I apologize, but that’s a bunch of cat doodoo!
Why would you want to pay into a system (American government) that literally jacks money from your pay check before you even see a single penny? Did you know that was implemented in the year 1943 called the Current Tax Payment Act. The government figured out a way to take your hard earned money from you and you have no choice as an employee.
Your taxes funded ungodly wars and trillions of debt. The United States is over 18 trillion in debt, which is where all your money is going into. Check out this debt clock here. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
If you’re a reader living in another country I would assume it’s a bit different.
Back in 2012 when Mitt Romney was running for president, people were attacking him because he made 13.7 million in 2011 and was paying less than 14% in taxes and Obama made $789,674 and payed over 20% in taxes. Read more here.
Romney is an entrepreneur and provides opportunities and jobs for thousands of Americans. As an entrepreneur the American government loves it when you provide job opportunities for Americans.
This creates a more stable economy and in turn gives the entrepreneur many tax benefits.
Here is one fact:
The tax code wasn’t written for employees, but for entrepreneurs like, Mitt Romney, Richard Branson, Robert Kiyosaki, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
You can complain all you want, but that’s how it works in the states. As long as you understand the difference. Which do you choose? Entrepreneurship or Employment? It’s your choice.
Before I get into how to almost pay zero in taxes. I would like to add that I’m not CPA or tax account. This is purely for educational purposes only and should not take what is taught as 100% fact. Do your own research.
I have been an independent contractor and entrepreneur for over ten years. The first half of those years I didn’t know how it worked. I soon wised up and took business classes, read literally over 100 business books and the vail that was blinding me was soon uncovered.
As a self-employed musician, singer, producer, etc you can write-off many items you purchase just as long as they are related to your profession.
Here’s 40 tips that you may know or not. This usually applies to the musicians working in the United States. Those who live abroad in another country it may differ.
With all those tax write offs I literally can cut my tax bill in half. When you have a business that helps and serve others needs than the American tax code shines down on you. Because it was written for you, the music entrepreneur.
I would suggest you set up an appointment with your local tax accountant and ask tons of questions. I also do suggest that you choose the right tax accountant. Some will have an employee mentality and not an entrepreneurial one. Be careful and choose wisely my young Padawan.
We have come to the end of another informative post. Thanks for reading along and ask me some questions below. Also don’t forget to share these tips to your favorite social media outlet.
I use to say that a lot as a kid. When you’re just a kid you tend to copy everything you see. From watching Ninja Turtles on TV and copying their high fly kicks, to emulating how your parents or friends speak.
I wanted to be Michelangelo. I remember sawing a piece of wood in two pieces, then grabbing two nails and hammering on the ends of both pieces of wood attaching a small chain.
Now I got some nunchucks. Wha!!!!
After watching the nunchuck duel scene dozens of times between Michelangelo and one of the foot clan members in the (1990) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie.
I ended up with a few bumps and bruises on my head after attempting to copy the nunchuck moves. I put down the chucks for a few weeks, then picked them back up again, but this time I wore some head gear and nailed the moves. Wha!!!!
What does this have to with the top 25 artists and how long it took for them to reach fame and riches??
A lot!!
Here are some reasons why they made it.
There many other factors, but I believe above are the main reasons. Feel free to debate me on this.
Now, here the are the top 25 artists of all time and how long it took for them to reach fame and riches.
Take a good look my friend, as you can see it doesn’t take long to achieve fame and riches, the kicker is you need leverage.
Fame is good an all for me but I’m not that much of a narcissist. Sort of.. I would prefer wealth over fame any day. I’m gonna spell out the steps to wealth.
These are just the core steps, obviously there are many sub steps for each core step. Your path to wealth can move a lot quicker if you have all the right relationships and components in place.
I’ll leave you with a quote from my favorite rat.
“An effective team thinks as one.” -Master Splinter-
Thanks for reading and please leave a comment below and feel free to voice your thoughts.
Who could it be? Mile Davis? Arturo Sandoval? Wynton Marsalis? Dizzy Gillespie?
Nope.
Herb Alpert is the man, with a combined wealth of $850 million dollars.
