The music industry has gone through some major changes in the last few years. Fame does not necessarily mean fortune and getting a record deal does not guarantee that album sales will follow.
For musicians to be able to survive it means more than just putting out a CD and hoping it will sell.
For most of us it means finding other ways to pay the bills.
Fortunately we creative types are known for our resourcefulness and sideways thinking and this is a good thing because money opportunities are often discovered this way.
Below are just a couple of ideas to get you inspired.
Make use of your equipment.
If you have been recording and producing your own material at home, then it is probably likely you have more than enough recording gear to help other people put together their own demo or audio archive.
There are people out there who would love to record their own music, but may not have the time or big dollars to book a big studio just to record vocals and guitar or a child’s recital during piano lessons at home. Your solution? Offer a mobile recording service for your customers at an affordable price and go and find your customers.
Don’t limit yourself to just recording music though. Special events, speeches can all be recorded for memories. Why not even include video recording in your service?
In the case of recording basic demos all you need are a couple of decent mics, audio interface and a laptop with a couple of headphones and you are good to go.
If you have a mixer and can hook up a 5 piece band then even better.
You can advertise online, local noticeboards in the universities and schools and make contact with music teachers who may want to offer the service to their students.
I have worked direct with my customers, but you may also want to offer the music teachers a percentage as an incentive so they will be making something out of it and their circle of student customers are likely to tell others.
Note: Make sure you are proficient at setting up mics for various acoustic instruments (guitar, piano, flute etc). Bring along some CDRs so you can mix and burn on the spot and add this to your service.
If you are a skilled keyboardist, or bass player and have the software to put together some beats – then offer this too at for an extra fee to help them create their masterpiece.
Another way is to hire out some of your gear to trustworthy people. I have done this with some of my condensor mics and this has paid for them.
Go online and offer your musical services.
Fiver.com is a site where people are willing to do jobs or “gigs” of various descriptions for $5 dollars. It is free to join and has become a very popular site for people wanting to get different things done cheaply and for people who want to make a few extra dollars..
Creative types can benefit from this online marketplace by offering their musical services. For example there are artists who have offered to create a short song for a special occasion such as a birthday. Others have put together beats or created soundtrack for an advertisement or presentation.
I have seen guys advertise their mixing and mastering skills, offer voiceovers, vocals, produce lyrics, perform a beatbox, create a rap etc.You can also make use of this service to sell your music advice and tutorials.
Drop by the site and similar ones (do a search for alternatives to Fiverr) to see what is being offered and requested to get an idea of what you can provide.
A good starting point is to ask yourself and others what problems can you solve for others using your musical knowledge and skills and then develop your ideas and experiment.
I hope this article has given you some inspiration and encouragement that your musical enjoyment can also help to pay the bills and more.