Making money in my underware

We had a lovely young gentle man from in the groove come talk to us this week in calm. He basically told us that he sits in his boxers and makes a living. Definitely something that caught my attention.

From my understanding he and a few other guys write music and license it for use through in the groove music. The songs or sound bites are used for commercials movie or whatever else is in need of musical enhancement. Sometime people just look through his online catalog for use and other times they are hired to demo a piece that may or may not be used.

I find this as a very intriguing notch in your musical belt per-say. I don't know if I would enjoy doing this kind of work full time but it could be very beneficial to set aside creative time every week to start building a sound library that could generate income in the future. And with the computer power available on a standard mac book pro this would be something easy to get into. I'm assuming it would be hard to make a living doing this but easily could become another iron in the fire helping finance your musical career.

Money

The other week in clam we talked about the dreaded word.... money. However I'm a nerd and its something I've thought quite a bit about. A little background first. I come from a single income family of twelve people. Due to this fact money has always been a part of my life. I got my first job at 15 and have never been unemployed since. Through this my dad has taught me great money management skills.... the hard way needless to say. My parents have never borrowed me a dollar in my life. My dad always taught me if I didn't have cash for it I didn't need it. While kids in high school were playing les pauls and pearl drum kits their parents bought them I was rocking a $50 dollar first act guitar that i bought from the neighbor. When i turned 16 my friends would show me their new cars while I drove a 94 mini van. I don't say this is as a poor me story but a reference to that fact that I have a good handle on the value of a dollar. Many of my friends talk about their 80-150k in student loans they have and complain about being broke after maxing out their credit cards.... On the other hand i've worked two jobs throughout college and paid cash for a significant part of my degree.... My student loan debut is that of a middle of the road new car.... well shy of a mortgage.

So in calm when we talk about money and retirement i don't freak out because I understand that a majority of the time we have a spending problem which is easily fixable as opposed to an income problem. Learning to live with-in your means is more valuable than having a high paying job. Mel Gibson is broke and he's made millions.

The main point in class was investment and retirement. I feel like the numbers at face value seem high... like saving 3,000 dollars a year. When in reality that's two gigs a month or saving the money from 5 lessons every week. Much more due-able from that perspective. And on second thought if I could opt out of social security that'd be a couple thousand I could invest every year as well.... but thats a whole different subject. I guess I'm also much more inclined to invest in a business model that will produce an income stream for life instead of sitting on a pot of cash and hoping it grows as much as i'd like in the stock market. Also what do you do if you outlive your pot of cash? People live to their 90's in my family. If i retire at 60 thats thirty years of income i'll need. At a modest 30,000 a year life style i would need close to a million dollars in retirement to live until i'm 90.

Kareem WTF?

We had a social media class with Kareem, the schools social media guru. Frankly I don’t really remember much of what we talked about, because we covered a million subjects. In my notes I wrote down some of the main sites I need to get hooked up with to start building a following. The Internet just seems so big and so fast it’s hard for and old school guy like me to digest it all. I guess my biggest problem with the Internet is that I view it as a black whole. I log into facebook and two hours pass by and I’ve accomplished nothing of relevance. Due to this fact I usually shy away from social media. However as I get set to graduate I’m starting to understand the importance of social networking when you are an indie musician. I feel like I need to get on as many sites as possible and then link them through my online portfolio to provide fans with a one stop shop to Chris Nelson’s music. In the twenty first century you have to make yourself accessible on a personal level for people to take an interest in your music. It's almost as if the art is becoming secondary to the relationship with the artist. I don't know if thats good or bad.... but either way we must start embracing social networking.