Why is It SO HARD to make Six Figures as a Musician/Music Producer!?

[@Johnmike]

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[@kenfcarzn]

At my height in church I was making 6 figures a year $3300+ a week for about 2 years from just church. However it wasn’t all church, but majority was centered around church. I played for/worked with 10 churches. I had an 8am/10:15-10:45am church service. A 11am/7pm service, a 2pm - 3:30pm service a 4pm-6pm church service. Monday’s I was on call to do funerals for 4 different Mortuary’s. I had 3 churches that I was on call for funerals as well. I worked with a Non Denomination churches praise team from 6pm to 7pm, I taught them songs and vocal trained them. I would leave there and work with my nephew and teach him chords and songs. Tuesdays more funerals, that night at 5:45pm I worked with a Church Of God ministry church choir from 5:45 to 6:40pm. I left there and went to my 8am/10:15 Baptist church to play 1 song for P&W. I left there and went back to finish the rehearsal at the church I had just left. Wednesdays more funerals, and I had a 12pm - 1pm Noon day service at an AME church. That night I played at the Church of God’s Midweek service. Thursday more funerals, that night at 6pm I played for the Church of God’s other choir rehearsal. Then later that night my 11am/7pm Sunday COGIC church had rehearsal at 8:20pm after church. Friday funerals during the day nothing that night. Unless I was playing for a cover band Saturday I played for 2 7th Day Adventist Churches . On top of that I played for Weddings, I was playing for Tyrese, & Johnny Gil. I had 2 cover tune bands I was gigging with on some weekends, and whatever concerts or what have you that came up. That stuff put me well over $4k a week at my peak. The security guard at my bank asked me what I did because I only made deposits no withdrawals. I told him I was a professional musician. He couldn’t believe it. He said I thought musicians were broke! I said you watch too many movies 😂

[@Johnmike]

@@kenfcarzn 😂😂😂 lol that’s a lot lololol but definitely a good hustle…I struggled playing for 2 nonetheless 10! 🤦🏾‍♂️ …hats off to you 🫡

[@ZTAudio]

Subtitle: "Why so many musicians are also in IT", lol.

[@biggeemac]

I never made music my main hustle....I carried a regular(non-artist) 8-5 job. I found that even the demands of me being a musician that had to show up to church 4x a week eventually caused me to lose my passion and drop out all together. I'm just now, after 10+ years, starting to dip my toes back in. People don't realize that you can get burnt out fulfilling the demands that allow you to make six figures at a musician. Today......if I was to add $500 a week for a couple of appearances at church and add that to my 90k a year salary....well now you're talkin.

[@TonyTtheProducer]

Great content. I Started a label and distro service and Life changed!

[@joshuaaa89]

I never got paid, in the Netherlands you don't get paid in most/almost all places. But that same ministry in the US that is the founding/overseeing/parent church does pay it's musicians (make it make sense)... I was getting nothing and I did several things (rapping and dancing with a group when there were events/missions etc for evangelism. Singing, playing guitar etc). At the very same time tho, my own ministry of music/speaking etc outside of the church grew and I was being paid outside that church by other churches that booked me (PLEASE... MAKE IT MAKE SENSE LOL). After that came concerts, touring, festivals etc etc etc and getting paid through entrepreneurship. Today, I do things like it's a business and when people say things like it's for God, can't you do it for free... my answer is; I did that 12+ years and God told me that they are robbing me and now I earn what I labor for. Why are you trying to rob me? Smh

[@Dwilsonmusic145]

I kinda do agree with him it’s possible to make decent money playing at church IF you know what you’re doing. If you’re making 500+ per Sunday doing ONE SERVICE that’s actually pretty amazing putting that into dollars/HR one service should be about 3 hours and maybe a rehearsal that’s 2 hours in a week 5 hours of work for 500 dollars is 100 dollars an hour. Problem is you can only do that on Sundays and timing constraints mean you can usually only play at one church and doing a second church service doesn’t always work out timing wise. But let’s remember this is not even 8 hours of “work” like you’d do at a 9-5. If you are a truly talented musician there is no way you can’t make 25-30 a half hour lesson. That’s 60 an hour!!!!!!!! If you have 50 students a week at 25 a lesson that’s 60,000 a year. Half hour lesssons at 25 dollars doing 10 lessons a day is 5 hours of work at $50 an hour. Let’s think for a moment if you’re hustling your musicianship right you can make 500 or more every week for church plus 1250 a week for lessons plus 500-800 for weddings in a wedding band. (Let’s say you do 3 weddings a month at an average of 600) It all ads up to right at 100,000 a year. I’ve got a few musician friends that make 100,000 or more straight up gigging doing weddings, lessons, church gigs and recordings. The important part is TIME MANAGEMENT and finding a good balance all the different gigs can’t interfere with one another.

[@Johnmike]

That’s still hustling it out with doing multiple things per week to get there…you can’t make that solely playing at church…$500 a week = $2000 a month = $24000 a yr…that’s the federal poverty level…the most I ever made playing for a large church was $2500 a month…I still had to hustle it out teaching music lessons and gigging and such and still never crossed the $100k line most I made doing that was around $50-$60k like he said in the vid…while it’s “possible” it’s not “Practical”

[@Metro6am]

You gotta remember he's playing for Arena level artists. Anyone smaller will be half those tour rates.

[@maceoellington8997]

More like a fraction of a comparable pay.

