How can you make money from playing guitar?

compboyo

compboyo

compboyo

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Without becoming a famous original band?

Perhaps play covers?

But to make any reasonable amount of money do you need a band? And what else:

Drummer
bassist
vocalist


And you would advertise to play weddings, pubs etc...

Can you make a living and decent money?

Is it rare to make money just by being good at guitar?

Any more advice?



Playing guitar was a hobby for me but after a good few years Im pretty good.
 
Weren't you the one that made a thread about teaching guitar? That would seem like the best way without becoming famous. There is always youtube but I don't know if you would get popular at all without singing as well. The top musicians on there seem to be pretty good. I think that the ones that do it at weddings/pubs do it as a part time job for a bit of extra money really.

My old guitar teacher tried to charge £100 for about 8 10 minute lessons at my school which I declined of course it was ridiculous. The problem was he was charging £25 per person and taking groups of four for 10 minute sessions where you learned nothing anyway and all the people from my group dropped out. Try contacting a school?
 
DJmartin said:
Weren't you the one that made a thread about teaching guitar? That would seem like the best way without becoming famous. There is always youtube but I don't know if you would get popular at all without singing as well. The top musicians on there seem to be pretty good. I think that the ones that do it at weddings/pubs do it as a part time job for a bit of extra money really.

My old guitar teacher tried to charge £100 for about 8 10 minute lessons at my school which I declined of course it was ridiculous. The problem was he was charging £25 per person and taking groups of four for 10 minute sessions where you learned nothing anyway and all the people from my group dropped out. Try contacting a school?
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Well I looked on gumtree and experienced teachers are offering lesson as cheap as 15 quid per hour...I can not compete with that. 1stly Im a newbie so would have to charge less and 10 pound per hour is not even worth my while.
 
cm1179 said:
be very good at it and do sessions. if you land on an album, royalties for life.
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ok but how many people are very good at guitar?

No matter how much I practice and good I become to get on sessions is rare right?

People been playing guitar all life or since kids. I only got into it when I was 18 and totally self taught.
 
would you say bands like greenday, good charlotte, fallout boy etc have good guitarists? no, neither would i but they're not session guitarists.

to be a session guitarist, you need to be very very good and adaptable and to be able to perform in minimal takes.

it helps to have a favourite band as you never know what could happen, just look at john frusciante. he used to cain rhcp stuff in his bedroom, 10 yrs later, fate called and he is now their lead guitarist.
 
What's "pretty good" mean? Do you have enough gear? What stuff can you play - do you know how to play jazz, classical, rock, metal, indie funk and ska or are you focussed on a specific genre? How often to do you play in bands/perform - daily? couple of times a week? weekly? Do you know your theory?
 
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Being good has nothing to do with it really, theres millions of amazing guitarists, but it doesn't mean you can make any money..

Its mostly about knowing the right people, putting in a ton of hard work, being at the bottom for possibly years before you make anything worthwhile.. and getting to the stage where you can earn a living off of music is rare. I know plenty of bands on labels that tour the world but aren't really living the high life and still have 'normal' jobs when at home.

Session work is good but that is nearly as hard to get into.

I think teaching is the way you can earn a living easier.

I'm doing a music degree and I don't expect to come out of it with a career, i'm doing it mainly because I love it and have the chance to do a degree.
 
Get your song in a guitar video game.

You could do this by emailing the developer with a mp3, its a shoe in to success.
 
I know loads of people who are incredible guitarists. None are session guys because that's down to who you know and being able to walk into a studio and play whatever they want or come up with something quickly (usually requires a load of theory knowledge etc).

The only ones that make money.... a couple do lessons, including Skype video lessons and they get work mainly because they have YouTube vids of them being incredible at guitar or are in bands that haven't made it big (yet) but have an online fan-base. It's only money on the side though for the most part, even though they make playing even ridiculous shred stuff look effortless.

The only guy I know who makes a decent amount of money is my mate Paul who has released a couple of albums, is signed to a label and has toured a little bit round the UK and Europe with other bands (you might have seen his videos in the metal threads here - Chimp Spanner - plays instrumental guitar in the Meshuggah vein with some jazzy ambient stuff thrown in). He has merch and everything but AFAIK still works an IT job (from home), because the music industry doesn't get you rich unless you're one of the very few that's successful. He also makes some money from creating loop/sample packs of things like guitar riffs, and IDM beats which buyers can do whatever they want with afterwards. Embraced the self-promotion thing.

Basically, it's very hard to make a career out of playing an instrument, even if you've got music out there. The average band earns pittance for their work (well, it's usually not theirs any more once they sign, hooray for labels):
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/
 
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