I wanted to start this topic where we can share tips, ideas, insights, experience on ALL THE WAYS we can come up with that can potentially bring in some money from the skills we have in music composition, production, sound design etc.
And please, if you have any personal success, fails or any kind of experience in a particular ānicheā in musicā¦share your thoughts!
PS. Letās try to not go down the cynical route of how bad the music industry is today, and instead focus on constructive and positive ideas and perspectives. To infinity and beyond my friends!
I will start the thread by sharing my main focus in my business, which is teaching online courses in music. Check it out here: Courses for Composers
Teaching your Skills & Experience in Music
This can be anything from in-person teaching. To teaching one-to-one over Skype. To creating online courses which is what I do since I always preferred teaching to many.
There are also a great range of topics you can teach within music: Piano, Guitar, Composition, Production, Music Theory, Sound Design, Mixing, Masteringā¦the list goes on!
Teaching can even mean sharing tips and tutorials on a YouTube channel, a blog/website etc. where you can potentially make some extra income from ads.
PS. If you are considering starting teaching yourself, please feel free to ask any questions you might have on this field in a reply below.
One thing I donāt see many younger composers looking to is the traditional way of earning through music: concert music. Sure, many will say, other than the classic masters, concert music is dead and the way to go, where most go, is multimedia music. But there are many orchestras around the worldānot just the big professional onesāand writing music for performance is one great way to make a name for yourself and make contacts. Donāt forget John Williams started as a jazz arranger.
Study. Practice. Hone your skills as a composer. You donāt need to write a four movement grand symphony (it wouldnāt hurt though, and this was my goal since being a kid ) But my goal is to try to write some music that could be equally at home on-screen as on stage. My hometown orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, which is considered among the best pro orchestras in the U.S., is always giving performances featuring old Hollywood film pieces, arrangements of music by bands like Led Zeppelin and some well know video game music. Once, we had some local musicians come together to performa live concert of Final Fantasy music, with Nobuo Uematsu himself!
The point is, donāt pigeonhole yourself into one area of the music biz. Keep all options open and take a look at doing some concert music. It may lead to other greater opportunities like doing a film score or game score. Perhaps it will become popular enough to go in reverse and be played by orchestras. And the kicker: you do receive performance royalties.
