ChristianDance

So you've written, produced, and mixed a masterpiece, and it's time to share it with the rest of the world. If you are an independent artist, the next step is to figure out how to distribute your music. This article provides a summary of the options we believe are the most popular for getting your music distributed to Spotify and other major streaming platforms. What Options Do You Have? There are plenty of music distributors who can help you get your music on Spotify and other streaming platforms. Some take a percentage of your royalties in exchange for allowing you to list your music for free, while others charge a fee upfront in exchange for allowing you to keep 100% of your royalties. Some distributors offer additional services such as mixing and mastering, as well as tracking and marketing tools for your music. It all depends on your needs as an artist and your budget. Every music distribution platform has its own advantages and disadvantages. The overviews will help you t...

Have you ever wondered how the lyrics appear in the songs on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Shazam, etc.? Become part of the largest catalog  of music data on the planet, by joining a family of music lovers The largest catalog of lyrics ever has Christian lyrics contributed by Christians from around the world. Isn't that awesome?  Musixmatch is the portal for getting lyrics published on several streaming services. You don't need us to join Musixmatch... but we have a dedicated workspace with like-minded contributors / curators that understand the jargon, spelling rules, etc. associated with Christian music.  Here is what we have to offer:  Access to a (new) community of music lovers that share the passion to transcribe & share Christian lyrics Community members guide / mentor each other in a manner that one may expect in any Christian community (always based on constructive feedback) If you'd like more permissions / functionalities / paid activities, we wi...

It is difficult for emerging artists to find a marketing approach that suits their ambitions, needs, and means from the many marketing options available to them. In the past, radio play could only be secured by big-name musicians on major labels who had large networks of influence. Despite all of the social media and online streaming platforms that we have today, having your songs played on the radio continues to be an essential component of any music career. The big question is, how do you get radio play? What makes radio exposure so important? The rise of social networks and new distribution channels (Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and other streaming platforms) has brought both opportunities and challenges to music promotion. Everyone can leverage these platforms because they are free. Nowadays, it is possible to distribute your music on most streaming platforms at a relatively low price. On the other hand, reaching potential listeners is more complicated because it's hard to com...

Having fake followers on Spotify playlists reduces your chances of being placed on the algorithm-driven playlists, provides you with low royalties, and reduces your chances of receiving streams. In today's modern music industry, one of the indicators of success for an artist is how many streams they have. (This is also the primary reason why we ignore sales data when compiling our Top 100 charts.) You, as an artist, have better bargaining power and more monetary compensation the more streams and followers you have. You may gain more exposure through large Spotify playlists, but here's the catch... It is possible to find a lot of large independent playlists comprised entirely of fake accounts! Just the fact that they use fake accounts should be enough to steer clear of them. In making these playlists, curators exploit artists who seek exposure from Spotify playlists to leverage their popularity in the music industry. As a result of these exploits, not only are the artists' n...

Spotify's competitive edge is the amount of data it holds on listeners and the way it uses that data to increase engagement. ... Using the same underlying data and technology can provide unique insights to record labels and artists about who's listening to what and help them reach more listeners. The Spotify algorithm sets itself apart from other digital music streaming services. The algorithm is an AI system known as BaRT (an abbreviation of Ba ndits for R ecommendations as T reatments). Basically, BaRT’s job is to keep listeners listening. It does this by playing and suggesting songs it knows the user is familiar with, while dropping in some fresh tracks it thinks they might like, but most importantly, haven’t heard before. This makes sure the listener is engaged, but things never get boring. BaRT decides what to suggest to listeners by combining two concepts – Explore and Exploit. This combination is the key to the platform’s recommendation system. Exploit uses the listene...

Is Your Songwriting Inspiration-Dependent? by Kapa Freeman Talent may be keeping you from your songwriting goals, but not in the way you think. There's an idea in the songwriting community that's really harmful. It's the idea that you have to have "talent" to write songs that people love. I know, because I used to think that too. It was crippling. When you run into negative feedback on your songs, you feel like you should quit because you "Just don't have the gift.". We get this idea because hit songwriters make it look so easy, but watch any documentary on a hit songwriter's life and you'll see how many bad songs came before their good ones... and how many drafts went into the classic ones. Talent can actually be a songwriter's handicap if it's not combined with skill. The talent-only songwriter essentially relies on inspiration to give them songs that people connect with, but inspiration can be a crutch... a pretty unreliable crutch...

Writing Lyrics You Can Feel by Kapa Freeman Do you want to write song lyrics that people can feel? Here's a trick from one of my favorite CCM songwriters. Thank Matthew West for this one. One of his more recent songs, "Truth Be Told" really pulls the heart strings. He gets this effect by using a technique that I call "Imagery pairs.".  Before I get into how to make one, let me show you why they make lyrics so easy to feel. People are hardwired to connect more with visual lyrics. Why? It's simply human nature. If you want someone to feel something, you can't just tell them about it. They have to experience it for themselves. And if you want them to experience it for themselves, they have to SEE it for themselves. It's one thing to tell someone that their words hurt you. It's another thing to tell them: "You stabbed me in the heart with a sentence!" So, the more visual, the more emotional impact, but there is a drawback. Sometimes lyrics ...

