11 Best Online Side Jobs for Musicians and Audio Geeks

The field of music and audio lends itself nicely to the digital environment. As a result, many types of online jobs for musicians have cropped up in recent years, especially since the onset of the pandemic era. You’ll find online side jobs for music teachers, performers, vocalists, songwriters, lyricists, music producers, audio engineers, and audio editors.

In this post we’ll look at some of the top music job websites for musicians and audio geeks.

This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure for more info.

What are the best online jobs for musicians?

Here are the top online music- and audio-related side jobs we’ll cover in this article:

• Teach music online
• Sell stock music
• Become a music journalist or content writer
• Create a music course
• Offer a music gig on Fiverr
• Work as a virtual session musician
• Create an Internet radio station
• Start a YouTube channel
• Sell your music through distribution platforms
• Sell your own sheet music
• Get paid to curate playlists and review songs

Teach music online

Since the onset of the pandemic, online music lessons – for instance, via Zoom or Skype – have become increasingly popular and are likely to be the future of music education.

If you don’t have a website where you can promote your teaching services, don’t despair: Today there are sites that connect music teachers with students, many of which provide a virtual classroom and teaching tools to facilitate online lessons.

No matter your area of musical expertise, you’ll find a market for it online. For example, besides teaching an instrument, you could also tutor students on music production, theory, arranging, or composition.

Many musicians also offer music tutorials on Patreon, a platform designed to help artists receive monthly recurring income from subscribers.

Sell stock music

Music licensing provides a way for music composers and producers to earn passive income through sales of stock music, sounds, samples, and loops. Making money with music licensing is a numbers game: The bigger your catalog of music, the more you’ll earn.

To maximize your earnings, you’ll also need to think in terms of what’s currently popular – for example, not too long ago every startup and their dog had a product explainer video with happy ukulele/whistling music in the background. Other popular music types include cinematic trailer music and corporate video background music.

There are also online marketplaces where you can sell hip-hop beats and vocal tracks. Unlike typical stock music sites, customers of beat marketplaces are rappers and vocalists instead of businesses and filmmakers.

Become a music journalist or content writer

With literally millions of new blog posts and magazine articles being published across the web every day, writing about music presents a huge opportunity for any musician who can string a sentence together.

The best way to find music writing jobs is simply to do a Google search for websites that publish the type of content you’re interested in writing about. There are two main types of websites to consider:

• Online music magazines. There are online magazines for every music topic you can think of, from guitar gear to opera. Most magazines list an email address for editorial queries on their contact page.
• Company blogs. Businesses in the music industry need fresh content on a regular basis. The best way to approach these companies is to email the content manager (or CEO, if it’s a small company or startup) and offer your services as a blog writer.

Many music magazines and blogs also have a careers page where you can find related remote positions, such as Social Media Manager.

Finally, you can also find music writing opportunities on blogging job boards like Problogger and freelance marketplaces like Upwork.

Create a music course

Online courses are big business in 2023 – not least in the music niche. Creating courses is one of the best passive income streams online because you only have to do the hard work once, and then you can sell your course again and again. You can even recruit others to help you sell it via an affiliate program.

Nowadays you can find courses (both text and video based) in anything music related, from guitar lessons to traditional Irish singing. Once you have an idea for your course, you can easily create it using an online course platform like Teachable or Thinkific. You can link your course to your existing website, or it can be hosted on the platform itself.

If you don’t have a large audience to promote your course to, consider creating and selling your course on a popular e-learning marketplace like Udemy or Skillshare. These websites have huge audiences and a large advertising budget, taking the hard work out of promoting your course.

Offer a music gig on Fiverr

Fiverr is one of the Internet’s top freelance marketplaces for all kinds of services. In their Music & Audio category, you can find a variety of online sellers offering the following music- and audio-related services:

• Voiceovers
• Mixing and mastering
• Music production and composition
• Singing and session musician gigs
• Music lessons
• Audio and podcast editing (learn more about the best podcast analytics tools)
• Sound design
• Music transcription and copying

As a seller on Fiverr, you can choose what service to offer, set your own prices, and create customized pricing packages and upsells, making it one of the most flexible online jobs for musicians. Buyers on the platform can leave a review, so the more five-star ratings and positive reviews you can collect, the more successful you’ll be on the platform.