Combine all the trumpets players net worth above and they wouldn’t come close. Miles Davis’s net worth was only $10 million. How is it, one of greatest trumpets players of all time was only worth $10 million. I would expect it to be in the hundreds of millions right? Or billions.
Wrong.
Now we know that prestige, skills and fame is not a catalyst for great wealth. Miles Davis was a master at his craft and one of the best.
But Herb Alpert destroys Miles Davis’s pitiful fortune by $840 million. Yikes! I have to agree that Herb Alpert wasn’t a more iconic trumpet player than Miles Davis. Davis is the man, but this site isn’t just about becoming a great musician, but also becoming a wealthy one.
Miles Davis was wealthy by the average persons standard but Herb Alpert is “stupid wealthy”.
Herb Alpert was born on March 31, 1935. He is most known and associated with the group Tijuana Brass. Raised in the ghetto streets of East Los Angeles where all the cholos hung out he took up trumpet at the ripe age of eight years old.
His accomplishments are no joke. Alpert’s musical accomplishments include five No. 1 albums and 28 albums total on the chart, nine Grammy Awards, fourteen platinum albums, and fifteen gold albums. As of 1996, Alpert had sold 72 million albums worldwide. Alpert is the only recording artist to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart as both a vocalist (“This Guy’s in Love with You“, 1968) and an instrumentalist (“Rise“, 1979).
He’s also a record executive of A&M Records. The “A” is for Alpert and “M” is for Moss as in Jerry Moss. The label including artists such as: Janet Jackson, The Police, The Go Gos, Chuck Mangione, Oingo Boingo, Bryan Adams and many others.
In 1987 Alpert and Moss agreed to sell their label to Polygram Records for a reported $500 million dollars. Cha-ching! Later they began Almo Sounds music publishing company after a frustrating legal battle with Polygram Records.
Alpert also deals in philanthropy and is a huge supporter for music education. He has donated over $110 million dollars through the Herb Alpert Foundation.
He even admits that he’s not great at business and knows next to nothing about business matters. Jerry Moss, his partner, is the brains of the operation. Which leads me to another fact. You don’t have to be a genius at business to run a successful business.
“In business, if you’re the smartest guy in the room, than you’re doomed to fail.” -Robert Kiyosaki-
I’m sure Alpert understands passive income and how to achieve it, but he’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t need know everything about business, that’s what a partner or hiring smarter people are for.
I myself don’t want to do everything in my business or even this site. Eventually I’m going to hire assistants, consultants web developers and managers to manage my company for me. Delegation is a skill many entrepreneurs lack, many fail because they micromanage.
I’ll leave you with one more quote.
” Talent works, genius creates..” Robert Shumann
Create your music and find a way to make it into an asset, which is what puts money back into your pocket. Create assets!
Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any thoughts.
Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, In a small neighborhood called Castle Hill in the Bronx. At the young age of five she began taking singing and dancing lessons and pretty much flourished. Her parents obviously didn’t agree with her decisions to pursue entertainment as a career choice but her ambitions led her to take that risk.
She performed as a dancer in regional productions like Oklahoma and Jesus Christ Superstar. Lopez was unhappy because her current situation didn’t lead her to a solo career.
In the early 90’s she applied for a job for the show ” In Living Color” where she was one of the fly girls. This was her big break, she ended being the runner up for the part, but the dancer that was chosen could not commit to the role, so it was offered Lopez. Wow, what a break.
Lopez eventually ended up becoming a big movie actress and singer and starred in roles such as, Selena, Maid in Manhattan, Anaconda and Enough. Along with eight music albums.
Now this post isn’t about her career, but about her entrepreneurship. Even though she’s had more boyfriends than I have clean socks, the lesson is how she approached and establish a business empire.
Lopez is estimated to have a net worth of $300 million and salary of $20-$30 million per year according to celebritynetworth.com.
According to fortune.com she’s planning to expand her empire to $1 billion in the tech industry to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Here’s the link.
What can you learn from this Latin Diva is probably one major thing and that is “invest in building assets.”
Remember she started from nothing and became something. I would say from the point where she began to pursue her career, it took around ten years or less to reach her status and wealth. She definitely had that passion and persistence. Her wealth is mostly built on business investments, not song royalties.
I’ll leave you with a quote from the great Napolean Hill
“The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”
Napoleon Hill, author
Thanks and please leave a comment or sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t already.
