Average Income of a Musician
There are a lot of different ways to make a living as a modern musician, and it’s fair to say that most professional musicians make their living from not just one job, but from many different jobs. Diversifying your income streams is important to a lot of different professions, and the musician business is definitely one of them.
In this article, I talk about the following types of musician jobs. Click a job to jump ahead.
- Teaching
- Original Music
- Selling CDs
- Cover Bands
- Symphony Orchestras
- Musical Theatre (Broadway) Musicians
- Cruise Ship Musicians
- Freelance Musicians
See also, Top 10 Gigs You May Not Have Thought Of.
Teaching Private Music Lessons
Teaching income rates vary widely, from $18/hr at a local music shop, to $150/hr for the most highly trained and sought after teachers. Rumor has it that the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic charges $200+ an hour for lessons. When I was a kid, my teacher charged my parents $12 for a thirty minute piano lesson.
I knew a concert pianist in Chicago who charged $75/hr, and I recently heard from a composition teacher in Manhattan who charges $100 for 50 minutes. These rates and the rumored rates of the NY Phil concertmaster represent the upper tier of lesson rates, and these musicians can only sustain this income because of their level of training and success. The average musician, teaching beginner and intermediate students, can probably expect to make $30-60 an hour. It all depends on training, experience and your perceived value in the community you teach in.
A full-time teacher can have upwards of 50 students a week. I’ve never heard of someone having more than 60 students, but its possible, especially if the lessons are all 30-minute sessions.
Say you have 30 students, with 25 of them in 30-minute lessons and the rest in 60-minute lessons. Lets say you charge $20 for 30 minutes, which I would say is more than reasonable if you are experienced and educated.
((30 x $20) + (5 x $40)) x 52 weeks = $41,600 a year
That is roughly a gross income of $40,000 a year for 17.5 hours of teaching a week. Travel and prep time are not included in that figure and will vary depending on the job and location (in-home lessons, for instance, will naturally require a lot of travel time). Nevertheless, the amount of time musicians spend teaching lessons is scalable (you don’t have to take 30 students, of course) so many musicians teach part time and spend the rest of their work week performing with other groups, practicing, recording, etc.
Lets move onto the next category, which will take much more time to discuss: performing.
Performing and Recording
Let’s break this down into two categories: performing original music and performing someone else’s music.
Original Music
Performing your own music is, of course, a very personally rewarding thing to do, but making money at it can sometimes be challenging. You’ll need two things to make a living playing original music.
- You’ll need to be able to write music that people like to listen to so much that they would pay money to hear it over and over again. That ain’t easy.
- You’ll need to find some way to get lots and lots of people to hear your music. You could try to get it on the radio, or featured on a commercial (Apple commercials are especially popular for this recently), on a movie, etc. You could also try to land a gig as the opening act to a touring band. These days, its also possible to get exposure for your material entirely through the internet (See Jonathon Coulton, internet superstar).
Once you have these two things (good music and fans), there are two ways to make money off original music. First, by performing it. If you play it at a bar or club for a group of friends or fans, you can make anywhere between $5 and $800 a night. I would say that $100 per performer could be considered a good night for a live, original band. Remember, though, that this nightly take might be split between you and all of the people that made the night possible (a manager or talent agency that booked the show, the bar owner, the sound man, etc.).
For an interesting read on this subject, I recommend reading Cameron’s article, The Truth About Booking Shows for Musicians in New York City.
The other way to make money playing your own music is to sell recordings of it. Recordings are sold everywhere these days, not just as concerts and record shops, but in Wal-marts and Starbucks and all over the internet. The traditional 20th century record label business model has all but collapsed since the digitization of the record business, and this has made the distribution and sale of recordings available to anyone with an internet connection and a PayPal account.
If you have music that people want to buy, selling records is probably the easiest way to make money as an original musician, because it takes much less effort and expense than performing and touring. Sometimes it seems like musicians perform primarily to showcase their music to large crowds of people in the hopes that these people will like them enough to buy their recordings.
So let’s get down to real numbers. Say it costs $5,000 to record and press your album (assuming you press CDs and record in a studio). If you sell the album for $10, you have to sell 500 to break even. You should be able to do that, even if it takes a little while. After that its pretty easy. People can buy your album online without you even having to ship anything to them. People pay cash for it at your concerts. Say you sell 100 albums a month online or in stores and another 20 at shows.
((100 online x $10) + (20 live x $10)) x 12 months = $14,400 a year
Its not enough to live on, maybe, but after you’ve recorded it and broken even, it doesn’t take a lot of effort. And as you build a fan base, that number is bound to increase.
