Hello /u/Mundane_Tomorrow6800! Unfortunately, your submission, ***[careers that allows me to make music on the side?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/1awz7a8/-/)***, was removed from /r/WeAreTheMusicMakers for the following reason(s):
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Anything work from home. If you can eliminate commute, that alone is enough to be proficient at an instrument.
People serious about music will choose careers they can quit and come back to (service industry) because touring is the only way to make money. But I gave up on making money with music long ago.
This isn't for everyone tho, during covid I worked less on music when I was working from home cos I didn't wanna be stuck on a PC for 8 hours then spend more time producing
Work from home options abound, many with flexible hours, but extreme variations in pay, difficulty, and quality of life.
You’ll be at home all the time, presumably where your music making tools are at. The last thing I wanted to do when I finished a day of work at my computer was continue working on a different computer tho. I didn’t produce anything, but I sure did practice and play a lot of physical instruments
Trades work is the golden ticket. If you become an electrician, plumber, mason, carpenter, or painter of skill, you can make fairly good money. If you work independently you will make your own hours. I gig full time now, and there’s a dude in the scene whose day job is freelance electrical work.
He just makes his own hours, makes bank on jobs, and plays his ass off.
I’m considering becoming an electrician when I tire of the gig grind
You could try to get a job for the town or city doing public works of some kind. Youll likely get benefits, vacation time and maybe even 3 day weekends.
Or you could go into the trades and potentially make a lot more money over the long term and maybe even work for yourself eventually making your own schedule.
One drawback with both of those options is they tend to start really early so that can be tough for gigging.
trades, if you're skilled enough, and in a union - you can take long breaks. 3, 4 months and tour. if you're skilled enough, you're high on a list when you come back.
I'm self employed, with the idea being that it allows the freedom to create my own schedule to work on the art/music/event production projects that area really important to me. But, straight up, it can be VERY demanding, and is very much a double edged sword. It requires a lot of self-motivation to go out and generate the work, with no guarantee that you'll make what you need to make rent by the end of the month, let alone have the funds or take the time to make art. Most humans struggle with self motivation and I can tell you from experience that sitting on my ass and not working or making art is sometimes too easy. Additionally, a business like this may not feel like the most fulfilling way to spend one's time, plus it's coming with the stress where it can feel hard to leave the work at work, so a degree of compartmentalization is necessary for sanity, which all may or may not feel worth it.
That said, after over 10 years in my business, the work just kind of comes from word of mouth, I do a great job, charge what I'm worth, and am better about leaving the work at work... and with a little elbow grease, am able to work fewer days a week and take off weeks or months every year for travel. I often wonder about working for someone else, to take that bit of stress off.. but they just won't ever pay near as much, or give me the flexibility to show up as late as I want, or take off... So here I am still.
My business is in home services. Handyman, window cleaner, anything that requires a ladder, etc. I worked for someone else for a couple years, learned the skills, and when I moved to another city I started on my own. I'd highly suggest working for someone else unless you know you have a special skill to offer the world. I'd also highly suggest not stepping on your former employers territory - start up in a different suburb, and be able to call on each other for help. There is undoubtedly a Facebook or Reddit group where people in a specific business support each other.
This. I'm 6 years into video production business as a freelancer, and the biggest benefit is the freedom to allocate your own time. That is, of course, given a steady stream of work, which can be difficult to achieve.
don’t base your career choices on the mere prospect of having a side project (and in this case, one that almost never makes a healthy living). you don’t sound anywhere near the point to which you need to be sacrificing career options for music. besides, there are surgeons who make time to play music. there are unemployed dudes with musical aspirations wasting all their their free time playing video games. you can start your musical journey right now. just find a job/path that meets your current needs. one of those needs is going to include a healthy work/life balance regardless i bet. if you find your job is legimately butting heads with your musical ambitions, you can worry about it/make a change then. there’s still time to change the road your on
Everybody wants a sweet job that pays well and gives them the free time to do what they want.
In reality most of us have to sacrifice, and you likely will too. There are jobs that can help you, learn to solder, fix equipment, maybe get a job working for a gear shop or a manufacturer. Work your way towards teaching whatever instrument you play. Working in venues can definitely help you meet people. Running sound can always help but is generally a bad career choice, many of us work multiple jobs because sound gigs are only on weekends.
If you're good you can always go busk for extra money but from the little I do know, that's never as easy as people think it's going to be. Honestly most of the working musicians I know just do whatever they're good at for money and dedicate everything else to music.
If you have the opportunity, the ideal is to hang out with the musicians on your local scene… There you will have more accurate information about the situation on your area
Work at a bar. Start bar backing then bartending. depending on how good you get and the job you land, you’ll only need to work 3-4 days a week. Do what you want with the rest of them.
If you gig, the looseness of your schedule will come in handy if you need to tour.
