Making money from music – industry expert shows the way

A music industry expert, journalist and university lecturer has shown Ghanaian musicians and industry players how to make money from their works.

Speaking at a seminar in Accra Thursday April 2, 2009 Kwaku pointed out that there are several avenues that musicians can explore to make money from the music enterprise.

He gave the example of an American band known as Maize. “They don’t do recordings any more,” he said. “They stopped selling records ages ago, but they can come to the UK and tour and make a lot of money.”

He also cited merchandising as another means of making money. He advised musicians to make T-shirts with their logos and sell to their fans.

“Once you’ve got a strong fan base, you don’t have to wait for the records to come out before you make money, you can sell merchandise,” he said.

Another area musicians can make money, he said is from music publishing, but which, unfortunately does not happen in Ghana, he said. He argued that the songwriter should have a separate write to the sound, the writer of the song should gave the right as a the music publisher and make money from that.

“If you are a well known person, you can also make money from personal appearances,” he said.

He cited the example of famous musicians appearing at events and getting paid for.

“You can appear at the opening of a shop or something like that and get paid for it,” he said.

Great Ghanaian composer, Prof. Kwabena Nketia, former Copyright Administrator, Mr. Andrew Amegatcher, musician Gyedu Blay Ambuley and other musicians and producers with the media were present.