On a side note, if you get a record label involved with this process you are almost guaranteed to sell more recordings, but you are not guaranteed to make more money, as record labels often take a lion’s share of profits. There’s a great deal of literature written about that phenomenon. Look up Donald Passman’s books for more info on record labels.
Personally, I highly recommend researching cdbaby.com if you are considering selling your music independently. They are a fine organization and have helped thousands and thousands of musicians sell their music with very little hassle and maximum profit.
Copyrighted Music
The second category of performance income is money made off of music other people wrote. This includes all kinds of performance jobs – not just cover bands, but lots of jazz gigs (playing standards), musical theatre jobs, cruise ship jobs, big bands, Vegas jobs, amusement parks, symphony orchestras – all kinds of work!
Cover Bands
First, cover bands. These gigs can be a good source of income, and wedding bands are probably the best example of this. These bands often have hundreds and hundreds of songs memorized. If the bride requests a song, they better know it! Wedding bands are usually pop rock bands or big band swing jazz bands (the jazz bands have written music, they usually don’t have to memorize songs). Wedding bands can charge $1,000 – $10,000 on one wedding, depending on what’s needed. There are weddings every weekend of every year. Let’s say your band makes an average of $1,500 on a wedding and you work one wedding every other week (26 weeks a year).
$2,000/wedding x 26 weddings = $52,000 a year
Bear in mind, though, that that money is usually split between every one involved (musicians, booking company, etc.). If 8 people are involved in the band (6 musicians, 1 booking agent, 1 sound guy), an even split would be $6,500 each year. Perhaps not a lot, but also consider that many cover bands work much more often than every other week, and $2,000 is on the low side of the potential wages.
For a real-world example of cover band rates, check out the website of DC-based band Oracle – specifically the How Much Does Oracle Cost? section.
Generally speaking, you’ll make a lot more money if you manage the band yourself and book the gig yourself. If you work for a booking agency as a hired “sideman” musician, you’ll probably make more like $100 – $300 a wedding. On the other hand, you’ll book more gigs through an agency.
Symphony Orchestra
There is a great range of salaries for orchestras around the world. Positions, at least in union orchestras, are typically full-time with benefits. The lowest paying orchestras start their members at around $22,000 a year, and the highest paid orchestras starting at $130,000. A full list of orchestra salaries is posted at www.icsom.org, but here are some examples of base salaries around the U.S. (all example are from the 2006-2007 seasons and available at icsom.org):
New York Philharmonic: $112,060
Kansas City Symphony: $39,359
Utah Symphony Orchestra: $57,720
San Francisco Opera: $63,021
These wages don’t include pension, healthcare, extra services, or premiums for doubling and principles. For example, pension contributions can be an additional 8-12% and the concertmaster of an orchestra traditionally earns twice the orchestra’s base salary.
Another good, if depressing, site about orchestra salaries, including salary history, is:
Musical Theatre
The income potential for theatre musicians can vary widely. To start, lets say you play with a regional theatre company that pays $75 a performance. They put up 5 shows a year, and have 60 performances of each show.
$75/performance x 60 performances x 5 times a year = $22,500 a year
The next level is touring musical theatre. This can be a hard life, but the money can sometimes make it worthwhile. Touring sidemen can make $500 – $1,000 a week on non-union tours. $600 a week plus a $300 a week per diem is a good wage for a touring non-union musical theatre sideman (this includes per diem and assumes hotels and transportation are paid for). Musical theatre tours typically work from fall to spring, mirroring the school year.
36 weeks x $900/wk = $32,400 a year
Music directors and conductors can expect to make 30% more than sidemen. This seems to be true across all musical theatre gigs.
See also How to Become a Musical Theatre Music Director.
The best musical theatre wages are found, of course, on Broadway in NYC, but also on union tours of Broadway shows (which can sometimes pay the same). Starting wages for Broadway and union touring musicians is around $1000/wk, but after doubling fees is usually more like $1,500, plus health insurance, pension and per diem. These wages are all negotiated and standardized by the American Federation of Musicians.
Union tours often work more weeks a year than non-union (sometimes non-stop).
42 weeks x $1500/wk = $63,000 a year
Cruise Ship Musician
As in most traveling jobs, housing is provided on cruise ship jobs. Cruise jobs also provide excellent food and opportunity to travel to some of the most beautiful places in the world. They also pay you!
Hardly anything!
Just kidding. (Not really.) When I worked on a ship in 2004, I was paid $50/day to be the keyboardist in the show band. I understand that recently (2008) wages have been raised to $65/day.
