[einpoklum]

(Not necessarily in order of importance)

1. Direct voluntary payments by their audience (one-off/recurring).

2. Live shows.

3. Payment by various entities to sing something.

4. Organizations (the state, corporations, philanthropic bodies) which sponsor artists to work on their art without having to also do the work of financing themselves.

Still, it's quite possible that would fund less than are funded today. To that I would say:

1. It would still be a reasonable trade-off.

2. It would level the playing field somewhat between today's popular performers/artists and the vast majority of their peers whom, today, aren't funded.

3. Communities should motivate themselves, and organize themselves, to support local artists on the individual level, and to provide facilities such as music rooms, instruments, recording studios, professional training/lessons - for free or a symbolic fee, to local music artists (and ditto for other kinds of art) - so that at least people don't have to pay to engage in their art.

[intricatedetail]

1. How is that different from begging?

[einpoklum]

You seem to be implying that transfer of funds can only fall into a few categories, e.g. robbery, sale and alms. Well, reality is more complex than that.

If two people are married but have separate bank accounts, and one of them asks their spouse to transfer some funds into his account because some joint expense will come out of it - is he "begging"?

When a member-funded NGO reminds its members to pay their annual dues - is it "begging" them?

You could claim the answer is "Yes", but then - the world has a whole lot of begging going on.

[probably_wrong]

Because begging is asking for help with no expected return - either you give them money, or you don't.

If an artist you like asks you for money, it is implied that this money will go towards funding their next project. It is more of an investment.

Patrons of the arts have existed for a long time. Donating to your artist is just the distributed version of that.