Here are 3 benefits of working as an independent musician

As a professional musician, you may end up having to make a choice between becoming an independent musician or getting signed up to a record label. This is a choice that must be carefully considered and not rushed into because both options have their own sets of benefits and disadvantages. At the end of the day, the choice will depend on what will work best for an individual musician.

Here are 3 benefits of working as an independent musician.

1 You get to have more control over your career

As an independent musician, you will always be in control of your decisions of course with the advice of your manager that’s if you have one. The type of music you do, when you go to the studio, shows you get to perform, promotional activities and so on, are decisions you will get to make for yourself. This is not a benefit musicians signed to a recording label get to enjoy because it’s the label that makes all these decisions and in most cases, they will not consult you on it because they essentially own you.

2 You are likely to earn more

As an independent musician, you will often never have to share the profits from your music with anyone because you own 100 per cent of all the rights to your music. This essentially means that you will get to earn more. The same benefit is not enjoyed by musicians signed to labels because in most cases, the label has ownership of the rights to all the music they produce and only give the musician a small percentage of it meaning they earn less from the music sales.

3 You get to own all the rights to your music

As we have mentioned in our point above, independent musicians will always have the benefit of owning all the rights to their music and this is mainly because they are involved in every aspect of their music from writing to final recording and distribution therefore they don’t have to share rights over the music with anyone. A musician signed to a label will often only be involved in the recording of the music as it’s the label that will decide the song, the studio, the distribution, among many other decisions thereby meaning that they technically own the song.

If you are a musician on the fence about whether to work independently or get signed to a label, it’s a good idea to get to fully understand the pros and cons of each of these options and determine which will work best for your career aspirations.

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