As a musician, you want to have as many ways to make a few bucks available to you as possible, from playing shows, to selling various merch such as tshirts, custom cds, DVDs, posters and the like and from earning royalties on plays on online radio or iTunes downloads. But over and above that, sometimes as a still as yet emerging artist, it’s not quite enough to pay the bills, and a ‘day job’ or ‘regular gig’ which could be anything from waiting tables to working at guitar center to a 9-5 office job is often a necessary evil. However unless you’ve really lucked out and found work that fits in your real passion – music – and all its time-consuming travel, playing, jamming, recording, and so on, you haven’t quite figured out the right balance between earning enough money to eat and stay off the streets, and between what you really want to do – which is be a musician. That’s where teaching music online comes in.
Teaching guitar or bass or drums or whatever your forte is, has long been a side career of the musician. It makes a lot of sense – you’re going from your strengths, you’re doing what you know and you’re getting paid for it. And if you’ve already got a solid local clientele that you teach to, more power to you, but what happens when you want to go on the road? Music lessons are the kind of job that requires you to show up and be there, or is it? Today thanks to the wonder of the internet, you can work from anywhere in the world, including from a truck stop in the middle of nowheresville, Missouri, if you have the right equipment and an internet connection.
First of all you’ve got to obviously figure out if you’re cut out for teaching – are you patient, friendly, helpful, encouraging, or at least can you be to the person who is paying your bills? Do you have the mad skills to share with the world? If so, all you’re really going to need is a good laptop, webcam that picks up good audio as well as visuals, lighting of some kind if you’re going to be in dark locations, and skype. Skype is the easiest way to do lessons online – most students will have it on their computers already or can download it for free, however there can be a slight delay when both you and your student are talking or jamming out at the same time , so bear that in mind if you wish to accompany each other you may want to send backing tracks to your student ahead of time. You’re going to also need to figure out your pricing structure – you probably want to price a little less than you would price it in a face to face situation, and get a paypal account or other method that makes it easy for you to get paid by your students.
Now all you need to do is find students! You can create a cheap and easy website, flyers, and business cards to advertise yourself, promote on facebook, if your band is cool with it you can post about it on your band’s fanpages, twitter, post ads on craigslist and other sites online. If you already have established students in your area, convincing them to go virtual when you’re on tour, or even full-time shouldn’t be too difficult. And before you know it, you’ll be away laughing all the way to the bank, making money as a musician, and keeping it all location-independent. For more tips on how to set up a music teaching business whether virtual or not visit here, or for more tips on the technical aspects and software etc for teaching online visit here and you can also check out hypebot’s take on teaching online here.
