How I Make a Living with Music in 2024 (Without Selling, Streaming or Touring)

hello brothers and sisters it's tommy z welcome to anthem [Music] today we're going to talk about the music career path that nobody is really talking about and this is why i am talking about it because nobody else is talking about it and this music career path is what allowed me to make a full-time living from music for 15 years now and i still continue to do it except now i spend half my time walking this music career path that i'm going to talk about and half my time teaching my life's work to other musicians who can actually open their eyes to new possibilities of making a living with music at a time when it's difficult to do so people are streaming their music for free streaming royalties pay less than pennies tours are being cancelled so the best thing you can do as a musician is learn how to make a living right from your home studio and stop selling your music to people who are getting it for free start using your musical skill as a service that you can pitch the places that need original music and that are willing and able to pay for this this is exactly what we're going to talk about now what are those places these places are brands so much work is being done every single day right now as we speak there are probably shoots going on all around the world for some kind of a commercial for some kind of a campaign brands are spending billions folks brands are spending billions on marketing on advertising and much of this content needs original music something that will fit the campaign like a glove the thing is i know a lot of you have no idea about this business the reason why i know this is because i was exactly in the same boat okay just to give you a quick story about how i discovered this world so you know i was a dj i was working my corporate career and in the dj circle i had a friend dj storm shout out to chris taylor and he said to me hey he was working actually at an ad agency by day and he said to me i'm working on a pontiac aztec commercial is this something you might be interested in in creating music for because i know you're not just djing but you're getting into music production and i said yeah i was very intrigued i'm like i'm not even sure i would know what to do he's like well just create a song you know like here's what we need here's the song we need just just create one we'll let you know what we think maybe do some revisions and and so so i went into the studio it took me probably one evening to come up with a demo i sent the music forward to my friend and they had a few comments so i went uh after work into my studio for another evening i did the revisions and they said yeah this is fine please send me an invoice and then when i found out like how much they want me to invoice them for i nearly fell out of my cubicle chair at my day job okay i just had no idea and and you know it's like you start thinking to yourself how come i never thought about this you know how come like it never occurred to me that there's all this advertising going on that brands are doing all this cool content out there and it all of it has music but like how come i never connected it to my own activity as a as a music creator and so it was that day when i realized like how much brands are actually paying um creators for for this kind of content that i decided hey this could be a possible career path for me i never imagined myself as a musician on stage as a star on stage i never imagined myself continuing to try to get these licenses and these remixes it was also sporadic and unpredictable but here i realized there's so much content production going on from brands and back then i think there was much less content production going on 15 years ago today there is much more but i thought this is just way more consistent and so i wanted to to right away make this my full-time job and in all of my excitement and enthusiasm i started reaching out to other ad agencies and saying hey hey i'm a music composer i can make you music look i did this pontiac aztec thing and for some reason nobody was getting back to me i literally quit my job in order to pursue this and i started reaching out to all these agencies but none of them were getting back to me and this was the first mistake that i made and this is a mistake that many musicians make simply because they have no idea about this business and one word advice that uncle z is gonna give you right now as a mentor is do not do not launch yourself at something i know you're excited i know you might be listening to this for instance and seeing the possibility and going hey why didn't i think of this this could be something for me for sure do not launch yourself at the industry before you understand how it works this is very important and we're going to cover that in a separate video maybe here or maybe here so i want you to check that out i want you to understand how the business works before you start approaching the people in our industry because this was my mistake the mistake that i made was that i started knocking on the doors of the ad agencies and nobody was getting back to me i almost had to go back to my regular day job because i spend all this money building a website renting a studio printing fancy business cards and wondering why nobody's getting back to me and then someone took pity on me and said hey i know somebody inside of the ad in the street they're gonna sit down with you for a coffee and maybe they can see what's what you're doing wrong and so i did sit down with johnny johnny said to me hey you're doing everything wrong brother because ad agencies don't actually deal with individual composers so that's why nobody's getting back to you i'm like well and who do they deal with how like how do they get the music for the campaigns ad agencies will actually commission music production companies that specialize in making music for brands and i said wow okay so those kind of companies exist solely dedicated to creating music for for brands and he said yes they do and here's the list you know and i was in toronto at the time and i realized suddenly this whole hidden world started opening up for me that i never knew about there were all these music production companies with really really fancy studios that existed that i never knew about and suddenly i started emailing them showing them my rails showing them the pontiac thing that i did and i started getting my emails my calls answered they asked me to come in we had a chat and you know even walking into these studios i mean it's incredible you know hardwood floors high ceilings sushi lunches being catered i see like all these people from ad agencies and from brands walking around you know it's like all this activity going on that that that was totally hidden from plain sight for me and then just seeing the fancy furniture and the incredible gear neve consoles ssl consoles you know you're like wow these places this is how they're making their money like basically serving up original songs or scores or sounds for all this brand content so i was like i was just blown away basically and so i realized this is a world i want to be a part of so so then you know it took a few more months for me to actually break into this world i ended up being a music producer at a music production company in co in toronto called tattoo shortly afterwards i became a partner and that's how my adventure in this music business began okay in this very specific niche called making music for brands now nobody is talking about this business like i mentioned i'm not sure why that is maybe it's because this is a very consuming business the deadlines are deadly um it's always quite an intense pace in our business and and so maybe you know folks just don't have the time they're doing what they do but you know for me after doing this for 15 years and i've done it on three different continents now it's not it's it's really not doing another nike commercial that motivates me we still do this and we still have fun doing it but i'm having a lot of fun actually passing on my life's work uh the knowledge about my life's work to other musicians the reason is is because i'm always looking for unique musicians for somebody who has a certain superpower who is really great at creating music that is distinct that moves other humans and this helps me as a music producer in order to satisfy the needs of my clients so i'm always on the lookout for great musicians and nothing satisfies me more than to see a musician who yesterday had no idea about our business and today they're writing an original song for audi and the next day their song gets accepted and suddenly thousands if not millions of people are seeing this song on a major campaign and the artist not only gets paid but perhaps gets some really really major exposure to their music so i think this is important and i love talking about it and this is why we have an entire academy devoted to training musicians how to turn from amateurs into professional craftspeople who are able to craft remarkable songs scores or sounds on a commission from music production companies and to derive some income without necessarily having to leave your studio which i think is a beautiful thing okay guys so my life has changed because of this path no doubt about it it is this path this path that nobody talks about that allow me to become a full-time musician and allows me to feed my family even today and so i think this is definitely worth considering for some of you guys if you enjoy this information if this has opened your eyes to new possibilities please stay tuned to this channel hit like hit subscribe if you want to know more please put your questions in the comments i'm happy to answer them but rest assured that in other videos on this channel we're gonna cover every aspect of this business also if you're interested you can check out our free training which is a one hour comprehensive introduction to our world if you're ready to dive in click the link below or if you'd like you can check out the next video which will go into more detail about how big brands get their music my name is tommy z this is anthem i hope this has been inspiring and informative for you i am giving you a big virtual hug i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Zee & Co

Views: 147,450

Keywords: music career 2021, recording revolution, edm tips, music career options, music marketing, music career tips, making music for brands, tommy zee, adam ivy, best place to start a music career, how to become a composer for film and tv, how to become a full time musician, music motivation, how to make money with your music, musician on a mission, music industry jobs, damien keyes, motivation for musicians

Id: 5n-6cAZ2Oio

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021