12 Ways to Create and Earn (for Musicians & Guitarists) – Podcast #6

Hey everyone! Here’s my podcast overviewing ways musicians (and guitarists specifically) tend to create, share and cultivate musical and financial aspects of their guitar journeys!

Note: this podcast covers ideas for “traditional” in-person music creation and also “online”.

Overview of Podcast – Ways to Create and Earn

1. Videos, music videos, content for musicians, comedy, “social media”
2. Albums, EPs, other recorded music, studio recordings, Spotify, CDBaby
3. Teaching, coaching, teaching studio, TakeLessons
4. Webpages, websites, writing online (blogging)
5. Books, publishing, instructional books, other styles of writing about music
6. Courses, video courses, many online platforms
7. Gigs – concerts, music festivals, special events, weddings, busking
8. Composing
9. Arranging
10. Sheet music (see composing and arranging)
11. Busking – like gigging, but many people see this as a different category. A great place to get started or good to do when no other gigs (or on the way to a gig 🙂
12. Email lists (snail mail lists?)
13. Balancing individual projects and group/teamwork & projects
14. Non-music projects (gardening, real estate, agriculture, IT, artwork, etc) – instead of expanding a musical project, some people find another outlet for financial and creative abundance (in conjunction with music)

Best wishes!

More Guitar Kitchen Podcasts

• Drumming (& Multi-Instrumentalism) for Guitarists (Podcast #4)
• 3 Great Ways to Start Improvising in a Classic Jazz Style (Podcast #2)
• Learning Jazz Guitar – Tips & Ideas – Podcast #1

Transcript (Rough Draft)

Hey everyone! How are you all doing? Thanks for stopping by the Guitar Kitchen Podcast.

This is the April 2021 Podcast – the podcast to start the month.

Introduction

I wanted to talk about a bunch of stuff (related to earning and creative while playing guitar & music). This is something I’ve thought about a lot. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. But I have researched this stuff on my own. Probably a lot of other people have done similar research as well.

As a musician, I have well over a decade of experience gigging – maybe 15 years. I haven’t quite kept track.

Today I wanted to talk about different ideas for musicians (anyone really – musicians, artists, guitarist). My speciality (as much as I have one) would be acoustic style of guitar (and some jazz guitar).

I definitely have a lot to learn. But these are some of things that I’ve learned so far (by doing them, seeing someone else do them, and/or hearing/reading about it from someone else).

Most of these ideas already exist online. I’ll talked about a lot of these ideas here (just with my spin on it). For example, check out Musicians Tuts article on the subject.

Basically everyone comes up with about the same basic ideas (about earning money playing music). But really the spicy stuff lies in the details and mixing & matching different genres/ideas/experiences to come up with new flavors 🙂

In no particular – I was brainstorming.

YouTube (videos) Instagram TikTok, Social Media, etc

YouTube looks big right. All the “social media”.

Basically videos (therefore YT/Insta/TikTok for most folks) provide great vehicles for delivering all sorts of creative energy.

One musician I’ve followed for a long time – Adam Neely. Bass player with lots of great ideas and his unique perspective. A lot of people (mostly other musicians) really like his videos & ideas.

He spends tons of time and energy creating videos with lots of information. The video elements pop, too – and he creates the videos and most of the music, too.

In any case, some musicians make all the bread providing musical content (in a video form) for people.

YouTube sits in a interesting position. Is it social or isn’t it social? I don’t know, really. But at the end of the day, the hybrid feel (for me) really works.

YouTube allows enough flexibility that you can create all sorts of different styles of videos. People ca interact with each other, but not like on traditional “social media”. Creating decent-quality longer form videos takes enough time that most people won’t really create content on a regular basis (unlike most social media).

I personally have experience with creating a YouTube channel (and videos). But I don’t (at least not yet) have any financial success (at least not much) with YouTube.

So I’m really just an amateur. But lots of people have done well for themselves on YT, including some great guitarists. Having an international platform (at this point, not in the beginning 10+ years ago) means that the bar for guitar playing continues to raise up as time goes on.

The people who see having success (in general) have been doing it for at least 5-10 years (for example Adam Neely).

If you started creating content (on a consistent basis) when a platform just started then it was easier to get views and subscribers. But getting into YouTube now is no joke. I’m not saying it cant be done. I definitely think it can. But just as these platforms “mature,” the open “real estate” starts shrinking.

I’m not saying this to discourage people – only to get them thinking/brainstorm creative ways to deliver ideas and creativity in their own unique way 🙂

Creating Recorded Music (Albums, EPs, Studio Work, Samples, Loops) in person & online

You can create you music and share it at gigs, concerts, on the street. I’ve personally sold CDs and merchandise as a part of different groups.

You can also share your music online.

I’ve personally sold tracks via CDBaby – and made a little money streaming as well. It’s not something I’ve looked into in a long time – though perhaps 2021 is my year 🙂

Important Details for Sharing/Selling Your Music

There’s a lot different (and important factors) going into how an independent musician goes about selling a specific musical work.

Is it a cover? An original? An arrangement? How you license different aspects of your music are important considerations. Please do your homework on this (I need to do the same!)

You definitely check the deals you’re making. Make sure you understand what the splits are – what percentage the house gets for hosting and processing the sales, etc. Copyrights, publishing rights, mechanical rights, royalties, licensing fees, processing fees, etc.

