The music industry is brutal. Anyone who has spent any real time trying to make it knows that the gigs don’t always pay what they should, the streaming royalties are a joke, and there are months where the money coming in simply doesn’t reflect the work going out. That’s just the reality. But here’s the thing, being a musician gives you a genuinely unique set of skills that the rest of the world is willing to pay for, and there are more ways than ever to tap into that.
So whether you’re looking to supplement your income between tours or build something that earns while you sleep, here are some of the best side hustles worth considering if you’re in the music world.
Blogging
If you’ve spent years living and breathing music, you already know more than most people will ever know about albums, artists, production techniques, and the inner workings of the industry. A blog lets you put all of that knowledge to work. You could cover album reviews, interview up-and-coming artists, break down music theory for beginners, or offer your take on industry news. There’s an audience for all of it.
Getting started is easier than people think. Free platforms like WordPress or Blogger will have you publishing within the hour, and if you want something a bit more professional, setting up your own domain and self-hosted WordPress site isn’t expensive and gives you full control over everything. The writing itself costs you nothing but time.
The more specialised your content becomes, the easier it can be to attract a dedicated audience. Some music bloggers focus purely on album reviews and artist interviews, while others branch into wider areas of digital entertainment, covering topics ranging from streaming platforms to trends such as sweepstakes casino promos, depending on the interests of their readership.
The honest caveat here is that blogging is not a quick money-maker. You need to build an audience first, and that takes consistency. Post regularly, engage with readers in the comments, share your work on social media, and slowly but surely you’ll start to see traffic grow. Once you’ve got a decent readership visiting your site week in and week out, monetisation starts to open up. You can run display ads through networks like Google AdSense, which pays you based on how many people see and click the ads on your site. Affiliate marketing is another solid option, where you recommend products you genuinely use, whether that’s studio headphones, audio plugins, or recording gear, and earn a commission when your readers buy through your links. Top 10 gear lists tend to perform particularly well for this.
Online Courses
If you’ve mastered a specific skill, whether that’s music production, songwriting, music theory, mixing, or even the business side of the industry, there are students all over the world who would pay to learn from you. Online courses have become a massive industry on their own, and musicians with real expertise are well placed to take advantage of that.
Platforms like Teachable handle all the technical stuff for you, including payments, course delivery, and student management, so you can focus entirely on creating good content. Your course could include video lessons, written materials, practical assignments, quizzes, backing tracks, or anything else that would actually help someone learn. The more specific your niche the better. A course on mixing hip-hop vocals in Logic Pro will attract a much more engaged audience than a generic “learn music production” course, because the people who find it know it’s exactly what they’ve been looking for.
Composing and Arranging
Original composition and arranging work is one of those side hustles that can be as big or as small as you want it to be. This might mean writing original pieces for sync licensing, creating background music for YouTube creators and podcasters, or arranging existing works for smaller ensembles or events. The demand for original music is constant, and a lot of the people who need it aren’t musicians themselves. Once you’ve built up a catalogue of work, you can sell it through your own website or social media channels and start building a library that earns passively over time.
Producing and Selling Beats Online
For producers, platforms like BeatStars have genuinely changed the game. You upload your instrumentals, set your prices, and rappers and singers from across the world can licence them directly from you. It sounds simple because it basically is, but standing out in a crowded marketplace takes real thought about what you’re making.
The smart approach is to spend time listening to what’s already selling well on these platforms and understand what buyers are actively looking for. Then comes the pricing. Most producers offer a tiered system: a basic lease licence at the lower end, a premium lease with better audio quality and more usage rights in the middle, and an exclusive licence at the top end where the buyer gets full ownership of the beat. Getting that structure right is important because it lets you earn from the same beat multiple times through non-exclusive sales, while also leaving the door open for a bigger exclusive deal if the right buyer comes along.
Virtual Concerts and Live Streaming
Live streaming has quietly become one of the most accessible income streams available to independent musicians. Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and TikTok all give you a direct line to an audience without the cost of a venue, a promoter, or a tour bus. You can perform from your front room and reach people in a dozen different countries at the same time.
The key to making it work is engagement. Acknowledge people when they join the stream, answer questions between songs, ask your audience what they want to hear next. That kind of interaction builds a fanbase that keeps coming back. Most platforms also support tipping features, allowing fans to throw a few quid your way as a thank you, and over time those contributions can add up to something genuinely meaningful.
The music industry will always be competitive, but your skills as a musician are more valuable than you probably give yourself credit for. Any one of these hustles, done consistently and with a bit of strategy behind it, has the potential to build into a solid income stream alongside whatever else you’ve got going on.