Making Money as a Guitarist (Why Your Music Will Never Pay The Bills)



I’ve been thinking of writing this article as a while, under the title of “Why your band will never make you rich”, but I thought the title I used is a bit more positive.

Most people who get into guitar professionally did so because they dreamed of their band blowing up and making money…

But they rarely sit down and think about the numbers involved in that. So let’s sit down with the numbers…

The Numbers Behind Your Band

Let’s say you have a band with five members. We’ll go through the expenses that the band has.

You each want to make the average US salary which is $53,490/year[1]:

Base member pay: 5 x $53,490 = $267,450

So right off the bat, in order for every band member to have a basic income, the band itself has to generate $267,450 in profit every year.

Let’s be clear - in order to make a basic salary, you have to build a business that has a profit of $267,450/year.

So what is the gross for that? Most businesses have a 10% to 20% profit margin. So in order to take $267,450 as a profit, you have to have at least over 1 million dollars in revenue.

This is a serious business.

Most touring musicians make a below average wage.

Almost all touring musicians you see at festivals are working day jobs of some sort behind the scenes. Or they’re broke.

The top four to five bands at a festival will make some exciting money - but the rest are getting by.

This ignores everything that goes into a band reaching this level:

  • The management and logistics involved
  • Managing the four other people and their temperaments
  • Taxes involved with an inter-state or international business
  • Managing merch printing, costs and sales
  • Etc

This also ignores factors that are completely our of your control. To state the obvious, your band will only reach this level IF your music is popular and enough people want to listen to it. And musical tastes and trends are something that you have no control over.

The Numbers Behind Teaching

Let’s go back to that $53,490 number - average US income.

How many guitar students do you need to make that much money?

A basic teacher will cost $20-$40/hour. Top level or famous teachers can make $100/hour.

Let’s assume you’re a basic teacher that can charge $30/hour.

Teaching a student one hour a week, means your average student is worth:

$30 x 1 hour x 52 weeks = $1560/year

How many students do you need to make average income?

$53,490 / $1,560 = 34 students

What Is Easier?

Now, what do you think is easier? Building a company that generates over 1 million dollars a year (not to mention everything that goes with that), or finding 34 guitar students?

I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Even with the current musical climate not being very guitar orientated, there is a huge demand for guitar lessons, whether online or in local markets.

Does This Mean You Should Give Up On Your Music?

Now, don’t get me wrong - the point of this article isn’t to say “give up on your dreams and teach guitar”.

The point is to say “Build your dreams while teaching guitar”.

Teaching guitar is one way you can make an income while working on your music.

And when it comes to making an income from music, it is by far the simplest, easiest and most profitable way to do so

Footnotes

^[1]: https://www.jobted.com/salary#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20data,40%2Dhour%20work%20week).