Can new musicians even make a living off music anymore?

Can new musicians even make a living off music anymore?

Have you seen Post Malone's house? It's fucking nice, and I don't know anyone irl who has ever heard of him. I imagine there's tons of money out there if you're not some dungeoncore sludge autist.

i have a part-time job and play music full time. I play in lots of bands, cover bands, party bands, singer songwriter groups, etc etc and get local and touring work. I have 5 gigs between today and tomorrow, today alone I've raked in $400. it's possible, it depends on where you live, your instrument, and how well you play it/how well people like you as a person to hire you. also it's about cultivating relationships with people.

Where does the money come in from? Youtube ads? Bandcamp sales?

What instrument do you play?

living the dream you mofo

I don't know, I'd like to know as well.

drums

eff? is that you?

idk who that is

Do you feel you have time and financial freedom to start your own music project though?
I presume not every month is packed with dates

A lot of it would stem from Youtube ads since one of his music videos has 462 million views and another has 144 million views.

Do you think musicians can live off music if they release their albums through their own record label?

You have to gig. There's generally not a lot of money to be made in selling music, it has always been this way.

>Post Malone
he said musicians

I'm currently saving money to buy a production rig. I want to make my own tunes and tour the albums. But right now I'm focused on gigging, getting better at my instrument, and expanding my network and hustling as much as I can. I'm still very young so I still have a lot of time to develop as a solo artist/producer. I'm excited. I play 4 - 9 times a week every week for the last year and a half and before that like 3 - 6 times a week for about two years. I'm booked as late as August of next year. Slow months aren't existent so long as I don't want them to. It's like being your own boss. It's pretty cool.

I'm moving to one of the biggest cities in my country and will be close to two other big cities across the border - any advice for getting gigs, making connections/networking?
I'd like to do drone/ambient/noise music with piano on top so I can gig solo.

Also, can you share more info about how much money you make a week or a month on average, how much you made when you started, etc? Any info that would help me would be super appreciated.

How did it start out, just put your name out for bands looking for drummers to gig with?

Yes. However, even if they couldn't, who cares? Nobody owes you anything and if people aren't paying then you need to find a more stable career and make music on the side.

Out of sight out of mind.
Show up to where the music is and don't be an asshole. Talk to people, have drinks with them, be their friends. It sounds simple but it can be tricky sometimes because you're dealing with other musicians who are most likely fucked in the head in some weird way. But if you can build and maintain a solid core of friends/musicians you can sub out gigs/recommend eachother for gigs, stuff like that.
Also, if you want to be a busy gigging musician, especially if you're just starting, you're going to have to bite the bullet and play styles/songs you may not particularly like. I don't like playing reggae what so ever but if I'm on a gig and the bandleader calls a raggae tune, guess what, I'm playing raggae. Lol.
Go to jam sessions, sit in and play. Sitting in your room making music is great, but you gotta go out and make yourself be known. A guy moved here from New York and all he did for the first 3 weeks was go to jam sessions and find random musicians playing gigs and asking to sit in. It worked well for him, now he has a couple of residencies. Also the city you're in definitely has an effect on the kinds of work and musicians you'll run into/work with. Sorry I took so long, I'm setting up at a gig right now and posting from mobile.

his album reached the Billboard top 10 and sold more than a million copies.
he's not some kind of YouTube only star.

It depends on the gig and the people hiring me.
Bar gigs can land me anywhere between $50 - $200 30 minutes - 4 hours. All depends on the bar/gig/band/night etc
I did a one off festival in Alabama which was a 26 hour road trip round trip and got $700 for a 45 minute set. When I first started I was making anywhere between 20 - 100$ a gig. You gotta work your way up.
I get ~600 from my part time job every two weeks, so I can pull in between 1.5k - 3k+ a month depending on how stacked the gigs are.

Going to jam sessions and playing drums. People liked my sound and started throwing gigs at me. I met new people on gigs that got me more gigs, met more people, got more gigs. Rinse and repeat. The band I'm playing with tonight is probably the best paying gigs I get regularly and I only got in because the sax player played a one off with me at a shitty club on a Wednesday night. Pretty much everyone I play with is twice my age too so that helps lol.

Keep in mind musicians with YouTube money and billboard chart money get waaayyy more than I do.

If you succeed in finding an audience you can still make a lot of money with music, especially with live shows and youtube views.
Playing popular genres like rap or EDM helps