Peace
I know a guy by the name of Matt Farley that has written dozens on tunes about poop. Not only that he makes roughly $23,000 on song royalties from a catalog of 18,000 songs as of to date. Which you can all listen to on iTunes or Spotify.
Who has $18,000 songs? I don’t think even Tupac had that many and he wrote a lot.
While aspiring musicians are struggling daily to write that mega hit tune that’s gonna make them super rich and famous. Matt Farley is just churning out tunes on just about any thing especially dozens of happy birthday and poop songs.
Matt researches what keywords people are searching for online. Then he has notebook full of keywords and nouns and just spends days writing tunes in his studio basement in Danvers, Massachusetts.
He figured if he could make two dollars a year on each song he writes. So far he has written 18,000 songs which could equal close to $36,000 a year. But has only amassed $23,000 in passive income.
This guy understands passive income. $36,000 is not really amazing to live off of especially in the USA. Maybe he should move to Thailand where it’s reported the way of life is great and you could live like a king on only $1,200 per month. More on that later.
Matt writes about 100 songs per album, records them on his Tascam recorder, burns them to CD and ships it to CDbaby for distribution. I know if he reaches out to major distributors he can reach an even more massive audience, but we’ll see what he does in the future.
Poop, birthdays, shoes, cars, proms can be pretty good topics for songs, but I know what you’re thinking.
Are the tunes any good?
The tunes are mediocre at best and many are hilarious which is why I listen to them. He’s musicianship is average at best but I’m sure he’s content with his skills.
Talk a good listen here on Spotify.
Take a good whiff folks and learn to model this example, sort of. The major lesson is to not wait for your material to be the best so you can share it or sell it to others. In time it will evolve into a masterpiece. Get it out there fast!
Thanks for reading this post and please share it others.
Peace friend.
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Quoting Paul Cardall from an interview on YouTube. Check it out here.
Paul Cardall was born with a congenital heart defect and has gone through numerous surgeries in his life. He has also survived a heart transplant waiting for an entire year for a donation.
Not only that, Paul has had two #1 albums on billboard music New Age charts. Including his latest album – 40 hymns for forty days..
His story is amazing from having poor health to becoming an incredibly successful musician and entrepreneur.
But how did he do it?
As a teenager Paul admired musicians like Yanni and George Winston. He learned to play piano by ear and modeled after these great artists. Paul later sought after a piano job at restaurants and department stores and after 3 years recorded an album called Sign of Affection and began to sell it his local gigs. Paul soon learned it was a business.
Soon he was making a living performing as a musician. When he would perform at a store or restaurant he we give the business a cut of the the albums he sold so everyone was happy. If the store wouldn’t accept his service he would leave his album with them as a reference and calling card.
After years of selling his album he needed to expand his distribution. Paul went to a booksellers trade show in Chicago and eventfully made contact with Narada Music a big dog for New Age music. Though it helped his career the label was struggling financially.
In 1999 eventfully starting his record label Stone Angel Music. Created a website and began to sell online. The internet was young at this time and was a great launching pad for Paul’s music.
Pandora played a huge part in his musical success. Hundreds of thousands of people have discovered his music through Pandora.
Starting his record label and gaining distribution thought online avenues like Pandora are the beginning steps of a musical entrepreneur. Paul took a big leap of faith and risked taking his music in his own hands. At the end of the day nothing’s more important than a musicians music.
A bit of advice from Paul Cardall.
” Never give up, learn everything thing about business and marketing. Talk to everyone and love very moment.”
I hope you’ve learned something from Paul, I know I have. If you’ve enjoyed this post please let me know in the comments section below and sign up for more info.
Thanks and cheers.
You’re probably thinking…
Oh no! Not another music streaming service. We already got Spotify, Pandora, iTunes and Napster.
But…..
I hear Tidal will be user friendly for struggling musicians trying to make a buck. It’s been said that Tidals music royalties to artists are four times as much than Spotify. Click here for more info.
There have been many litigations against Spotify from artists who have received less than expected royalties. Tidal seems to be changing the game.
But… Why is that?