Choruses That Grab Attention by Kapa Freeman Do you want to start your choruses with a bang? Grab their attention at the start? Just like Lauren Daigle.   Lauren Daigle made Billboard history with her song "You Say." It was at the top of the Hot Christian Charts for a record 100 weeks. Part of what makes the song work so well is how the chorus starts. She starts by repeating the same note and rhythm. That's it. No, seriously...that's the whole technique. "You say I am loved..." "You," "Say" and "I" are all the exact same note and the exact same length. This technique is used in lots of other #1 Songs, in different styles of music, and different time periods. Sometimes it's a repetition of the note, but the rhythm changes. Sometimes it's a repetition of the rhythm, but the melody changes. But one thing is certain... Back to back repetition at the beginning of a chorus is a great way to make a song people love. Songs like ...

John Mayer's Secret to Writing Catchy Song Lyrics by Kapa Freeman  Why are John Mayer's song lyrics so easy to remember? It comes down to human psychology. I am notoriously bad at remembering song lyrics, except for John Mayer's Songs. Other artists may write a song I remember here or there, but John Mayer does it consistently. Why? I discovered the reason when I was working full-time as a teacher. Teachers can always tell when they're losing students. When those eyes start to glaze over, when that one eyebrow raises in confusion and someone yells out... "I don't get it!"  I got those a lot when I first started teaching. Talking to other teachers, I soon discovered why. I was giving too much information at once. I would vomit these elaborate explanations, thinking that more information would help clear things up... But they just got confused. Talking to my teachers reminded me of lessons I'd learned while getting my teaching degree:  "People remem...

During some of the informal conversations we have with Indie artists, we often hear questions regarding what it is that they could do differently to get their music noticed.  In todays article, Kapa Freeman addresses one of the biggest challenges that many Indie artists are facing and is actually stagnating the growth of their music careers.  Happy reading! Why is it so hard to get your songs noticed? by Kapa Freeman  One word holds back more songwriters than anything else... It delays some music careers by years.... It destroys others. I'm speaking from experience. It took me 15 years to figure out that my first publishing deal could've happened 15 years earlier. Unfortunately, there was one word that was keeping my songs from the quality I needed, if I wanted anyone to take me seriously. So what magic word kept my music career in limbo? The word is "multi-tasking." I made the classic mistake that most indie songwriters make.... Trying to do it all! It took me forEVE...

Are you a Christian music artist? Do you want to build a larger audience for your music? In this 5 part series, we will explain our music marketing strategy for exponentially expanding your fanbase. Part 4 of this series can be found on this page:  https://blog.christiandance.eu/2021/07/how-to-build-larger-audiencefanbase-for.html In part 5 we are sharing our final tips and wrapping up this series of posts. Use a Mailing List Having a newsletter that people can join is one of the best ways to not only communicate with fans, but to also build up relationships with them and turn those relationships into profitable ones. Once people visit your website, the last thing you want them to do is to leave and never return again. This is where mailing lists come in! If you can get people to sign up to your list before they leave, you’ll have their email address. From here you can communicate with them on a weekly basis, and remind them about you and your music. It may sound old school, but em...

Are you a Christian music artist? Do you want to build a larger audience for your music? In this 5 part series, we will explain our music marketing strategy for exponentially expanding your fanbase. Part 3 of this series can be found on this page:  https://blog.christiandance.eu/2021/06/how-to-build-larger-audiencefanbase-for_0144089420.html Today, in part 4, we share tips on pitching to music blogs and playlists, and we go in-depth on the value and proper use of genre tags. This post contains a serious amount of information that you may want to print and save somewhere.  Next week, in part 5, we will be sharing our final tips and wrapping up this series of posts. Pitch to music blogs and playlists Getting publicity for your music can easily become more than a full-time job in itself (just ask any publicist), but that doesn’t mean that you can’t start gaining traction on a smaller scale. The most important thing to understand when pitching to music blogs and publications is th...

Are you a Christian music artist? Do you want to build a larger audience for your music? In this 5 part series, we will explain our music marketing strategy for exponentially expanding your fanbase. Part 2 of this series can be found on this page:  https://blog.christiandance.eu/2021/06/how-to-build-larger-audiencefanbase-for_23.html Today, in part 3, we focus on the use of social media, especially on how social media works to reinforce your online presence and value to your audience/fanbase. This post contains a serious amount of information that you may want to print and save somewhere.  Next week, in part 4, we will be sharing tips on pitching to music blogs and playlists, and we go in-depth on the value and proper use of genre tags (another post that you will want to print and save). Maintain a cohesive social media presence Don’t just think of social media as a way to sell your music. Social media should be a conversation. Selling music is actually a result that happens w...