5 ways you can make money playing guitar

Playing guitar is fun and its perhaps one of the best hobbies one can have. Apart from the joy of playing guitar, there are some other monetary incentives that can motivate one to become a better player. I have seen many great guitar players out there who are not making much money out of it, and I have also seen many average guitar players making a living from just playing guitar. So just being a good guitar player is not the key to financial success, rather there is more to it. You have to be disciplined. well organized and move forward with a goal if you want to make money from playing guitar. These are the five things through which you can make money

1. Guitar lesson: Well perhaps its the most obvious one but some of you probably don't know how much money can be earned through giving guitar lessons. You have to be disciplined and take it seriously. If you work hard, do the marketing properly then you can have tons of students. I will write another article on how to optimize the income from guitar lessons but just remember that it is the biggest source of income for most guitar players.

2. You tube monetization: Youtube is a beautiful platform for musicians. You can upload your own compositions, renditions of popular songs or tutorials of how to play different songs can be really a good way of getting lots of views and also make some money in the process.

3. Selling tabs and sheet music: You can create tablature or sheet music of popular songs or your songs if they are popular to some extent and sell them online. To make big bucks from this is quite unlikely but you should still do that. Always remember that you need to optimize your earning and so you should not miss out any opportunity.

4. Busking: It might sound unreal but I have seen guitar players making around 20-40 dollars an hour playing guitar on the street specially during weekends and holidays. You need to be careful about the location though. If you can pick a suitable location and if you are a good guitar player you can make some decent money and also get some good guitar practice while doing it. There is nothing to be ashamed of about busking and if you are confident about your guitar playing I'd suggest you give it a go and see how it works out for you.

5. Performance, composition and selling your record: And finally the most obvious one, you can sell your own music online or through any other platform, play in live gigs and get paid for it. This requires a certain degree of popularity and like I said, it is the ultimate form of making money in the music industry being a guitarist and that is the dream most guitar players have. But until you get to that stage why don't you try all the other opportunities that I just talked about and see how they work out for you? I have tried them all and some worked better than the others for me. See which one works best for you.

Is covering other's songs is a good way of learning?

I find this a very controversial topic. In one hand covering others songs is definitely a good thing since one can learn lots of new techniques and ideas. But that's just the good part and many teachers or music students will only look at the good things that come with covering others songs. But let's talk about the negative aspects of covering songs.

I personally think that covering others songs can kill or to some extent ruin ones creativity. Suppose you are a big fan of slash and you have covered all his songs, studied his compositional ideas. Trust me, consciously or subconsciously this will impact your creativity and your style of music. It will be highly influenced by slash, even if you are not consciously trying to copy him. There is only one Slash, so your music will always be titled as slash influenced and it will never get its unique identity.

On the other hand if you minimize covering other songs and try to develop your own ideas, own skills, techniques that you need for your music then in the long run you will create a style of yours that many people will admire and perhaps try to incorporate in their playing. I think that's the ultimate goal of any musician. To be able to create something that's unique and that will live for a long time. So yes I stand against covering songs as a mean of learning guitar or any instrument as a matter of fact if you are willing to be a composer and performer. But if your goal is solely to be a performer then that's something that you must do.