Tidals stakeholders are a bunch super successful artists and the head of it all is none other than Jay Z. The other 17 A-list stakeholders: Madonna, Taylor Swift,Beyonce, Kanye West, Jason Aldean, Daft Punk, Rihanna, Colplday‘s Chris Martin, Usher, Nicki Minaj, Jack White, Calvin Harris, Arcade Fire‘s Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, deadmau5, J. Cole and Alicia Keys.
That’s a good list. Except Nicki Minaj she nasty.:)
These artists understand the struggling indie musician trying to get by. There has been some flak but we’ll see when the data comes out. This may be the change we struggling musicians are looking for. It makes sense for musicians to finally step up and grab ahold of the reigns and make things happen.
I’ve always preached in order for the future to become bright and profitable for artists and musicians a new invention or risk taker is gonna step up and take matter into their own hands and change the industry for good. I’m still thinking what that invention can be.
Without the radio, television, internet, computer and phonograph their would be no music industry as we know it today. After a century later the industry is suffering and it needs to adapt (“Adaptability” is the 5th attribute of a thinking musician) to change.
Tidal May be a fluke or huge success for indie artists. We just gotta hope for the best and wait till the data emerges.
If you would like to try Tidal out, there is a $9.99 and $19.99 option with a free 30 day trial and you can cancel at anytime. If you’re an artist and would like your music featured on Tidal and many other services like Spotify, and iTunes, CDbaby.com is a great company that specifically works with indies artists, plus they can get your music on Tidal.
I think I might try it.
Okay thanks for reading and I hope you got something out of this..
The way we think, behave, feel, act, talk, believe and value will affect the way we approach our music career.
At this age and time that I write this, musicians need a new way of thinking. 100 years from now musicians should be able to apply for jobs at a music company just like applying at McDonalds, except for the pay rate of course. Or maybe a 100 years from now to become a musician that is in demand, the industry needs to see real value and demand for our services.
How do we get to that point?
Good question…
I believe we need to change the way we think and create new innovative job descriptions.
What new jobs?
I’m still working on it. In the meantime I have compiled this massive list of attributes and qualities a thinking musicianshould have. (My opinion of course.)
A thinking musician…
Whoa, this list scares me… Geez!
But it’s a nice list. A list that will serve all future thinking musicians looking to make an impact in this amazing little third rock from the sun.
Number 34 “lifelong learner” I believe is probably one of the main components to a successful life, career and pocketbook. Take this one to heart, without constantly learning, growing mentally and emotionally we will always lose sight of the bigger picture.
Read all 63 qualities and examine your career and see if there is anything missing and grade yourself. Please don’t hesitate and mention if there is any other quality that you think is missing. Let me know in the comment section below.
Question…
Before you read any further click on this video, please…
Well, put Brian Tracy.
Brian Tracy is a multi-millionaire entrepreneur that has trained many in different industries. Listen to this guy he’s done it all
Reading is not the only way to educate yourself. You can take courses, seminars, webinars, audiobooks, or the school of hard knocks. In the last 4 years, I have read easily over 300 books on music, business, marketing, autobiographies, investing, finance, etc.
My knowledge has doubled.
Jumbo Jim the bass player for the Nerdy Baristas was very ambitious with his career with his band and wanted to just take over the world with his music. Like all musicians, there’s always a wall that gets hit and gigs start to plateau and diminish.
Jumbo Jim had to look for freelance gigs because his band stopped touring for a while and because their booking manager took another gig with a more established act so the band had to fend for their own.
Jim had no idea how to book a gig, let alone keep it sustaining. There was also finances. Jim always had a bookkeeper managing his finances. Soon his income began to disappear because he had no clue how to manage it.
After one frustrating gig, he ran into his old friend Fred from Berklee School of Music who was an amazing guitarist. Turns out Fred came out to the gig to reacquaint with Jim and hangout.
Fred and Jim started rapping about their careers and lives. Fred heard the heartaches and woes about Jim’s frustration with the music business. Fred was in the same boat as Jim, but the only difference was that Fred… Was still landing gigs and his income just kept increasing.
Jim was dumbfounded at how Fred kept afloat in all the music industries chaos. Fred gave Jim the secret to his success.
“Okay bro tell me what your amazing secret is.” Jim sarcastically said.
“One-word bro…READ!” Fred emphasized.
