Cameron is a freelance guitarist in Brooklyn, NY. Along with performing and selling his own music, he performs as a sideman for other artists and dabbles in production consultantation. He is also a co-founder and author at MusicianWages.com. Learn more at his website or check out his music on iTunes.

Nearly every musician I know is a creatively diverse individual, yet many of them are singularly focused.  If they have a goal for their career as a musician, it's often accompanied by tunnel vision.  They place all their dreams of making it as a musician in one band or one project, and in the meantime exert a lot of energy waiting tables at the local Scrapplebee's.  Perhaps worse, I've seen friends that were very talented and promising musicians get caught up in a corporate career and settle for the occasional weekend cover band gig.  The latter usually step away from the cliff, scared to leap because they find their current situation secure and comfortable, later to lament their decision.

However, there is another way to make your creative and musical knowledge work for you.  Chances are you have a variety of skills that you take for granted, or at least have come up with enough excuses as to why you can't use them.  I've heard all the excuses, used many of them, but finally took off my blinders and realized there are many ways I can create revenue streams as a musician.

Here are a few ideas to get you thinking.  The beauty of all is that they can be done simultaneously, involve music, and if you have a slow month with one revenue stream, another could likely pick up the slack.  That is, after all, the whole reason to have multiple streams of income.

Performance Oriented Skills

The first place to start is evaluating your abilities as a player or singer.  Sure, your priority is to get your band's act together.  But in the downtime, consider playing solo gigs and investigate opportunities to work as a sideman or studio musician in your area.  The better you are as a musician, the more opportunities you will find.  This might mean brushing up on your sight reading or dusting off the jazz chops, but these kinds of opportunities will strengthen you as a musician when your band needs it most.

Another option I rarely see bands choose is to create an alias to perform more cover songs.  Choose a second name for your band, add another singer if necessary (one lead singer per gender seems to do well), record a few cover songs and start pitching yourself to local bars.  Have fun with it, and make some extra cash.

One thing I learned working at a bar in a college town was that cover bands can do very, very well.  At the time, I had tunnel vision and thought it was beneath me, as an artist, to play in a cover band for a bunch of drunken frat boys.  In retrospect, I probably would have been better off on stage than doing something like working as a bouncer at a bar full of drunken frat boys.

Selling Music

Hopefully, your first thought here is, "Duh."

If you don't yet have some music available to sell yet, make this a priority. There are two keys to making this an actual revenue stream: 1) make sure the music is really good, and 2) keep your overhead low. Set a realistic budget, get your music together, and explore some options for recording.

Home recording vs. studio recording is an entirely different topic (as is the discussion on selling music independently), but for the sake of this article, here's my belief in a nutshell:  Use your budgetary restrictions as a creative guide.  For example, I have a small home recording rig that I've used for 4 albums and counting.  One of the things I can't do is record drums.  So instead of throw my hands in the air and do nothing, I choose creative means of recording music within my restrictions.

Once you have an album (or even a few tracks) that you're happy with, release them digitally.  Budget some time each week to market yourself and your music.  Keep your overhead low by using every free online resource available to spread the word about your band and the music.  If the music is good, it will sell.

One last thing to mention here: Record and release cover songs and niche oriented albums.  While it may not be your chosen path to be recording cover songs, my experience has been that they sell very well.  Sales from cover songs help fund larger projects with my original music.  For example, iTunes sales of an album of 8 cover songs, involving no more than an acoustic guitar and my friend singing, and recorded in my parents basement nearly 10 years ago, provided me with enough funds to take my jazz trio into a studio and make a proper recording.

Here are some other articles I've written to further discuss what I do to help sell my music:

How To Effectively Promote and Sell your Music on iTunes

Recording, Releasing, and Performing Cover Songs

Make Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Album 

Recording / Home Studio

If you have a home recording set up that you've used for your own recordings, why not let other musicians hire you and your gear?  If you have ProTools chops to burn, people will need you.  There's a steep learning curve on this software, and many musicians would rather hire somebody to record them before taking the time and energy to learn these recording techniques for themselves.

Composition & Arranging

Writing and arranging music is perhaps one of the more profitable ways to use your skills as a musician.  Music enhances life.  That's why we have it in movies, commercials, parades, elevators, dentists' offices... well, perhaps 'enhance' is the wrong word.  My point is, it's everywhere.  And in some cases, companies may want custom music for their website, or they'd like to commission a piece of music for a special occasion.

Somebody has to write this stuff.  Do you have the skills to pull it off?  There are countless opportunities out there if you look, but the best way to find this work is through effective networking.  Make sure everybody knows you can write music and that you'll write for hire (many people wrongly assume that an artist would never write commissions).  Build a portfolio of examples, perhaps by doing a few projects for little or no money, and work will start to find it's way to you.

Music Directing or Conducting Skills

Wherever there's a group of contracted musicians, there's a need for a director or conductor.  My counterpart over at MusicianWages.com, pianist Dave Hahn, has written about the job of a Music Director in the theater .  That is just one place Music Directors (or MD's as they're called in the biz) are found.  Artists with large backing ensembles also need MD's.

It can take some time to get into this kind of position, but if you are a good musician that also has strong management skills, these can turn out to be ideal gigs (musicians with management skills are sometimes hard to find).  The only downside is that this is a gig that is probably going to take place a night, and can cause a conflict with your band's schedule.

Teaching

For many musicians, teaching private lessons is a great way to generate some steady income.  There are several ways to find students.  If you're willing to put in the effort, placing ads on Craigslist or putting flyers in your local grocery store might help you find students directly, and you can charge whatever they'll pay.  If hustling for students isn't your thing, many stores that sell instruments also offer lessons.  There are also programs that offer music lessons at regular schools.  Because there's a middle man for the latter two options, you'll probably make less money per student, but could also have more students placed in your studio.

Transcribing or Copyist Work

If you have done a lot of work in Finale, Sibelius, or another notation program, then you could be a valuable asset to other musicians that need to get their music on paper.

Working as a copyist generally only involves getting previously notated music into clean, organized parts for each person in an ensemble.  Composers will write out an orchestration in one large score, but often hire a copyist to do the grunt work of extracting each instrument into separate parts.

Transcribing involves writing down note for note what is happening on a recording.  Not only does it help to have notation skills, but a trained ear as well.  There are software programs that can now slow music down without affecting pitch, which makes things easier, but it's still a valuable skill that can pay.

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It's important to remember that none of these gigs constitute giving up on your career as a musician.  In most cases, it will strengthen skills that can only help other areas of your career.  Best of all, it can put money in your pocket and make it a little easier to quit that day job.  Good luck!