still within this

where writing music for films

if you are doing commissioned work for

film or tv you're selling a service

much more so than you're selling a

product

and the big difference here between

selling a service and selling a product

when you're selling a product you're

creating something and then hoping that

there are buyers out there for it

with selling a service you're connecting

with someone who needs something and

then together agreeing on what that

product is going to be the thing that

you're going to do for them you could

argue that writing library music stock

music as a service um in a way you could

kind of put that under number one

selling a product but that's another way

to do music for hire where you're

writing and recording some cues and

hoping they get picked up but it's not

just film and tv shows and video games

that you could be writing music for it

is also

advertising a lot of times in the

advertising world they are commissioning

work so many of the commercials that you

see are using unique new creations and

that's kind of a service where they're

going to some production house that

makes music for their ads they might

work with a stable of kind of writer

producers who are creating the music

that then goes into ads we had a guest

on the podcast a guy named tommy z who

talked completely about that angle and

he has a whole course on making money

through advertising making money off of

selling music to brands so this is a few

examples of this idea of providing a

service whether it's playing on a

session

guest spots collaborating whether it's

playing in a wedding band doing audio

jobs writing music for film television

video games commercials etc there you're

selling a service

and then number five and

this is probably the one

where the most people have made the most

money in music

this one goes back

centuries millennia

as being

one of the most powerful ways for

professional musicians to make money

and that is

teaching

teaching other people how to make better

music

this is absolutely huge whether you're

the private guitar tutor or singing

coach or whether you're the kind of

person who teaches music production

online i wonder if you know any people

like that

this has always been a big component in

the arts

because one of the things you have to

remember

about the arts

is it's not just about people

buying an end product

it's about people wanting to participate

in it

and one of the major realities here is a

lot of you listening to this right now

may never make a sustainable income off

of music

but that might not be what drives you in

music you might be doing music because

you love doing it

i did a whole episode on this about four

or five months ago this whole idea that

music is more like a participant sport

than a spectator sport

there's probably other things you have

in your life like music that you do not

need to make an income off of to be

worthwhile

i mean i have my hobbies that have

absolutely nothing to do with making me

an income

jiu jitsu is one of them that i talk

about sometimes in the podcast recently

i've been getting into archery i've been

shooting a bow out in my backyard a lot

that's been a ton of fun i never planned

to be a professional archer but here i

am taking some money out of my pocket to

like support the archery community and

there are professional archers who i

learn from you know whether it's online

or people who are making archery

products that i purchase you know

whatever hobby you might have

cycling is like this

weight lifting is like this

most video games are like this

it's it's about

getting some fulfillment from doing it

itself and in that context

teachers of music

have always been big and a lot of the

professional artists out there the best

professionals out there many of them in

some way shape or form do some teaching

don't look down your nose at this kind

of idea because honestly the best

teachers

are in my opinion

often

some of the best practitioners

now this is not to say that just because

you're an amazing musician you're going

to be an amazing teacher no

but people who are amazing teachers are

usually at least very good at the thing

that they are teaching

and this whole idea of there being such

a thing as a teacher who's not very good

at the thing that they are teaching i

think is

a very recent construct of the i don't

know mid to late 20th century public

government-run school system where you

expect there to be some teachers who

aren't actually that great at the thing

that they're teaching but like that's

what they could get a job in but

throughout most of human history the

norm has been if someone is good at

teaching something

it's because they're at least good at

doing it and the best teachers have

always been

really capable practitioners

maybe not the best practitioners in the

world there are maybe some of the best

practitioners in the world and a lot of

crafts who are not the best teachers

and maybe sometimes it's those people

who struggled a little bit more to get

good who make the best teachers but i've

got to tell you as much of an impact as

your favorite artists can have in your

life and inspiring you and giving you

amazing music to listen to

a great teacher

can have even more of an impact in your

life

and can be in ways even more inspiring

to you because they're helping you

create music that comes

somewhat close to the kind of music that

you love listening to

