Make a Living With Music

[OnlyJanus]

I am looking for advice as of how to make a living with my music. I know my music is at an excellent level. I am just wondering what are the proper avenues to go through in order to sell my music. Such as movie scores, producing for artist, and doing music for commercials. Like where in the hell do you submit your work so the proper people will hear it? Should I enter in beats battles or music competitions?

[AmongstTheLiving]

I'm no expert on this as I have yet to make a living of anything I've written on my own. My skill comes into play engineering and expanding upon ideas people set forth in front of me.

I would say do whatever you can to get yourself exposure. Yes, enter contests, give out free demos, play shows, anything you can think of to get as many people familiar to you as possible.

[Yeah, right...]

Originally Posted by OnlyJanus

I am looking for advice as of how to make a living with my music. I know my music is at an excellent level. I am just wondering what are the proper avenues to go through in order to sell my music. Such as movie scores, producing for artist, and doing music for commercials. Like where in the hell do you submit your work so the proper people will hear it? Should I enter in beats battles or music competitions?

Yes, there is a place where you can submit your work so the proper people will hear it.

It's called "The Radio"

Good luck

[daveconn]

maybe the first step would be to place your music online for people to hear it? would be nice to stick a link up here..

[bpsrepair]

Every musician feels like a musical genius at one point or another, so I'm not trying to take away from that feeling, but some real insight might come from realizing that you have a special perspective on your music that no one else has. So your latest perfect tune may sound like a screeching mess to everyone else.

(please note jocular tone, I'm not trying to be an arrogant ass.)
I, for one, am almost certain that my music is better than yours. But I'd bet most every guy on here thinks theirs is better than mine. Why? Because I didn't write your music and no one else on here wrote mine.

On one level you've obviously pleased the only person you have to with your music: you. But if you hope for others to give you some money for it, others will have to like it. The more people who hear your music, the more likely that someone else who likes it will hear it and pay you.

In the end, who cares if "the proper people" hear your music, put up a web site and get your tunes on iTunes. Even if your perfect music really sucks, there's bound to be some group of idiots who will dig it and buy it.

It's a crap shoot at best, but you'll never get anywhere if you don't roll the dice.

Best of luck

bps

[Shotgun Standoff]

Jack Joseph Puig said that an "amazing song, with amazing performance, and amazing production" wins every time, no matter how clever of social media and magazine, etc marketing.

[AlexDaCat]

Originally Posted by bpsrepair

Every musician feels like a musical genius at one point or another, so I'm not trying to take away from that feeling, but some real insight might come from realizing that you have a special perspective on your music that no one else has. So your latest perfect tune may sound like a screeching mess to everyone else.

(please note jocular tone, I'm not trying to be an arrogant ass.)
I, for one, am almost certain that my music is better than yours. But I'd bet most every guy on here thinks theirs is better than mine. Why? Because I didn't write your music and no one else on here wrote mine.

On one level you've obviously pleased the only person you have to with your music: you. But if you hope for others to give you some money for it, others will have to like it. The more people who hear your music, the more likely that someone else who likes it will hear it and pay you.

In the end, who cares if "the proper people" hear your music, put up a web site and get your tunes on iTunes. Even if your perfect music really sucks, there's bound to be some group of idiots who will dig it and buy it.

It's a crap shoot at best, but you'll never get anywhere if you don't roll the dice.

Best of luck

bps

I look at music in a different way, rather than a competitive one, which means I enjoy making, playing my own as well as other peoples, its about the vibe man.....

Its the suits that play musicians off......lol

[bpsrepair]

Originally Posted by AlexDaCat

I look at music in a different way, rather than a competitive one, which means I enjoy making, playing my own as well as other peoples, its about the vibe man.....

Its the suits that play musicians off......lol

+1

Thus the line..."On one level you've obviously pleased the only person you have to with your music: you."

My basic point is that being good enough doesn't mean it happens for you. You have to be happy to be playing because of you, not because it pays the bills. Right? 'Cause usually it doesn't...even if you really are great.

But reality is that there are only so many paying spots in this biz and there are a lot of guys who'd love to grab one of em. So, competitive? If you're saying music as a way of life isn't, I'm with you, man, and all the best to all of us. But if you're looking to make a living with your music, you'd better believe its competitive. Probably the most competitive market out there. If you don't believe that, look around this thread. There's a lot of talent right here in this little corner of GS and we'd all love to make a living with our music. But even if we should be, those of us who have written songs we thought were masterpieces and recorded and mixed them to what we thought was perfection aren't bajillionaires, but broke musicians. Still we don't quit because it's not about the $$ at all. It's a part of who we are.