What music jobs really pay: music directors, producers, engineers, teachers and therapists – salaries, career paths and how people break in.
A board-certified music therapist in the United States earns somewhere between $54,000 and $60,000 a year, depending on which dataset you trust. There is no single official government number for this exact job title, so every salary figure you see is either a proxy, a member survey, or an aggregator estimate — and this article … Read more
Sound engineering technicians earned a median of $59,430 a year in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ occupation-specific wage data for the role (SOC code 27-4014). A newer estimate, based on 2025 BLS figures, puts the median closer to $73,130. Neither number tells you what you’ll actually make, though, because pay in this … Read more
A full-time public school teacher in the United States earned an average of $74,495 in the 2024-25 school year, according to the National Education Association. School music teachers sit on that same pay scale. Private lesson teachers, meanwhile, charge $70 to $100 for a one-hour lesson in 2026. So which path pays more? Schools win … Read more
Salary websites put the average music producer at roughly $65,000 a year in 2026. Salary.com lists $65,647, or about $32 an hour, and Payscale’s estimate is nearly identical at $66,629. The closest official government figure — the Bureau of Labor Statistics median for producers and directors — is $83,480. Here is the catch: most music … Read more
How much does a music director earn? In the United States, the median is $73,710 per year, or about $35.44 per hour, based on the newest federal wage data (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Half of all music directors and composers earn more than that, and half earn less. The range is huge. The bottom 10 … Read more