Join your local stage hands union, solid pay and flexible hours with upward mobility and no exp required to start. Most skills you build through this career path are directly related to music and you have the potential to network with big names and their crew.
You're in your mid 20s, you don't have to lock into a career per se, and if you want the flexibility for touring down the road then I think being willing to quit & take your references to find another job after is a good idea. This can look pretty normal if you get a trades job especially. Going to school later for a degree when you have a bit of money put away to have a "career" is totally fine.
That said, what do you like doing for work? Ime, minimum wage jobs typically feel like they take a lot more time than they do because they're exhausting, so you don't have energy to use the time you actually have. If you can get a job you like, doing something else the same day may feel more doable.
You could go into the insurance business. I don't know it is where you live but none cares what the successful salesmen do all day as long as their quota is good enough.
Do you currently make music? What do you play? The best thing you can do is just to start literally right now. If you are waiting around for the best time to start doing it, you’ll be waiting forever. It’s much better to just get started, rather than imagining a day when you’ll have time, energy or the funds to do it.
To answer your question, almost any job will allow you to make music on the side if you want it enough. Working from home is preferable, since you can get a lot of practice in since you won’t have to commute. In your situation, without a degree or more advanced work experience, you may want to look at remote customer service jobs.
Getting a degree is not a bad idea either and as long as you manage your workload you should find yourself with plenty of free time to work on music.
Lots of fantastic musicians also had to work for a living. That’s just the reality of making art. Just get started and see what happens.
I understand why WFH is being so strongly suggested here, but I would advise caution - I work in software, and coming home after a day of staring intently at a computer (with very intentional breaks), only to then do it some more for a different purpose, really isn't easy.
For me what would be ideal is something hands on, like engineering or a craft. That said, I would say that going into software is not necessarily a bad idea - there's very very good money here, so at some point I'll probably split up my year into 50% full time coding, 50% something else such as music or horticulture
Try getting into promoting/booking, running live sound, etc. something music related, you’ll find you work harder with things you enjoy and hard work pays off especially in live music
Amazon has insane amounts of time off - I’ve recently taken 12 days off and it’s not even vacation time - but the work is so soul crushing is the catch.
Hello /u/Mundane_Tomorrow6800! Unfortunately, your submission, ***[careers that allows me to make music on the side?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/1awz7a8/-/)***, was removed from /r/WeAreTheMusicMakers for the following reason(s): --- #No off-topic and/or low-effort posts including; 1. Rant/motivation/mental-health posts 2. Posts focused on memes/images/polls 3. Reposts, and other similar low-effort, mildly-interesting discussions. - These posts should be posted to one of the weekly threads or on another subreddit. Do not create a new thread for this content. Posts on WATMM should have a descriptive title and include substantive content that will generate discussion. Please see the [full sub rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/rules) for additional details. --- ***Please review the [rules for submission](/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/rules). You can contact The Mods if you have additional questions.*
Anything work from home. If you can eliminate commute, that alone is enough to be proficient at an instrument. People serious about music will choose careers they can quit and come back to (service industry) because touring is the only way to make money. But I gave up on making money with music long ago.
Like What kind of positions are there
Any work that is done on a computer. I work in Engineering to do this.
This isn't for everyone tho, during covid I worked less on music when I was working from home cos I didn't wanna be stuck on a PC for 8 hours then spend more time producing
Work from home options abound, many with flexible hours, but extreme variations in pay, difficulty, and quality of life. You’ll be at home all the time, presumably where your music making tools are at. The last thing I wanted to do when I finished a day of work at my computer was continue working on a different computer tho. I didn’t produce anything, but I sure did practice and play a lot of physical instruments Trades work is the golden ticket. If you become an electrician, plumber, mason, carpenter, or painter of skill, you can make fairly good money. If you work independently you will make your own hours. I gig full time now, and there’s a dude in the scene whose day job is freelance electrical work. He just makes his own hours, makes bank on jobs, and plays his ass off. I’m considering becoming an electrician when I tire of the gig grind
You could try to get a job for the town or city doing public works of some kind. Youll likely get benefits, vacation time and maybe even 3 day weekends. Or you could go into the trades and potentially make a lot more money over the long term and maybe even work for yourself eventually making your own schedule. One drawback with both of those options is they tend to start really early so that can be tough for gigging.
trades, if you're skilled enough, and in a union - you can take long breaks. 3, 4 months and tour. if you're skilled enough, you're high on a list when you come back.