Work as a virtual session musician

Session musicians are hired as freelancers to perform in recording sessions; for instance, to supply a backing track for a song. And yes, online studio musician gigs are a thing!

Create an Internet radio station

Thanks to Internet radio broadcasting platforms, now anyone can create their own Internet radio station. Online radio stations are similar to traditional radio in that they’re monetized mainly with ads and sponsors.

To maximize earnings from your station, you’ll need to grow your subscriber base so you can negotiate better deals with brands and advertisers. One way to do this is by creating a blog that directs readers to your station. Another benefit of a blog is that you can generate additional revenue streams through affiliate marketing and ad networks like Google Adsense.

Start a YouTube channel

YouTubers earn money through YouTube ads or by creating sponsored content for brands. A YouTube channel can make a good passive income stream as long as you choose evergreen topics to create videos about.

If you’re a music producer, singer/songwriter, or composer, you can also use your YouTube channel to promote your music and build a fanbase or drive traffic to a product or website.

Not sure what to create a channel about? Here are a few ideas:

• Product reviews, such as guitar gear
• Tutorials, such as music theory, music production, vocal warmups, or how to play an instrument
• Meditation or sleep music
• ASMR

To get started creating high-quality video content, you’ll need a condenser mic and some good video editing software.

You can greatly increase the chances your videos will come up in the YouTube search results by practicing good video SEO. This includes optimizing keywords in the title and description of your videos as well as linking to them from your website, if you have one. You can also consider transcribing the video and pasting the transcript in the description.

To get you started, here are some music and audio affiliate programs you can promote on your channel.

Sell your music through distribution platforms

If you’re an aspiring music producer or composer, consider expanding your reach by submitting your music to multiple channels using an online music distribution service.

Music distribution platforms are what they sound like: They submit your songs to top online music stores and streaming services like Spotify, iTunes, and Deezer, letting you earn royalties and build an audience as an independent artist. (If your music is on Spotify, don’t miss these Spotify analytics sites and apps.)

The pricing and features of different services vary, with some companies offering free music distribution and letting you keep 100% of streaming royalties. Others charge an annual fee or take a percentage of royalties.

Sell your own sheet music

If you compose your own music, you can sell it through your website or other online channels. Of course, the catch is that unless you have a massive audience, you won’t make much money.

Enter SMP Press, the Amazon KDP of the sheet music world. SMP Press is a self-publishing program offered by SheetMusicPlus, the world’s largest sheet music store. Through the program, you can earn 50% on sales of original compositions and arrangements of public domain songs.

In addition, you can earn 10% on arrangements of over 1.8 million copyrighted songs that SheetMusicPlus has secured rights to.

SMP Press is free to join and has many satisfied reviews from musicians who are successfully making sales through the program.

Get paid to curate playlists and review songs

If you have a knack for curating popular playlists on Spotify, YouTube Music, or Apple Music, you’re in luck: Playlist Push wants to pay you to listen to and review songs from upcoming independent artists. If you like a song, they hope you’ll consider adding it to your playlist. This is truly one of the easiest online jobs for musicians.

As a playlist curator for Playlist Push, you’ll earn up to $12 per review. You can request a payout anytime, and your earnings go directly into your bank account. To qualify as a curator, you’ll first need to own a playlist with real followers.

Note: If you’re a Tik-Tok creator, the company will also pay you to make videos using songs from their database.

Freelance job websites for musicians

This section includes freelance job websites that didn’t fit neatly into the above job descriptions. They’re known to offer a broad variety of online jobs for musicians, including music engraving, teaching, composing, and more.

• Upwork. The biggest freelance website on the Internet, with plenty of music and audio jobs being posted regularly.
• Twine. A freelance marketplace connecting creatives – including music composers, songwriters, and producers – with companies.
• Fiverr. A freelance marketplace where you can offer whatever service you want and create your own pricing packages. (See the section on Fiverr above.)
• ProBlogger. A job board for blogging gigs, with occasional opportunities to write about music and audio.
• FlexJobs. One of the top subscription-based job sites for remote and part-time work of all kinds. A search for “music” or “audio” turns up hundreds of online jobs with top companies.

Summing up

We’ve all heard the quote, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” With so many remote music and audio jobs available, doing what you love has never been easier or more convenient. I hope this list of online side jobs for musicians inspires you to make your creative dreams a reality.