By Patrick McGuire from the Reverbnation Blog

Sheet music has been a growing area to generate new income for musicians in the last few years. Releasing sheet music not only provides the obvious benefit of generating more income, but it also poses unique marketing and fan engagement opportunities. So, in this blog post we will share four ways that selling your sheet music can provide opportunities for you as a musician:

1. Generate extra revenue

Releasing sheet music is a great way to generate extra revenue. Especially if you have an online presence with videos, you might get requests from people asking for sheet music in the comments.

Since the pandemic started, there has been an increase of people buying singer/songwriter sheet music so they can learn how to play it on piano or guitar.

Selling sheet music is also a great opportunity for artists with ‘chops’ to show to their listeners. Especially jazz or classical area musicians who have a video presence as there are many people who want to understand how to play a certain song.

2. Develop your notation & transcription skills

Creating sheet music is a great way to practice using notation software. Using notation software can be tricky at first, but there’s a lot of tutorials out there to make sure your it looks professional. Adding the title of your song, the instrumentation, and notes are crucial for a solid file.

While creating sheet music you get to transcribe your own work, which is a great ear training exercise. Perhaps you played solo on a record and now by transcribing it, you can see what ideas you developed. Also, transcribing yourself is a great way to identify certain motifs and to improve yourself as a soloist. 

3. Prepare music for concerts and have them ready at hand

Another great advantage of creating your own is that you will have lead sheets and parts ready for any upcoming concerts. 

During the pandemic, most concerts are canceled or postponed, but now might be a good time to create it and get it ready. By going through your catalog you can prepare the sheet music. By having the lead sheet and parts ready, you can be one step further into your preparations when concerts start again.

4. Reach out to more audiences & engage with them

One of the most interesting results of publishing your sheet music is the benefit of using this as a marketing tool. There are artists who released the sheet music of their songs and asked the fans to make videos of them. This could be a fun project where fans can send back their videos and you could post them to your social media accounts. Creating engagement while making extra income? That’s two birds with one stone.

You can also create livestream events to teach fans the songs on social media platforms. This would be really nice to create engagement and you can have conversations with your fans about your music. 

Another way to use sheet music is to create accompanying videos with them. You can be teaching your songs to fans and they can follow along with the sheet music. You can even create a tiered system on a subscription website where fans can pay for those videos along with the sheet music.

Final Words

Creating a music score can be a huge task, but once you have a template in place, you can also create the sheet music for other songs and have a process for your future work. 

The options are limitless with many people looking to learn an instrument or play a song. You can potentially generate some income using this opportunity and engage with your fans better. 

Patrick McGuire is a writer, musician, and human man. He lives nowhere in particular, creates music under the name Straight White Teeth, and has a great affinity for dogs and putting his hands in his pockets.