I want to perform live, and recive tips for playing. Can I do that from my home or buy land?

[ChinRey]

That depends on where your home is. Some regions, including the Linden Home sims, have covenants forbidding commercial activities but most don't.

Land prices vary a lot, depending on location and how much the seller believe they can get somebody to pay. If you shop around a little you should be able to find unspecified nothing-special-at-all mainland land for 0.5 L$ per square meter. You certainly should be able to find it for 1 L$/m2. Parcels with higher or - for some weird reason - lower quality tend to cost a bit more, sometimes a lot more.

Please note that there may also be additional monthly tier to pay if you buy land. As a premium member you can have either a Linden Home or up to 512 m2 of mainland for free. But if you want both at the same time, you'll have to pay a bit extra.

(Edit: or you could do as Lindal suggested, play music and let somebody else take care of the boring bits about land and house and such. )

[ChinRey]

That depends on where your home is. Some regions, including the Linden Home sims, have covenants forbidding commercial activities but most don't.

Land prices vary a lot, depending on location and how much the seller believe they can get somebody to pay. If you shop around a little you should be able to find unspecified nothing-special-at-all mainland land for 0.5 L$ per square meter. You certainly should be able to find it for 1 L$/m2. Parcels with higher or - for some weird reason - lower quality tend to cost a bit more, sometimes a lot more.

Please note that there may also be additional monthly tier to pay if you buy land. As a premium member you can have either a Linden Home or up to 512 m2 of mainland for free. But if you want both at the same time, you'll have to pay a bit extra.

(Edit: or you could do as Lindal suggested, play music and let somebody else take care of the boring bits about land and house and such. )

[Lindal Kidd]

You can do that!  And you don't have to own any land at all.  What you need to do is:

1.  Have a good microphone and sound setup at home
2.  Get an audio stream.  You can learn how to do this by reading up on what it takes to be a DJ in Second Life
3.  Talk to the owners of some clubs.  There are thousands of DJs, but live performers are always in demand (especially if you are any good)
4. When you've got a gig singing at a club, go there, set their land parcel to receive your stream, and sing your heart out
5. You'll probably also want to create a group for your fans.  Lots of live performers sing at many different places, and a group is a good way to get the word out as to where you'll be performing next

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Playing music in SL is a lot like DJ'ing because you have to stream you music to the location you are performing in.  You don't need land.  See this thread for how to stream music.

How successful you'll be depends on who will allow you to perform and how talented you are.  Clubs and live music venues are the places to look for opportunities.  Some will allow you to play for tips, and once you get a name for yourself and a following some places will actually pay you in addition to any tips you earn. 

I have owned a rock club and a jazz ballroom and hired live experience performers and paid anywhere from 1K to more than 10k per performance.  Occasionally I also hired new comers if they were very talented and professional.  The highest amount was earned by a very popular and talented live performer that had such a following that she packed an entire sim to the limit at each performance, and earned in tips, as much or more than I paid her.

A lot of successful performers started out in karaoke or open mic places.  It's good practice for you to refine your music, your streaming quality, and how to talk to the crowd.  Also, music venue owners and booking agents a lot of times go to these places to scout out new talent. You may or may not be tipped there depending on who's there and your talent.

When you are ready, have enough music perfected to perform for an hour.  You should talk between songs a bit, but remember you are hired to play not chat.  Have a notecard containing a list of songs you perform well in a notecard giver so people can look at the list and request songs. 

Be sure to have a professional quality profile picture as well as information in your profile about the kind of music you play, who to contact to book you, and a list of performance dates and times.  If you can give a link to an outside web site with a sample of your music that'd be great.  Also It's good to start a fan group and send notices about your performances.  Get a group joiner to put on stage for people to join.

Prepare to audition to get performance dates until you are popular enough that word of mouth spreads.  Search out clubs and live music venues that are interested in new performers of the genre of music you play.  You will have to find out who the owner is, or who is responsible for booking performers at each club.  Then you will have to go talk to them, maybe a lot, to get an audition. This is going to take a lot of work on your part.

There are booking agents in SL that know who all the contacts are and will get you bookings in exchange for a commission and will promote you.  You may be approached by some, or you may have to seek them out, if you are interested.  Talk to a few and go see their other clients perform, then talk to their clients, before settling on who you hire. Be sure you understand what services they provide and what commission they will take.  Any agent worth hiring will want to see you perform or audition and will have helpful advice on your appearance, presentation, and music selection and know how much you can charge as your career advances.  Some performers forgo this and do all the work themselves, while others are more than glad to pay an agent to do this work.

Best of luck to you.  SL always has room for talented live performers!