Does anyone here make a living off being a musician?

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Cacoph0ny

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Feb 23, 2008
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By musician I don't specifically mean a member of a band, but anything involving music, audio engineer, guitar teacher, etc. or any combination of that.

What do you do and how did you get started?

Just wondering if it's possible to make ends meet working in one of several different facets of music.
 
Barely. I'm in Nashville making my money on music....mostly. Next year I will be switching to music only due to tour schedules and frankly..I'm scared. Yes I will have income and my bills are very little but it's just that. I literally own nothing other than guitar rig, computer, bed, tv. Minimalism is a must, no Iphone or fancy crap. I also was smart and saved for years incase money was short because I knew I wanted to do music. Be SMART about it! Plan ahead. It was hard work. At one point I was doing 2 jobs, school, and 2 bands as a hired gun. It was worth it :) Now, I do recording, teaching, playing, cowriting, ect. Be well rounded, at least in Nashvegas!
 
Yes, I have been full time in music since I was 17 years old. It is really not as hard as it is made out to be. I support a mortgage, bills, my wife, etc comfortably all through working 25ish hours a week.

Shoot me an email if you have specific questions or want to chat. I would love to help out
 
I teach guitar,drums,bass,piano 6 days a week and make pretty good money. I don't exactly love it, but previously I was working musical instrument retail which was so much fun but I earned almost a third of what I do now.

It would be heaps more fun having cool co workers, testing out all the new stuff that comes out, playing all the guitars we can't afford, but three years flew by and I had nothing to show for it.

If I could make more money in another industry I'd drop music and only have it as a hobby. The more money you got, the more time you can take off work to do what you really want to do
 
I earn some good money due to gigs, merch and copyrights, and I think I could earn much more if I worked full time to music... but I think my salesman job is safer for present and future.
So music give me an extra money but it is not my main income.
 
Zack Uidl said:
Yes, I have been full time in music since I was 17 years old. It is really not as hard as it is made out to be. I support a mortgage, bills, my wife, etc comfortably all through working 25ish hours a week.

Shoot me an email if you have specific questions or want to chat. I would love to help out
Click to expand...

what exactly do you do?
 
I give lessons in acoustic/electric guitar and bass, currently I have about 70 students. I can live from it pretty well. One of the best things in my job is, that I can link it with recording sessions, cause I have a lot of creative students who wanna record their shit in my studio. So it´s 40% engineering/mixing and 60% giving lessons. That´s good :)
 
All my income comes from producing.
used to be in a touring band, made enough to eat for the day and then I became a father and had to move on and I'm not looking back :p
 
Nebulous said:
A question for those who teach music: how do you put up with little kids and crap musicans? Does the money make it more bareable?
Click to expand...

Sometimes it´s not easy, indeed. The hardest challenge though are the 11 years old, pony owning daughters of rich fathers..ya know, those totally spoiled brats. This sometimes kills me :lol: Since Miley Cyrus & stuff is so popular, the girls wanna learn guitar. My job isn´t always easy. But I have a lot of motivated Metalheads in my guitar school, that is totally cool! :)
 
I toured for about six years in mcmb, and eventually got to where i was making a pretty decent living. Eventually i realized that everyone else makes money off bands(labels, management, booking agent, studios, promoters, tour managers, ect), leaving little left over for the actual band members themselves. So i made the transition to recording engineer. My first year of running a studio basically doubled my income compared to touring. My second year doubled my first year. doubt i'll double again next year though:lol:
 
I now work doing any form of live sound work from FOH, to bump ins and outs and so fourth for a few venues.(main income)

I have just started to record bands now and I'm hoping that continues and I can keep living life doing work this way,
 
I teach guitar lessons. Probably around 60-65 of 'em a week between regular and online students. It's hard work, but the money is DEFINITELY worth it.


Oh and I've been producing bands a lot.
 
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