Do you love music, have good ears for music and want a high paying career? If YES, here are 50 best career ideas that involves music and pays well. The music industry is certainly one of the richest industries of the century. According to 2016 statistics, the global music industry is worth $15.7 billion, and grows by at least 6% every year. It is no wonder that everybody seems to want a slice of the music industry cake.
However, not everyone possesses the singing talent or knows how to play musical instruments. If you are one of such people, it would interest you to know that there are dozens of other careers that you can pursue in the music industry that doesn’t necessarily involve singing or playing musical instruments.
50 Best High Paying Career ideas That Involve Music
1. Music Composer
Many musicians have good voices but have no music writing skills. What these category of musicians do is to hire talented music writers to compose songs for them. If you can write very lovely songs, then you stand a chance to make it big in the music industry.
2. Voice Training Specialist
Almost all musicians go for voice training to help them maintain, or improve on their music delivery. You can embrace voice training as a career.
3. A &R Representative
If you have eyes for talent, and you can easily recognize people that have the tendency to become the next big thing, you can pick up a career as an A&R representative.
4. Accompanist
As an accompanist, you can get paid for performing at events with a group of other pianists. This is a very good career idea for you if you are skilled at playing the piano or organ.
5. Music Teacher
You can become a music teacher and work at elementary schools, high schools, and even universities. There are many higher institutions of learning that hire professors and lecturers to teach their students music.
6. Music Artiste Manager
You can still work in the music industry even if you don’t have musical talent yourself. One way to do this is to work as a manager for musicians. Your job would be to help take bookings, manage their schedules, negotiate deals, and receive payments on their behalf.
7. Music Blogger
Music blogging is a very profitable niche in the blogging industry so you can easily make money as a music blogger.
8. Music Video Vixen
Music video vixens are often well paid. If you have an attractive look, you can start dancing or making appearances in music videos.
9. Chamber Musician
Another idea is to become a chamber musician. Chamber musicians are usually hired to perform at corporate events, meetings, and small gatherings.
10. Organist/Pianist
If you can play the piano very well, you can build a career out of it by playing the piano for musicians in their shows or when they need to compose new music.11. Music Conductor: Music conducting is an impressive but rare talent. You can be hired to conduct music for mass choirs and large singing groups.
12. Cruise Ship Performer
The organizers of cruise trips need to keeps their guests entertained so they hire musicians to come on board for that purpose. As a cruise ship performer, you can earn some money and travel for free at the same time.
13. Musical Instrument Craftsman
You can earn a living from creating or assembling musical instruments or repairing them. Many people have musical instruments in their homes and many religious houses have them too, so you’ll not have a problem with getting clients to sustain your business.
14. Music Store
Another idea to explore is to set up a music store. You can sell musical instruments, instructional materials, and offer related services to musicians and music lovers.
15. Location Sound Engineer
When musical artistes go on set to record music videos, they usually hire the services of sound engineers to ensure that the music video production turns out well. Sound engineers are usually in charge of the speakers, and other instruments used on-site.
16. Military Band Performer
Another career idea is to join a military organization and work as a band performer.
17. Music Journalist
You can build a career out of writing stories, and articles about happenings, trends, and forecasts in the music industry.
18. Music Video Script Writer
Have you ever watched music videos and loved the story line? Well, that’s the job of a good music video script writer. Video script writers are often hired to write impressive story lines for music videos to make the videos engaging to the viewers.
19. Music Producer
Another idea is to build a career as a music producer. Music producers are among the highest paid people in the music industry after the musicians themselves because music producers are heavily involved in the overall turnout of any music that becomes a success.
20. Music Reality Show Producer
You can start your own version of American Idol, The Sing Off or any other reality TV show focused on music.
21. A&R Administrator
If you have a very deep pocket, you can start your own A&R company and earn a percentage of the income from the artistes you sign up and promote.
22. Music Instructor
You can build a career from teaching people how to play musical instruments especially complex musical instruments that people cannot really learn how to play on their own.
23. Music Therapist
This is a very interesting career within the music industry. Music therapists help to assess the emotional, social, physical health, communication abilities of people, and design music sessions as a means of providing solutions to their health problems. Music therapists often help to treat health conditions like depression, dementia, or Alzheimer’s disease.
24. Music App Developer
You must have heard of music apps like Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud and Shazam. These are popular music apps that have earned millions of dollars from its users. If you are skilled at app creation, you can earn a lot of money from creating your own music app.
