Making Any Money Making Music?

Is anyone out there making any money with their music? If so, how are you going about that process now that we're in the age of the Internet (thanks to Al Gore!)? I live in a small rural community with little opportunity for live music gigs (unless I want to do country/rock - not my musical calling... I tire of it after about 3 songs). But, I'd love to write songs for other artists/bands/labels and see if they'd want to purchase them. Is anyone shopping their songs successfully to others? If so, how are you doing it? Do you pick a genre and write for that? Do you find that the more time you spend polishing up your demo & tweaking tracks, the harder it is to let go of "your baby"?

If you have a lot of finished work that's extraordinary, try Taxi. I have a few friends that have had their music placed in some film and tv shows as well as picked up by music libraries. They haven't made a lot of cash but it's been a nice supplement to the income they make either teaching music or gigging.

I make about 75 percent of my income teaching guitar, another 20 percent in recording for people and 4.99 percent in performing. The remaining .01 percent is made from selling my music. But someday is coming soon and it's gonna be great.

To sell your own performance of songs practically requires gigging.

It looks like what you are interested in is publishing music for others to buy. Find a publisher. You can try a local one, and if most of the local stuff is country your guy might find it interesting to have some rock or whatever genre you do. Anyway, it can't hurt to talk to local people face to face and develop a feel. Then you can try publishers further afield.

And yes, you'll need demos. And yes, tho demos aren't supposed to be finished works, but you have to be competent in presentation. You aren't going to get anyone to listen to a cassette that was recorded on a boom box mic. And only you can say whether it is hard to let them go, in which case you need to decide whether you are ready to do this as a business, which is what you are looking at. Most business men can tell you what to do with dreams - they are buying and you are selling. Get a lawyer if you are serious before you sign anything. Otherwise, you might be tied up for life - see John Fogerty.

best of luck.

@

Nice words of wisdom from everyone! What a collective mind we have at the Cakewalk Forums! You all inspire me!

I think I'm too old and busy with family life to consider gigging - that idea looked good in college and after graduation... even started to pan out, but then marriage and babies started arriving, forcing me to grow up and forget the gigging thing. Now music is more of an artistic outlet with the hopes of getting to a larger audience, that *may* even want to pay for my stuff. If not, oh well, I want to express what's in my music heart and share with the world.

I don't want to use Myspace, but I am using www.soundclick.com. What/how do others share their music with the world AND generate an audience?

from personal experience, it all seems to involve a lot of luck. you've got to be the right age at the right time with the right people and the right gear, have the right friends who know the right people, while at the same time, having killer songs, a lot of drive and an entrepreneurial spirit. just by having a couple of those criteria out of wac can be deadly.

Yeah, i've got a mansion, four cars and a swimming pool. Eh, it's amazing what you can build out of Leggo bricks when you put your mind to it is'nt it?