Because of the other benefits to the job, it doesn’t really matter what they pay. People will always want the work.
Contracts are usually four to six months. If you work on ships year-round, the typical schedule is 6 months on, then 1 month off. For ease of example, let’s take a 12 month period where 10 months are spent working.
$65/day x 7 days x 40 weeks = $18,200 a year
This may not seem like much, but nevertheless, expenses are very low and it can be easy to save money while on a ship. Musicians often come off of ships having saved thousands of dollars.
For more information on this gig, see our comprehensive guide on this subject, Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Musician. For a more detailed look just as the salary of a cruise ship musician, see Average Pay for a Cruise Line Musician.
Freelance Musician
As I mentioned before, few musicians are able to devote all of their time to just one income stream. Many work as self-employed freelancers in a variety of musician jobs. In fact, according to a study done by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Endowment for the Arts (available here), 44% of professional musicians in the U.S. are self-employed.
Regarding freelance income, geography has a big impact on one’s income potential (but also on one’s expenses). Living in a small town in Montana may not net you the volume of work that would be available in a large population area. That said, although one might associate music careers exclusively with only the highest population centers (New York, LA for example) it is still possible to make a living as a musician in a smaller population centers. I have met musicians living and working comfortably in cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, Orlando – even St. Paul, MN and Richmond, VA. I do not mean to suggest that one could make the same living freelancing in St. Paul as one could make in New York City, as that is not true. I only mean to suggest that towns like St. Paul may have enough volume of work for musicians to make a living.
In my experience, how well you can make a living in a given area seems to have at least a partial link to the population and median income of the area. This is just my own approximation, but I estimate that a working musician can make at least $30,000 a year living in a population of at least 400,000 with a median income around $55,000. Again, this is my own evaluation based on what I’ve seen in several different cities in recent years.
For help keeping track of freelance music income, see also Freelance Musician Excel Spreadsheet.
Summary
My point here is that it is possible to make a living playing music, and that its more possible than we’ve all been taught to believe. From these figures, its clear that you would not make a LOT of money. I certainly don’t mean to suggest that working as a musician would ever make someone a lot of money. Chances are good it never will. But if you had the choice between making enough doing something you loved, and making more than enough doing something you didn’t love…well, for me the choice is obvious, and I think its that way for a lot of working musicians.
About the author
Great post. Even for non-musicians, this is extremely interesting. I had no idea what you made as a cruise ship musician — or teacher, for that matter.
-Artists House
11/10/2008
Dave-
Great article!
-Steve
11/10/2008
Maybe This article could be extended using AFM minimum rates. A real example (anonymus) Could be very interesting.
Good article.
12/21/2008
Also consider a military band. Full-time active duty musicians start out at $1400/month, higher if you have some college, if you make it into one of the highly competitive “premier” bands you get an automatic promotion to E6 ($2100/month). Active duty military means all of your room and board is paid for – 3 meals a day in the cafeteria (sometimes good, sometimes not so good) and a room in the barracks (think college dorm). If you’re married you get a raise and an apartment/house on base. Many full-timers teach lessons or play gigs locally to bring in some additional income. Depending on which group you’re in you might play in a concert band, a smaller chamber ensemble, jazz band, rock band, country band – lots of opportunities.
Military musicians definitely lead a military life. You’ll move every couple of years, you’re locked into a contract (at least 4 years the first time) and you do what you’re told when you’re told. In most cases you’ll have to go through basic training. Depending on which band you’re in you might tour your region or around the country (in some cases around the world). You may get sent overseas for 3-6 months (especially with the current world political situation). It’s a good life if you can put up with the military side of things.
The National Guard also has bands in most states. My guard band rehearses one weekend a month, occasionally gigging during the weekend, and tours regionally for about two weeks over the summer (usually around the 4th of July). The pay isn’t exceptional but it’s not bad for a weekend gig. I clear about $250 after taxes for a weekend and I have my evenings free to do whatever I want. Sometimes I drive back home Saturday night, sometimes I stay at the base. Last summer I made about $1200 for tour plus food allowance (and I wasn’t spending gas money). I get plenty of free time during tour to do whatever I want, whether that’s being a tourist, just hanging out or sitting somewhere with my laptop getting work done (I work as a freelance web developer). We usually have at least 2-3 completely free days during tour and any day that we travel more than an hour or two we won’t have a gig. Even on gig days we rarely work more than 4-5 hours including travel time.
