Like The Ramones, many musicians would say, “It’s not my place (in the 9 to 5 world).” So then, how do they pay the bills? It’s become more complicated than ever in light of changes in the music industry, so the Future of Music Coalition launched the Artist Revenue Streams project, which examines how revenue streams are changing and why. Project co-director Kristin Thomson talks to Jim and Greg about their most recent data: five financial case studies profiling how different kinds of musicians make a living. There’s the Jazz Bandleader-Composer, the Indie Rock Composer-Performer, the Jazz Sideman-Bandleader, the Professional Orchestra Player and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble.

Every time you warble Don’t Stop Believin’ at karaoke or buy a poster of Justin Bieber represents a small handful of change in the music industry’s tipjar. In fact, the Future of Music Coalition has identified no less than 42 distinct revenue streams ranging from karaoke licensing to merchandise sales.

Christopher Bavitz talks with Future of Music Coalition’s Kristin Thomson about how/whether artists are making a living today.

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It’s the age of the one-man band, but the picture looks different from days past. Along with the drum on a strap, and a harmonica on a metal brace, the performer now carries a laptop – and with that and an Internet connection, she or he records and distributes music, designs Web sites, and schedules tour dates.

To understand better the issues affecting how American musicians earn a living today, the Future of Music Coalition launched in 2010 Artist Revenue Streams, a multi-stage research project to document musicians’ revenue streams. Kristin Thomson, co-director of “Artists Revenue Streams,” shares the recently-released results with CCC’s Chris Kenneally as part of the Beyond the Book Podcast series. […]

[…] Thomson says she hopes the study will help music fans to better understand the financial realities that musicians are dealing with.

“Sometimes there’s assumptions about musicians that, ‘Oh, they’re all rich,’ or the opposite, ‘Oh, this is just a hobby for them, they should get real jobs,’” she says. “There’s huge assumptions made about musicians, based on people thinking about all musicians being rock stars or crazy artists. We hope that this work, on the biggest level, can humanize or demystify the musical community … to give a sense of the more nuanced take on the way musicians knit a career together.”

[…] One of the more interesting bits of data presented during the panel had nothing to do with startups but should be looked at and analyzed more in depth. Kristin Thomson, an Artist Revenue Expert at the national nonprofit Future of Music Coalition, presented those in attendance with a new study that showed most artists earning over 100k a year counted their accountant, lawyer and webmaster as their three most important team members. This needs to be looked into further because as Thomson pointed out, there is no way of currently knowing if these artists have that level of success because of the accountant, or if they have an accountant because they have reached that level of success.