Following your dream can be hard but it’s worth the effort, and it’s not a cop-out to make money from it while you build your career – got to pay the bills.

Whether your aim is to tour the world with your music or just make music with your friends in your free time you can still make money from your talent on the side without selling out your music at the same time.

There are lots of jobs you can do depending on what sort of music you do.

Mixing: Whether at a live gig or in the studio if you know your way around a mixer you’ve got a gig. Lots of bands or venues need someone on sound tech to keep them sounding good and adapt as the gig goes on. Ask around or if you notice a bar that doesn’t have a sound guy, proposition them. The money can be good if you know what you’re doing.

Teaching: Share your talent and help the next generations to create their own – you can even make some money whilst you do it. Music teachers will never go out of fashion and no matter what your area of expertise there’ll be someone out there who wants to learn.

Writing: As creative types a lot of musicians are also good writers, in particular singers. If you have a knack for writing there’s lots of potential to put your skills to use. Papers and news sites are always looking for talented freelancers for stories and articles – you could even do gig and music reviews so you’re not straying too far. I also hear that ghostwriting for other musicians is quite lucrative right now.

Jingles: If you can make music then you can make jingles. Local companies, radio stations, shops… there’s no end to who needs jingles made for them. If you feel you’re up to the task of creating generic-ish songs that fit a certain criteria then jingles could be an easy buck.

Managing: If you’ve had to deal with venues or labels for your music before then you’ll know there’s a certain art to getting the total value of your music. Bands and musicians starting out or just inexperienced could always use a helping hand from someone adept in the industry to make sure they aren’t undercut.

Design: You might have gained experience in designing whether that be album art, gig posters, promotional pieces, branding… anything! If you happen to have gotten quite good at it then share those talents with others, most artists are willing to spend a decent amount to make sure that they have high quality visuals to go with their music.

There are plenty more opportunities out there to make a bit of extra money from the talents you’ve worked hard to acquire. If you have any you want to share let us know them in the comments below!