It’s not for everyone and I’m still debating whether I’ll re-enlist when my contract is up in a few months. For anyone looking to finance a college education it’s DEFINITELY worth a look. The college benefits even with the part-time National Guard gig practically paid me to go to school. From a very practical standpoint, active duty military means your health care is paid for, and in the Guard there’s very affordable and high-quality health insurance for you and your family. If you play a less “in demand” instrument like euphonium, double reeds or french horn then it’s a very good opportunity for a full-time paid gig playing your horn.
Check it out – the military may be a great fit for you!
2/4/2009
Dave,
This is very informative for those in their early career and still floundering. I wish I’d had this info when I was at that stage.
I just want to add my two cents to the topic of getting gigs.
I’m a pianist, composer and arranger, producer and I also write (as in words and lyrics) so I’ve never been too far from some kind of gig. I live in Charleston, South Carolina now though I spent 27 years of my life in the NYC area. It’s far more difficult to find gigs in smaller towns as you say but I would suggest to anyone considering a move to someplace outside of the big metropolis that they do some homework on the place they’re moving to. I found several agents here in Charleston and contacted them and sent a CD before I moved here. Within a few weeks of gettng here I was already doing solo piano gigs in private homes and banquet halls. I eventually also did arranging for the symphony orchestra here and also landed a teaching job at a private school. True, the most financially rewarding work is still coming from outside – I’m currently working for Disney as a background composer, but if all else were to fail I have developed some solid contacts here simply because I started out the right way.
FR
2/21/2009
100 sales a month for a new band doing original material is a lot.
A discussion on what the average sales per month online would be useful perhaps.
My experience is that the bulk of my sales are offline at gigs rather than online via my website.
3/18/2009
Alun, I agree with you, but consider a couple things… First, I think Dave’s numbers just demonstrate a somewhat simple equation that will no doubt be different from artist to artist, band to band. It’s really difficult to describe the average band making original music, because there are so many factors that will affect sales (genre, location, talent, internet savvy, etc.).
Secondly and more importantly, online revenue is in actuality more diverse. For example, not only might you sell CDs from your website or CD Baby, but download sales of several different albums plus a few dozen individual tracks from stores like iTunes or Amazon MP3 can really add up.
If you can figure out ways to boost your online sales (I’ve written about the strategies that work for me on this site), I think it can become a serious revenue stream and perhaps surpass your offline sales.
3/18/2009
Hi Cameron
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t dissing the article or anything. I was just exploring what the average sales might be as 100 a month seems too high for a new act doing original stuff.
Interesting response. Can you post some links to the articles you’re referring to so I can go and have a read.
Ta
Al 8-)
3/19/2009
Oh, I know you weren’t. I always felt like that number was a little high, but when I started looking at my combined sales and figuring out how to make this album sell a little better, or these two tracks sell better, etc. I was able to get to an average monthly number of sales that is fairly easy to maintain, and a serious revenue stream.
The root of everything, for me, has been to make iMixes. Once I started doing that effectively, everything else started coming together around it. Here’s the article I wrote.
3/19/2009
I have a teenage son who tells me his pirating music is no big deal. Since he is a musician himself, I point out to him that someday thats going to be HIS money people are stealing. But he remains unphased. He tells me the record sales make money for the record label, not the artist. He says that the artist makes all their money from touring, doing the live concerts. And his thinking is that the pirated music promotes the concerts, so its helping the artist make more money. I still don’t allow pirating in my house. But tell me what you think, as artists out there having their work “shared”? Are you just glad to have it being enjoyed, or does it bother you? Admittedly, he is stealing music that is recorded by major record labels, so maybe its different than the independant musician working for his living. But I’d still like to hear what you think.
Thanks,
Valerie
4/3/2009
Hi Valerie, thanks for asking this question. It’s a good one, and the effects on the actual musicians has been pretty heavily debated. There’s no doubt that file trading has hurt the recorded music industry, but it’s also arguably been helpful to lesser known musicians.
Dave Hahn and I are going to round up the thoughts of some other writers and musicians and try to tackle this in a broader sense. I can tell you now that as an independent artist, at least half of my income is generated through the sale of my music. Every sale makes a difference to me, but so does getting new people to give my music a listen.
In the meantime, here are a few things to ponder:
How many concerts does he attend to support these artists?
Is he discovering new artists in the process or is he just downloading to try out whatever is popular?
Do you think he’d be buying all of this music if downloading and file sharing was even an option? In other words, are labels and musicians actually losing sales here?
Stay tuned!
4/4/2009
Whom ever owns this website please add me to your mailing list if you have one. This is a great site I found surfing and I don’t want to forget it.