25. Audio Engineer
Audio engineers are tasked with handling the technical aspects of music production especially the mixing, recording, and reproduction aspects of music so that artistes can easily achieve the exact sounds that they want for their music.
26. Broadcast Engineer
Broadcast engineers help to set up and maintain sound equipment for concerts, music shows, movies, and any other events that involve music broadcast or performance.
27. Music Business Manager
You can earn a living from helping musicians source for events, shows and other money-making opportunities, and earn a cut from whatever they earn.
28. Church Choir Director
Another career idea is to become a church choir director. Your job would be to teach, coordinate, and manage the choir of any church that hires you. Although many churches get free volunteers to do this for them, many others have to hire the services of professionals.
29. Music Promoter
If a musician churns out very beautiful music but doesn’t have promotional assistance from experts, the music might not really do well. Musicians often rely on music promoters to spread the word about their music and make it very popular.
30. Commercial Jingle Composer
Another music related career is to start composing music for commercial jingles and promotions.
31. Foley Artist
As a foley artist, your job would be to create sounds for movie productions. For instance, you can be asked to produce background sound for a car crash or an explosion, noise from cars, background noise, and so on.
32. Music Publishing and Licensing Administrator
Music artistes need to register, license and collect royalties from people who decide to use their work. Basically, a music licensing administrator helps to protect a musician’s intellectual property so that they can earn due rewards from their efforts.
33. Music Business Lawyer
Musicians sometimes get into trouble and need lawyers to defend them. In fact, almost every music production company or artist who is worth their salt have lawyers on retainers. If you love to work in the music industry as a respected professional, this is a very good niche to choose.
34. Mixing Engineer
After a musician has recorded a track in the studio, the song is usually forwarded to a mixing engineer who helps to refine the music, so that the sound and vocal aspects of the music are in sync.
35. Music Cover Art Designer
Your job would be to help musicians design covers for their albums, and other promotional materials that they need for their songs.
36. Artistes Reputation Manager
Artistse reputation managers simply help musicians with projecting a specific image to the public so that they can get a lot of fans.
37. Dance Artist
Dancers and choreographers are usually required for performance in music videos. If you are a talented dancer, you can earn a living as a dancer, choreographer, or dance instructor.
38. Radio Producer
Radio stations usually need people to handle the audio aspects of their shows or create jingles for them.
39. Piano Tuner
Piano tuners help to adjust the strings of a piano so that the musical intervals are well aligned. You can earn up to $150 per piano tuning.
40. Disc Jockey (DJ)
Another career idea is to become a Disc Jockey. You can earn a living from entertaining people with good music at concerts, musical shows and parties. You can also work as the in-house DJ for a radio or television station.
41. Tour Director
Tour directors help to plan, organize, and coordinate musical tours on behalf of musical artistse.
42. Soundtrack Composer
Another interesting career idea is to compose sound tracks for movies and games. Video games audio composers earn around $1,500 dollars per minute of video game music written.
43. Background Singer
If you have a beautiful voice, you can earn a living as a background singer for other musicians. You may be able to get the exposure and experience that you need to become a solo performer from working as a background singer.
44. Folklore Musician
You can pick a unique niche in the music industry and become a folklore musician who uses music to tell interesting stories. You can earn a living from performing at corporate events, parties, and cultural festivals.
45. Ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicologists study the effect of music on the lives of people who live in a particular location. Basically, they help to study the kinds of music that would appeal to a group of people. They are very helpful to record labels, music business people, and artistes who wish to sing on a commercial level.
46. Music Librarian
Another career idea is to become a music librarian whose job would be to organize, archive, and oversee a collection of different types and forms of music so that they can be used as research materials and references by others.
47. Software Developer
You can earn a living from developing software for music production or Digital Audio Workstations as they are popularly called. You can follow in the steps of developers like FL Studio, Ableton, Apple Logic Pro, and several others.
48. Session Artiste
Session artistes offer backup singing services to artistes whenever they need to record new songs in the studio.
49. Hypeman
You can work as a hypeman in the hip-hop industry. Hypemen support hip-hop artistes and rappers to create excitement around their music by making exclamations, interjections, and call-and-response chants.
50. Parody Artiste
Lastly, you can become a parody artiste who converts popular songs into funny spoofs for live performances, or airing on online platforms like YouTube or Facebook.