Finding sponsors for your music event is both essential and challenging. It’s not easy to ask businesses or individuals to part with their hard-earned money – even if it is for a genuine advertising opportunity. But sponsors are essential in providing cash flow for an event that doesn’t make money until you start selling tickets….
Teaching music lessons via Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts has become increasingly popular in the digital age. It’s convenient for student and teacher alike. Teachers can teach out of the comfort of their own home. They can control exactly how long the lessons last and they don’t need to spend time and resources getting to…
Musicians, like many entrepreneurs, are always looking for passive income streams. Passive income is income that you earn without actively working for it, often on a product that took work on the front end, but then earns money on the back end without your constant involvement. Many artists already have passive income, when you think…
Gigging is the most common way musicians make money, and it’s been this way since the dawn of time. People love hearing live music, and musicians love playing it. It’s a match made in heaven! That said, in today’s economy, it’s getting harder and harder to make money gigging. The simple fact is: musicians aren’t…
Teaching music lessons is an awesome way to supplement or provide yourself with an income as a musician. Whether you’re teaching for the love of teaching, or teaching to supplement the income you make from gigging/pursuing an original project, there’s no question it’s a great way to make extra money. The market for guitar lessons…
Record labels are a powerful force in the music industry – they always have been. These days, there are more labels than ever, and more stories about record labels “dying off” than ever before. While it’s certainly true that labels have it harder these days, it’s not at all true that they’ve died out or…
Writing songs is hard. Identifying a creative process that works for you is hard. Sometimes, the words just don’t come out and you can’t think of anything to say. I think the challenges associated with writing and creating aren’t talked about enough. Everyone wants it to be easy, or maybe just look easy, but a…
Writing lyrics is a real art. In fact, writing truly great lyrics is basically a separate skill from writing great songs. A great song is made up of many different parts. The structure and arrangement. The melodies, hooks, and rhythmic variations. The harmony. And then, the lyrics. There are countless great songs with meaningless or…
The golden era of music videos is now behind us. MTV doesn’t play them anymore, MuchMusic doesn’t play them anymore, and even the country stations (who held out the longest) are switching formats. More and more, people are consuming their music on Spotify and Apple Music. That said, YouTube remains the most popular way for…
As a professional musician, I am lucky to be able to work with professional singers quite often. These musicians have a tough job. Using your voice every day is exhausting, and the market for getting gigs as a singer is different than the market for getting gigs as a side musician. That said, it’s absolutely…
Anybody who has ever put on a wedding knows how expensive they are. Any singer who’s ever been hired to play a wedding knows how lucrative they can be. Weddings are super fun to play. Many couples want live music at their wedding. They’ll often want someone playing them down the aisle and then want…
The better you get at your instrument, the more you realize how bad you are at keeping time. Having a great sense of time and feel is one of the most important and deceivingly difficult parts of working on your instrument. Some instruments, like drums and bass, lend themselves towards working on timekeeping a lot….
Booking and playing shows is often the backbone of an artist’s career. As you may well know, the booking part can be a challenging and tedious process. When you’re an indie artist, you’re always working with promoters who are basically taking a chance on you. Like most artists, indie promoters are not making a lot…
Music managers tend to be a bit of a mystery to artists. How do you get one? What do they do? How do you know if they’re a good manager? This contract is scary – how do I know I’m getting a good deal? Hiring a manager is not a decision to be taken lightly….
When you were in high school, were you in band class? Choir? Did you take music lessons? Many of us did, and many of us found and cemented our love for performing and making music within those halls. That said, high school is kind of a weird place to fall in love with music. For…