I am planning a tour of Florida in fall 2010 and could uuse help if anyone can suggest clubs that would be receptive to a solo aocustic act 30 years experience.
6/20/2009
Very cool post….I like your blog and have bookmarked it for future reference. It would be great to do what you love for a living! I’m not there yet.
8/25/2009
Thank you for this article. It is very informative and gives an insiders look into the real salary of a working musician. What type of fee for students do you recommend for a teacher just starting her own studio for private lessons?
10/26/2009
I agree with Dana. It is very informative and for those that aren’t musicians, I think it gives them a real nice insider’s look at what it really takes to make a living as one and that we don’t view it as say..”an expensive hobby”.
11/2/2009
I really liked what you said in your summary: “My point here is that it is possible to make a living playing music, and that its more possible than we’ve all been taught to believe.”
This article was very reassuring. It is nice to know, as a student, that there are opportunities to generate income as a musician.
11/2/2009
i would just like to know how what a Musicians income is in a year! THANKS-
PORCHA
11/3/2009
this article is VERY informative. i wasn’t sure about the musician thing, because i wanted to do metal/hardcore, acoustic and/or pop punk. i’ll definitely use this article in the future.
12/1/2009
I am not a musician but the blog post is really interesting. I have many friends who are in music world and they hardly earn reasonable amounts of money. Apparently, there is a tough life struggle for most of the musicians.
12/16/2009
I am just digging into your website, and I really like what you have to say. I’m not in my twenties anymore, and after all these years I still haven’t been able to make significant money with music.
But this year (out of necessity) I found a new way. Needing cash because I was in between work contracts, I would just walk into to a nice restaurant with my guitar and ask if I could sing a few songs. Depending on the neighborhood, that seemed to work about one 20% of the time. This had some advantages. I didn’t have to plan and promote a gig. I didn’t have to set up sound equipment and pay musicians. If things weren’t good, I could easily move onto the next place. And my tax advisor won’t even consider reporting this tip income. And I ended up booking gigs from the contacts I made.
In fine dining restaurants, I found I could make tips as much as €10, and some nights I made as much as €100. Now that’s not much compared to my tech freelancing work. But if could somehow do this every day, or combine it with booked gigs, maybe I could someday quit the day job….
1/2/2010
Dave-
Thanks soo much!I’ve been trying to find something like this for awhile so I really appreiciate it.It’ll help me figure out if I really want to go through with sharing my music, considering I live in New York and my rent is over the top…
Amber.
1/5/2010
Dave
Nice article. Great info that was well conveyed. I have been in business for 15 years and have had it. I just applied for the fall term for a masters in Music Ed at night and informtion like this is very helpful. Good luck to you.
Mike
3/2/2010
Dave
Thanks for sharing the info and writing for this site. It helps to know what the potential is out there. Any thoughts on what you could do in as a studio musician these days? I friended you on FaceBook with some other questions as I am looking at a move to Las Vegas. Ever since I moved out of the Detroit area to northern IN though, not much in the way of Studios here unfortunately. Any thoughts? And thanks again for sharing!
Mike
3/7/2010
Hi Dave;
Great article.
I would like to add that there are also church musicians out here. There are not very many full time church musicians, but there are positions out there. Music & Worship Directors, Organists, Pianists, Adult & Youth Choir Directors, Choir Section Leaders, Bell Choir Directors (hand bells), Worship Band Leaders & Soloists… I am also aware of churches that hire in an orchestra for events such as Christmas & Easter services as well as for special choral concert events. Many of these musicians (that I am aware of) are paid union scale.
Just thought I’d let you know.
Thanks,
Stephanie
3/24/2010
Thanks for the thoroughly researched and insightful post. It’s always good to have concrete numbers in mind when considering a certain avenue for making money as a musician. The starting salary at the New York Phil certainly caught my eye.
Just to add to your data, I’m currently studying piano with a former concert pianist / current professor, and her rates are $150/hr. I took a few lessons with Daniel Pollack, the head of the piano program at the University of Southern California, and his rates were $200/hr, though they may have gone up since then.
4/16/2010
More depressing news. Here’s a post about the 360 record deal.
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/04/19/360-deals-3/
4/21/2010
this article did not help me in mrs stagno’s class >:(
5/5/2010
@Jamie – What was the assignment in Mrs. Stagno’s class?
@Stephanie – Yes! Church musicians. The church has been a major employer of musicians for hundreds of years. I shouldn’t have left them out. I know that in New York City a church organist earns $75-100 a service at Catholic churches (and expect 2-7 services a week, depending on the church).
5/23/2010
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