Musicians Ways of Making Money
Understand how musicians are making a profit from their artistic creations and how songs can be turned into money.
Surviving financially has always been difficult for musicians. Few are making it through the needle’s eye to be able to make a living off music, and with declining record revenues in the age of digital streaming, artists have to be creative to make a living. We have looked at some of the methods artists have been using to transform creativity in songwriting and performing into a profitable living.
Use Your Songs as Pieces of Investment
It has made big headlines in recent years, as songwriters like Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, and Poul Simon sold the rights to their entire catalog of songs in massive blockbuster deals. The reported price for almost 60 years of Bob Dylan songs was 300 million dollars, giving the 80-year-old American singer-songwriter a fine saving for his older years.
The price might seem high, but the new right holders can use Dylan’s songs for commercial purposes like commercials, films, or other public use of Dylan’s songs. Such use can generate lots of money for the right holders over the years and seems to be the logic behind the deal. For the same reason, Taylor Swift has re-recorded former albums, after not owning the rights to the master recordings of her earliest albums. This example shows how a song can now be seen as an object for investment. A song can now not solely be measured at its artistic value. It also has commercial value. Just like stocks, cryptocurrencies, or foreign exchange currencies a song has a value right now, that can raise in the future, as it is proven to generate profit or give the promise of generating profit. Modern trading is simply a system where you buy and sell an asset with the expectation that the value of your belongings will rise. It could be a currency rising in value compared with a lower valued currency. If you are interested in learning more about forex trading, you can find all the best trading advice in one spot at fxforex.com.
Use Your Songs for Other Purposes
In some musical circles, commercial collaborations with other parties have seemed like an act of sell-out that is compromising artistic integrity. But looking at games like Grand Theft Auto, would you then say it hasn’t been a benefit for the artists featured at the radio stations in the game? Having your music placed in different tv-shows, movies, commercials, or computer games is a way to make a profit for a huge variety of musicians.
In most cases, the product isn’t even the face of the musician. It is solely the song or even just a little bit of the song. Music is incredibly emotive and can therefore perfectly suit different scenes in audiovisual products. So even though you are playing the loudest noise-rock or other niche genres, you can make a fine profit from having songs placed for the right purposes. The point is still to make the music you love, but if your guitar riff fits perfectly for a tech commercial, then why hold yourself back, if you can’t even be recognized by the music?