if you can be that for someone else and

help them improve in their craft

even if it's not your only source of

income it can be extremely fulfilling

and it can be a great way of making

additional income additional revenue as

an artist

now the interesting thing about teaching

is it almost goes full circle again

because you can make money as a teacher

in all of the different ways that we've

just discussed there's number one

selling a product shameless plug i have

full-length courses mixing breakthroughs

mastering demystified compression

breakthroughs those things are courses

that i sell to people it's a product so

as a teacher you can do that kind of

thing as a teacher you can create

experiences i do live q and a's for the

members of these courses i also do live

one-on-one mix coaching

you can have a patronage model as a

teacher i don't really do it i prefer to

sell somebody a product directly and do

kind of like value for value like here

i'm going to give you something of great

value show me value in return let's give

each other value i don't really do the

patronage model so much myself but there

is that kind of branding model and to

support the sonic scoop channel we've

often engaged with brands to create

content together so we kind of do the

patronage model that way too and then

providing a service i do mastering for

clients i mean that's my major bread and

butter these days as an audio person as

a mastering engineer i've worked with

artists all the way from new bedroom

artists making their first single and

wanting it mastered by a professional

all the way up to i've mastered you know

gold record projects that you know have

sold hundreds of thousand copies have

had millions upon millions of streams

online so you know there's a whole gamut

of stuff in there and

pretty much anyone who's providing

services in the audio world works with

both hobbyists as well as other

professionals that's the norm

and i think one of the values i provide

when i do mastering is not just

mastering the record for them but also

giving them kind of mixed coaching mixed

feedback that a lot of the people

sending me tracks to master value so

teaching almost gets weaved into that

bit of it as well so that's an

interesting thing that this number five

in here can plug into the other four

but you don't necessarily need to be a

teacher you don't necessarily need to do

all five of these

but i want you to think about all of

them and if you're not doing at least

two or three of them you're probably

going to have a hard time making money

in music

there is a chance that you could make a

living in music by just selling a

product and just creating live

experiences that is the classic 20th

century approach to making a living in

music but i'd recommend the very least

that you're adding at least one of these

other things into here whether it's the

patronage model whether it's the kind of

branding side of patronage whether it's

providing services whether it's teaching

look for ways to bring other streams of

revenue into this you'll probably need

at least one more if not two more beyond

the first two obvious ones that we

talked about and even within each and

every one of these categories you can

look to diversify streams and it's a big

thing to first diversify what you're

doing try as many different angles as

possible see which ones get you the most

return for your time and effort and then

kind of whittle away the ones that don't

work so as you progress further and

further along you're going to whittle

things away more and more and specialize

and maybe you're not getting all five of

these streams and you're whittling down

to the three or four that give you the

most return on your effort but at the

very least you owe it to yourself to

experiment with three or four or five of

these streams to help get something

going in your music career

and if you don't want to have a music

career

that's absolutely fine too so i would

suggest if you love music and you love

there being great music out there and

you have some other job from which you

make money

get out there and support artists who

you really love and support them in a

way that adds value to your own life

are you a patron for any artists are you

out there going to concerts are you out

there buying records are you buying

merch are you paying for music services

or music lessons of some kind in what

way do you help interact with and

support the whole musical economy that's

going on around you because without

there being a huge number of passionate

hobbyists who don't expect to have

careers in music

there are no music careers

so

that's something to keep in mind

for any of you who are professional

musicians never get too cocky because

the vast majority of support for music

in general comes from

normal everyday people who do other

stuff for a living who just love music

and if you can't as an artist love your

audience

you're probably never going to have much

of an audience at all

well i hope this week's episode has been

useful for you if you didn't mind

hearing me talk for this long then if

you wanted to learn mixing or mastering

or how to use a compressor from someone

who better to do it with you can check

out one of my full-length courses like

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thanks for hanging out with me for this

week's episode of the sonic scoop

podcast this has been justin colletti of

sonic scoop

see you next time

you