Making Money in Music (No, You Don't Need to Be a Star)
Anthem Music Academy · · 1 min read
Almost everyone who comes to Anthem wants to "make it in music." When we ask what that means, most answers come back as some version of being famous. Fair. That's what the culture sells. But it's also the least likely outcome and the worst-paying one until very late.
The actual music economy is much wider. The vast majority of people who pay rent through music are not stars. They are: producers selling beats and ghost-producing, engineers running sessions, songwriters with cuts on other people's records, sync licensors placing tracks in TV and film, instrumentalists tracking remotely for projects in other cities, teachers, mixing engineers, mastering engineers, live-sound engineers, content creators with steady ad revenue, and on, and on.
Pick any one of those. Most of them pay $40k–$120k for a working professional in a major market, depending on hustle and skill. None of them require fame. All of them require taste plus reps.
The reason we focus on production, mixing, and engineering at Anthem is that those are the highest-leverage skills across all of those careers. Whatever you end up doing in music, you will be served by knowing how a record actually gets made.
Don't plan a career around being famous. Plan one around being useful, and the income takes care of itself.