“Read?? Haha, are you serious man?”, Jim laughed.
“All the secrets you need are in books written by those who have researched and have been in the game before you and have failed and succeeded,” Fred said.
“Hmmm.. I guess that makes sense.” Jim said.
“Gimme your email, I’m gonna send a list of the books that helped shape my mind, career, and pocketbook. But…remember reading the books itself won’t create the success you have to put them into action. If not, then the books are worthless ink and paper. Action is the key bro.” Fred said.
“Okay man, send them to me and I’ll check it out. By the way, to tell your sister I said, “hi!” Jim responded.
“In your dreams bro. Lol.” Fred responded.
Here is the list that Fred sent to Jim.
Soak it up, baby!
Yes, there is a book about the Terminator, believe me, it’s a great read and will inspire you. Many of the other books deal with business, marketing, leadership, inspiration, etc. These books are a must for any musician looking to start a career in music.
Time will only tell if Jumbo Jim is serious enough to take the time and dedication to feed his mind with these delicious books. Mmmmm!
Take it one step at a time with your music career, weigh your steps, and take action.
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”– Stephen King, author
Please share it in the comment section below.
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I plopped on the headphones and pressed play on the Walkman. My 15 year old ears couldn’t understand the amazing sounds they were hearing. This bass funk solo was just pulsing through my ears and I was hooked.
“Who the heck was that?” I said.
“I dunno but he’s the bass player for Kenny G” Joe answered.
“Dang that guy is nasty on the bass you gotta let me borrow it to make a copy of the cassette.” I said.
“Better not lose it.” Joe answered.
“I promise.” I said.
After school I ran home and searched through my pile of junk for an old cassette tape to record over. That night I immersed myself in this “Kenny G Live” album. My life had changed, at the time I was playing tenor sax and bass in my high school jazz band and the album was the best of both worlds. Kenny G the ultimate sax man and his bass player Vail Johnson the ultimate funk machine turned my whole thinking on music.
I found that dope bass solo on youtube check it out.
You will never guess what Kenny G does besides music.
I received a text from my big brother and it said, “Check out what Kenny G does.” And added a link. The link sent me to a CNBC video of Kenny G being interviewed. Turns out Kenny G is an investor and stock trader and if you’re not aware I my self am an investor and stock trader as well.
I haven’t followed Kenny G’s career since the 90’s. I figured his career faded out, which it did. He isn’t as well known like he was back in the eighties and nineties. I assumed he was struggling financially and fell into the music business trap like many musicians and never really recovered.
Turns out I was wrong…dead wrong!
Kenny G’s estimated net worth is $50 million and a global total album sales of 75 million. But according to the “G” man himself he stated in an article from Reuters.
“Over the last decade, I have earned as much from stock trading as from music.”
Even though he was the number one instrumentalist back two decades ago he knew his money needed to be invested in other vehicles other than depending on album sales.
My sax hero from my childhood was the ultimate “Thinking Musician” and one day I’m gonna meet him and maybe interview him.
Here’s a video of Kenny G on CNBC discussing his investments and day trading. Go ahead and click in Kenny G’s luscious hair.
And another video with Kenny G and super model Cindy Crawford on Bloomberg discussing investment strategies. Click on the image.
Think like Kenny G. Think like the 1% of wealthy musicians, not the 99%.
Investment in only album sales is foolish. Take your hard earned cash and invest it building more and more assets. That way you won’t need to solely rely on performance income or royalties for a living, because as I’m writing this blog major artists are getting their royalties cut from digital sales from companies like Pandora and Spotify. Here is an article about Pharrell Williams click here.
“Think McFly, think!”
Fame and riches is what most artists look for and not everyone gets a piece of the fame pie but everyone can get a piece of the rich pie. Wealth is not made out of shear luck, success is not an accident it’s planned. The wealthy didn’t win the genetic lottery and were born into wealth they earned it.
“More than 80% of all millionaires are self made.”
Every millionaire that I’ve met are self made, they hustled, had a game plan, failed many times, got back up, restructured their game plan, executed, failed again and kept at it until they reached their goal.
“You’ve got to be hungry to succeed.” -Les Brown-
Thanks for reading and please give me some insight into your mind and enter them in the comments section below.