Taking any artistic endeavour from hobby to career is a difficult task. With so much supply and little demand, finding the right place to get a foot in the door can seem impossible. Luckily for music lovers, the contemporary digital world has opened up options like never before. Exploring how creators might leverage these opportunities, we want to touch on how much is out there if you know where to look.
Realising Scope
Before looking into the different options, it can help to get a better understanding of how deep the possibilities of online music run. While an ultimate goal could be to release albums or work on larger projects like film, there are near-infinite stepping stones on the way to this level.
One of the more underexplored options on this front comes from collaborations on popular and up-and-coming YouTube creators. Quite often these creators will rely on stock music which can be good but will ultimately remove any facet of originality. Writing intro and outro music professionally is a natural evolution of a channel, and for those with networking skills, an achievable feat.
From a wider perspective, there are also possibilities from more financially reliable industries such as the iGaming market. For an example of this, consider what components makeup one of the websites on casinos.za. The industry is thriving due to how competitive it is, and most casinos are accessible on mobile too. These rely on bonuses like deposit matches and free spins to get players in, but the services themselves require extensive libraries of games to keep players happy. Here, developers like Microgaming and NetEnt lean on immense musical collaborations, for both original tracks and covers of existing music.
With an active eye, you can see that the scope of online music opportunities can be far broader than we might originally envision. It’s just a matter of being open to inspiration and examining which path might work for you. Once this step is completed, and any basic form of direction is found, you can move on to the job search proper.
Source: Pixabay
An Online Job Market
In 2021, the online job market presents an evolved range of musical opportunities. Growing steadily over the last decade, 2020 brought these opportunities to new heights. Easily searchable depending on a person’s experience and interests, finding exactly what you want and need from online job sources is remarkably simple. For an illustration of this, consider the job-seeking website Upwork, which saw its first iteration in the early 2000s.
Taking a small cut from each initial job found through the site, Upwork routinely generates revenue of over $300 million a year. In 2017 alone, the website boasted 14 million users in 180 countries, who brought in around a billion dollars in freelancer payments. A simple search for music jobs at the time of writing reveals over 3,300 jobs available, from editing to composing, recording, and more. This website, or any other like it, are strong places to start.
The Online Portfolio
Work in the online realm is similar to offline work in that experience is the best teacher. Even if you’ve had experience in the physical side of music before, making the shift to an entirely digital space can be challenging at first. For this reason, it can be a good idea to start slowly with a few small practice projects first, to get used to the ebb and flow of online work, and build your LinkedIn profile.
Timetables, especially when working for overseas clients, are always going to present an issue. This can take a little practice, but most employers are happy to work around limitations for quality work. Obstacles can also present on the software and new hardware fronts, where getting used to the specific tools used by professionals working with music can come with a teething period. Once you have a few projects under your belt, especially if the completed project is publicly available, your chances of being able to step up to higher tiers of jobs and pay should be that much easier.
Source: Pixabay
Even for the most accomplished musicians, stepping aside from traditional work and into something new can be trying. It’s also, however, a move that has long had the rough edges sanded off. Crossing your musical talents into an online space has never been easier than it is today. As long as you understand that practice comes first and that you’re going to be facing a constant influx of new challenges, you should be equipped to succeed. Take your time, and there’s no telling the opportunities that could reveal themselves.
