How To Make Money With Music Part 1: Gigging

Hello all, and welcome to Part 1 of what I hope will be a ongoing series on how to better make money in your music career. Whether you want to earn a full time income from your music or you simply want to make enough to cover recording or equipment costs, this series should go a way in helping you achieve that.

Today I’m going to look particularly at how you can make money from gigging. I often see musicians leaving money on the table from their gigging efforts, either through shyness, or simply because they didn’t know how best to monetize their performances. With that in mind, here are some of the main ways you should be making money from each gig.

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: How To Promote Your Music - The Ultimate Guide

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: How To Promote Your Music - The Ultimate Guide

MusicThinkTank.com | Musicians, Should You EVER Pay-To-Play?

• Shaun Letang | Musicians, Should You EVER Pay-To-Play?

• Liz Upton | The Cost of Free

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MusicThinkTank.com | Musicians, Should You EVER Pay-To-Play?

The Cost of Free

By Athena Butler

When it comes to recorded music, today’s consumers enjoy a free ride and seem to have all the answers.  Song sharing is there for the taking and, in any case, the old music sales model is archaic. But if out with the old and in with the new is stylish in music, the same is not true of music recordings.

For the business, it seems, free is good. However, the decline of recorded music sales has been catastrophic since 2001, when piracy became rampant and the single song Apple economy banished the album. Now, hope for the sector requires a giant leap of faith. In the meantime, the tough job of finding new ways to compensate for this loss of profits falls to the record companies. It may appear that artists are gaining more exposure as music changes hands often and easily. But is the moneymaking of old within the reach of the business?

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The New Napster: Mobile File-Sharing

As the rise of mobile messaging apps take over the current mobile user population, the ways fans interact with music are changing. Historically, file-sharing takes place over the desktop computer through a P2P software such as BitTorrent. The user opens the music files into iTunes and they have expanded their music library for free.

Many mobile users are starting to figure out how to download music through mobile messaging applications and their smartphones. Transitioning from desktop file-sharing to mobile file-sharing will take a bit of time for users to catch up but the new Napster is already out there.

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MusicThinkTank.com | October's Most Popular Posts

MusicThinkTank.com takes great pride in being a renowned resource for all who comprise today’s music industry. We appreciate the conversations you start, the advice you share, the projects you promote, and the feedback you share and we want to encourage your continued efforts.

Thanks to our loyal readers and contributors, October was a great month for MusicThinkTank.com - so today, we’d like to share that success with you by highlighting October’s most popular posts. On behalf of MusicThinkTank.com, thank you for your support. We enjoy providing a unique platform where the music industry really can think out loud!

Laura Schneider, MusicThinkTank.com Community Manager

34,708   MTT (Journal) 4,685   MTT - 49 Ways to Get Free Music Promotion (Journal Entry) 4,606   MTT Open - 10 Awesome Independent Record Labels [LIST] (Journal Entry) 3,967   MTT - A&R Tips: The Art Of The Press Kit (Journal Entry) 3,755   MTT - Top 10 Rules For Better Songwriting (Journal Entry)

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Autism Speaks Through Music - David Grohl Reaches Out

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Value Added Streaming

• Kristin Thompson | Value Added Streaming

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Value Added Streaming

Choosing the Right Music Producer For You

It is one of the most important decisions you will make when it’s time to master and record your music. Your producer is responsible for how your final record will sound so you need to be on the same wavelength, and be able to communicate effectively.

It is important to choose a producer who will let you create your own sound, not theirs so it is important to be confident about what you want and be clear that it is very much your music.

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: The Future of Music Marketing: Direct-to-Device

• Corey Crossfield | The Future of Music Marketing: Direct-to-Device
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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: The Future of Music Marketing: Direct to Device

MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Digital vs. Vinyl: Where It Makes A Difference

• Jason Kane | Digital vs. Vinyl: Where It Makes A Difference

• Corey Crossfield | Apps Are The Future Of Music

• Mackenzie Carlin | Legal Landmine: Playing Music At Your Business

MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Digital vs. Vinyl: Where It Makes A Difference

Legal Landmine: Playing Music at Your Business

Music offers the perfect audio backdrop for any store or business waiting room, either relaxing anxious customers or injecting energy into the lifeless. The right type of music can set the stage for the ideal purchasing attitude. However, music in the business world can be a bit of a legal landmine, with many seemingly innocent companies finding themselves guilty of stealing licensed tracks. Keep the following in mind as you navigate the complicated world of business and music

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Digital vs. Vinyl: Where It Makes A Difference

The vinyl-or-digital debate rages on and audiophiles of all stripes have strong opinions on one side or the other. Saying anything almost feels like a reopening of old wounds. Technically speaking, sound engineers record modern music in digital, so most would say that digital playback sounds exactly like they engineered it. Since the early 1990s at the latest, oversampling of the digital stream has driven the difference between an engineered, digital recording and digital playback far beyond the range of human hearing.

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Being a Music Industry Professional

There is no doubt about it, music is fun- and it should be. For many, however, music is work. For these people music pays the bills, supports their livelihood, and puts food on their table. For these individuals who work in the music industry whether it be as performers, technicians, music teachers, managers, journalists, or marketers maintaining a level of professionalism is essential.

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