Music Business: Business Opportunities for Musicians

The stereotype of the starving artist or musician is no longer necessary. You'll learn 5 opportunities that musicians have to earn a living. If you can play an instrument or carry a tune, consider one of these businesses.
  1. Wedding singer. Just like Adam Sandler in the movie of the same name, a wedding singer is a musician who makes a living performing at weddings. Make no mistake, the wedding market is a huge, profitable market and musicians and DJs earn a comfortable living by simply focusing on this niche. There are practices during the week but typically you’ll work Friday night and Saturday night (and perhaps Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon, which are two other potential wedding times). Don’t worry about writing your own material, just cover the classics and you’ll do fine.
  2. Web musician. This is a huge area of opportunity. Sensitivity to copyright is growing with sites like YouTube and MySpace increasing in profile online. People upload music that is copyrighted and potential lawsuits are threatened. Instead, offer music that people can buy for very little (or combine free music with the sale of some other product). With 119 million users on MySpace, there’s a good chance that some of them want music on their site and don’t want to be banned for illegally using copyrighted music.
  3. Corporate trainer. Honestly, I wouldn’t have believed this if I didn’t see it for myself. Corporate trainers help to train departments in communication and teamwork by bringing in bongo drums and xylophones and unleashing a department on them to make beautiful, inspired, but free-form music. A musician can help the process by guiding the department in making music rather than noise. It surprised me when I learned about it, but it goes to show that creative opportunities abound.
  4. Session artist. Not all musicians travel with a band. Sometimes, when a singer goes on tour, or just goes into the studio to record, they need a musician to play the music that they sing to. This can be a challenging opportunity to break into but the community is fairly tight and once you’re in and you have a good name, you’ll be invited to play for various artists. In a sense, you become famous without actually becoming famous. And you’ll have some great stories to tell if you play with musical superstars. To break into this market you need to be talented. Not just slightly talented but really talented, so practice until you’re sick of practicing and then practice some more after that.
  5. Post production work. I didn’t know very much about the complex world of post production until my best friend started his own post production business. Essentially, a company gives him the video track and the audio track for a commercial, movie, or television show, and he synchronizes them (because they are recorded separately and sometimes the audio gets over-dubbed) and he has to add sound effects (the telephone ringing in the movie is not the real sound of the phone that rang on the set) and background music. Business is brisk for my friend (he specializes in commercials) and his background as a musician has helped him to create effective background music in commercials you see every day. The upfront cost is high but so is the potential income.

    Got an ear for sound and a passion to make the world sing? You don’t have to have a day job and “jam with the band” for fun in the evening. Turn your passion for music into a business you love to do.

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