[@QuincyValentine]

His comment about making a lot of money as a church musician is true if you consider that for most it’s only 1 to 2 days a week. It’s only not enough if you’re trying to rely on it for your entire income

[@Johnmike]

My son used to work at a grocery store that was paying him $14 per hour…which at like 16-17 years old is a really good wage…thing is he only worked 2 days per week for 5 hours…after taxes and everything he only brought home like $95 a week…regardless if it’s a good wage…if you aren’t putting in the hours for it it I’ll never become a “livable wage” it’s a good side hustle…but not anything you can make some good money at

[@QuincyValentine]

@@Johnmike that’s where we’re differing. I’d look at it as just another income source IN ADDITION to something else. 20K for 1-2 days a week is great side money. You still have the rest of the week to make more whether with a job or businesses

[@Johnmike]

@@QuincyValentine not so much “differing” I did that for over 20 years of my life as a church musician…making $500 a week…doing exactly what he did…teaching lessons…giging on the other days of the week…on top of rehearsals, learning songs and dealing with people…with the occasional conference or revival week that took up everything else that I could’ve planned for the week when those came up…honestly while I did enjoy that period of my life I’ve found way better things that have proved more lucrative…i now make more in a month doing music than I did in a year playing for church…with significant less stress…I’ll be speaking more on this soon in full detail…

[@QuincyValentine]

@@Johnmike that’s fair. I forget depending on what church you’re at the responsibilities get greater. Definitely a point on revivals taking you out for a week. I do have to say I transitioned into being the tech handling audio/video and it is freeing not having the musician responsibilities.

[@Johnmike]

@@QuincyValentine yup…bruh summers were the worst lol…we’d do in-house revival then turn around and go on a “revival tour” at several neighboring churches around the state like every other week…and then they’d sneak a couple conferences in…lol and I’d probably get like an extra $2-$300 that week…but I’d loose the whole week lol…it wasn’t until I got out of it all that I realized how much they were getting over on me lol

[@carlosjaimes4141]

Touring does suck when not we’ll paid, even travel work sucks in the same sense

[@tuneunleashed]

I don’t know man…lowkey sometimes I wish I wasn’t a good musician but a good mechanic lol

[@Johnmike]

Lololol

[@ItunuJoe]

Bro!

[@theonecalledvino8165]

I feel that! My Younger Brother is a Tech Programmer...He's lives life like a regular successful person. I kinda want to get out the game, but somehow I get a weird call from someone needing my service. Plus the fact I dedicated half my life into all the skillsets I've picked up over the years.

[@zdogg8]

I love your attitude. Love your story and optimism. But a mild correction (considering your wife) 6 Kids and a household management IS a FULL TIME JOB).. (sure you'd agree).

[@Johnmike]

@@zdogg8 oh yea most definitely lol…6 full time jobs 😂

[@motionentertainment452]

If you doing multiple services on sunday and tru the week

[@bigptuba]

Church gigs depends solely on the ministry. Each ministry values musicians differently. Ministries ran by artist or industry guys have a tendency to pay more.

[@thecrossroadcafe7291]

The most I have made playing in church is zero! A worship leader I know gets $60 a month for gas money! I just can't relate dude! A 3 hour gig at the local bar can net you a $100 however. Crazy!

[@brathajoe1]

Wow! Man, that's quite a journey to make some good money as a musician.

[@LotsApapa1]

Im in Bolivar Tn.

[@Bashanvibe]

Touring depends on the artist and the budget sometimes it’s worth it sometimes not

[@rothschildmathieu4673]

You can be a great musician and still not make good money or a living 💰 off of church...... Definitely not in Hsv AL, smh

[@anthonycraig5918]

Relocate

[@davidjemison9480]

News flash what percentage of men make over 6 Figures and what occupation are they in? As a musician you need a day or night job to stay in this industry because you will not become wealthy off being a musician in this country.

[@dtrelzmusic]

Respectfully, He doesn't have six kids either, that money for him works

[@Johnmike]

@@dtrelzmusic definitely…it’s gonna vary by person, location, children and marital status…$60k a year in California is gonna be way different than $60k in Mississippi…same if they have kids and live in any of those locations…

[@Staykool777]

Great video, great content but your videos are too long bro, You ere from the south and you talk slow, this could have been broken up into 3 pieces of content. I like you so I'm just making the suggestion. Shorter to the point videos and you will see substantial growth. God Bless.

[@Johnmike]

Thanks for the suggestion….im pretty satisfied with my growth tho here…but you seem to be pretty knowledgeable on content creation…you should definitely do some videos and show this ole country boy from the south how it’s done! I’m pretty positive you’ll do better than me…I’m terrible at this!

[@Johnmike]

But jokes and sarcasm aside…take a quick scroll of my page and you’ll see I do videos from 3 min to 30+ min…they all have about the same growth and engagement…it’s a reason it’s called “KZbin” you get to create stuff that “you” want to do…and those that rock with you rock with you…those that don’t don’t…been doing this long enough to know trying to “chase” the algorithm and the what the viewer wants isn’t worth the time…I run 3 different KZbin channels…I got a video on my second channel right now that is 45 min long that brought in 20k views…4-500 new subscribers and made me over $200 in the space of about a week…and funny enough this video is actually a clip out of a 2 hour live stream I did that I actually chopped up into 5 clips for my 3 different channels lol…🤷🏾‍♂️

[@pinkanimals]

things for human musicians will get worse with the arrival of AI. and also with increasing number of people being OK with human musicians singing and playing to pre-recorded tracks live and cheating the audience. people don't mind paying even for that, it seems. next crispy thing will be AI android bands. "look, guys, instead of paying a human musician to play for you tonight, I got Elon's Robo Bobo on lead geetar!"..

[@pierrebroccoli.9396]

Would prefer to peel down the instrumentation live myself and keep it human - that is what will separate the wheat from the chaff. Also thrown in some impro so people can see it in real time but hey - some famous singers are using Auto Tune on live performances and these are big recording artists who are meant to be able to croon / sing - who am I kidding. At least I know wining my heart I am authentic and the mistakes should help sell it to the crowd 🤣