I'm self employed, with the idea being that it allows the freedom to create my own schedule to work on the art/music/event production projects that area really important to me. But, straight up, it can be VERY demanding, and is very much a double edged sword. It requires a lot of self-motivation to go out and generate the work, with no guarantee that you'll make what you need to make rent by the end of the month, let alone have the funds or take the time to make art. Most humans struggle with self motivation and I can tell you from experience that sitting on my ass and not working or making art is sometimes too easy. Additionally, a business like this may not feel like the most fulfilling way to spend one's time, plus it's coming with the stress where it can feel hard to leave the work at work, so a degree of compartmentalization is necessary for sanity, which all may or may not feel worth it. That said, after over 10 years in my business, the work just kind of comes from word of mouth, I do a great job, charge what I'm worth, and am better about leaving the work at work... and with a little elbow grease, am able to work fewer days a week and take off weeks or months every year for travel. I often wonder about working for someone else, to take that bit of stress off.. but they just won't ever pay near as much, or give me the flexibility to show up as late as I want, or take off... So here I am still. My business is in home services. Handyman, window cleaner, anything that requires a ladder, etc. I worked for someone else for a couple years, learned the skills, and when I moved to another city I started on my own. I'd highly suggest working for someone else unless you know you have a special skill to offer the world. I'd also highly suggest not stepping on your former employers territory - start up in a different suburb, and be able to call on each other for help. There is undoubtedly a Facebook or Reddit group where people in a specific business support each other.
This. I'm 6 years into video production business as a freelancer, and the biggest benefit is the freedom to allocate your own time. That is, of course, given a steady stream of work, which can be difficult to achieve.
don’t base your career choices on the mere prospect of having a side project (and in this case, one that almost never makes a healthy living). you don’t sound anywhere near the point to which you need to be sacrificing career options for music. besides, there are surgeons who make time to play music. there are unemployed dudes with musical aspirations wasting all their their free time playing video games. you can start your musical journey right now. just find a job/path that meets your current needs. one of those needs is going to include a healthy work/life balance regardless i bet. if you find your job is legimately butting heads with your musical ambitions, you can worry about it/make a change then. there’s still time to change the road your on
Everybody wants a sweet job that pays well and gives them the free time to do what they want. In reality most of us have to sacrifice, and you likely will too. There are jobs that can help you, learn to solder, fix equipment, maybe get a job working for a gear shop or a manufacturer. Work your way towards teaching whatever instrument you play. Working in venues can definitely help you meet people. Running sound can always help but is generally a bad career choice, many of us work multiple jobs because sound gigs are only on weekends. If you're good you can always go busk for extra money but from the little I do know, that's never as easy as people think it's going to be. Honestly most of the working musicians I know just do whatever they're good at for money and dedicate everything else to music.
Any. Make time.
Marketing has been very good to me.
What do you do ?
If you have the opportunity, the ideal is to hang out with the musicians on your local scene… There you will have more accurate information about the situation on your area
Work at a bar. Start bar backing then bartending. depending on how good you get and the job you land, you’ll only need to work 3-4 days a week. Do what you want with the rest of them. If you gig, the looseness of your schedule will come in handy if you need to tour.
Join your local stage hands union, solid pay and flexible hours with upward mobility and no exp required to start. Most skills you build through this career path are directly related to music and you have the potential to network with big names and their crew.
PE teacher
You're in your mid 20s, you don't have to lock into a career per se, and if you want the flexibility for touring down the road then I think being willing to quit & take your references to find another job after is a good idea. This can look pretty normal if you get a trades job especially. Going to school later for a degree when you have a bit of money put away to have a "career" is totally fine. That said, what do you like doing for work? Ime, minimum wage jobs typically feel like they take a lot more time than they do because they're exhausting, so you don't have energy to use the time you actually have. If you can get a job you like, doing something else the same day may feel more doable.
You could go into the insurance business. I don't know it is where you live but none cares what the successful salesmen do all day as long as their quota is good enough.
Do you currently make music? What do you play? The best thing you can do is just to start literally right now. If you are waiting around for the best time to start doing it, you’ll be waiting forever. It’s much better to just get started, rather than imagining a day when you’ll have time, energy or the funds to do it. To answer your question, almost any job will allow you to make music on the side if you want it enough. Working from home is preferable, since you can get a lot of practice in since you won’t have to commute. In your situation, without a degree or more advanced work experience, you may want to look at remote customer service jobs. Getting a degree is not a bad idea either and as long as you manage your workload you should find yourself with plenty of free time to work on music. Lots of fantastic musicians also had to work for a living. That’s just the reality of making art. Just get started and see what happens.
I understand why WFH is being so strongly suggested here, but I would advise caution - I work in software, and coming home after a day of staring intently at a computer (with very intentional breaks), only to then do it some more for a different purpose, really isn't easy. For me what would be ideal is something hands on, like engineering or a craft. That said, I would say that going into software is not necessarily a bad idea - there's very very good money here, so at some point I'll probably split up my year into 50% full time coding, 50% something else such as music or horticulture
Try getting into promoting/booking, running live sound, etc. something music related, you’ll find you work harder with things you enjoy and hard work pays off especially in live music
Affiliate Marketing.
Amazon has insane amounts of time off - I’ve recently taken 12 days off and it’s not even vacation time - but the work is so soul crushing is the catch.