Again, I’m not an expert, but everyone agrees newbies should do their own homework/due diligence.

Make sure the entities you’re working with (for example CDBaby, Spotify, YouTube, other musicians, the composer, the arranger, the producer, the sound engineer, etc).

You just want to make sure that you’re agreeing to deals that you feel good about and allow you to be compensated fairly (and that allow you continue cultivating your music, art and ideas).

Types of Recordings

Within the whole recording “genre” live tons of flavors. Albums, EPs – you can get creative in styles of music/genres – explore, combine and dream – there’s tons of little niches, too.

Also, don’t forget samples, loops, studio work (online & person), background music, film music, music for commercials, licensed music (for content creators, etc).

Why Studio Work for Guitarists May Continue to Exist

As an aside about studio musicians – while a lot of producers play guitar, not all actually play (or they may play a different style). Unlike some popular sounds (think drumbeats, electrobass, keys), guitar doesn’t always sound so good as a keyboard sample. So that means more studio work for guitarists!

Teaching, Coaching, Mentoring

Again all the ideas discussed here paint a very broad picture. But sometimes we enjoy looking at the overall map. At the same time, most would agree that carving out the details also holds significant weight.

Why Being an Early-Adopter Can Help

Just like with YouTube and blogging websites, early adopters can realize a signficant advantage (in terms of viewers and listeners). While many great musicians have started YouTube channels recently (and have done well), the musicians who started earlier (and kept with it) definitely are harvesting what they sowed.

The same holds true for online teaching platforms. I’ve spoken with a couple of music teachers and they say TakeLessons (for example) is filled to the brim with teachers. To start getting more students in 2021 on a platform with a lot of guitar teachers is doable, just not as easy as it was in the past. It may be worth it to look into other sites and ways to teach – other rather new (less populated) ways to market your teaching to potential students.

I personally signed up for TakeLessons as a teacher in around 2016 and received a few opportunities – but everyone wanted to meet in person and I only wanted to meet online (so I wouldn’t have to drive anywhere).

Fast forward to 2021 and I re-signed up for TakeLessons (as a teacher), but haven’t received any queries. While many variables come into play, most likely TakeLessons has a bunches and bunches of guitar teachers!

Disclaimer – I need to check on some other teaching sites, too. I just haven’t gotten around to it!

If you want to be a teacher and market online – just sign up for a bunch (to start).

Different Streams to Share Your Music And More

Some of the successful teachers (and musicians) are mixing things up. They’ll havea YouTube channel with videos of teaching and their playing. They’ll also have a website (with an email list – more on email lists later). They’ll be on a few teaching websites. They’ll be playing gigs. They’ll be on GigMasters, etc.

In other words, musicians have always done the “gig” economy. Even the people in the LSO or the CSO still teach on the “side”.

Email Lists

If you have any interests in an “online” presence, you want to be sure you own all your own work – and the access to that work – and the access to the fans that have connected with you.

Enter the email list.

For example, on YouTube, you may have created a vibrant community. But you don’t actually “own” the knowledge of the list. In other words, you can’t contact the people who are subscribed to your YouTube other than through the YouTube platform.

To maintain creative (and financial) control of your artistic work, ideas, time and energy, you’ll probably want to find ways that increase your personal “ownership” of your work (even if you want to give it away for free).

The email list provides an important role – it contains a list of your fans that you can contact directly.

My Personal Experience with Email Lists

I tried starting a mail list through MailChimp. But it didn’t really work well. Somehow most of the people signing up for the GuitarKitchen email list seemed to be just spam.

Websites and Blogging

If you go to a search engine, and query anything about music, you’ll find a whole hunk of sites about almost anything you’d want to learn about.

It’s a great way to learn and connect with other musicians.

But if you want to start a music blog, you’ll want to consider about a 24 month build up phase.

Check out IncomeSchool for one of the best courses on how you can start a website and blogging.

Again, just TakeLessons and YouTube, the early adopters (whole create high-quality, relevant, consistent content) really found great success. The longer a successful article sits within the network of links, the longer the article (not always true, granted) has the opportunity to accrue more links.

Newer articles from newer site (generally) take longer to rank.

But I personally love blogging. I haven’t really made much money doing it. Maybe a few hundred dollars over a 10 year period.

You can check out some of my thoughts about pro-blogging:

• Pro websiting, part 4
• Pro websiting, part 3
• Pro websiting, Part 2
• Pro websiting, Part 1

Writing Books, eBooks, Instructional Books

Along the same lines of writing – check out writing books. Many musicians find great success (within a larger musical career) by creating different sorts of instructional books.

Check out Kreutzer as an amazing example. He wrote 42 Etudes for Violin 100s of years ago. And violinist still use it to study with.

• Kreutzer Violin C major Etude #2 (and Modulations/Variations)

Of course, Bach created instructional material (the Inventions and Sinfonias) to teach students how to compose.

In other words, musicians have been creating instructional material for a long time!

2+ Contrasting Careers

Also, it’s worth noting that a lot musicians (due to financial reasons, as well as curiosity and creativity) enjoy pursuing 2 careers simultaneously.

Courses (Video/Online)

Much like an instructional book, students (at least I do) love courses. A well-done course can really help someone learn specific parts of a larger skillset, and gain inspiration, insight, ideas, and collective wisdom.

To be continued! (~17:18)