.png)
Album Project Updates!
Over the next couple of months, I will be working on a project involving releasing an album of original compositions. Visit this page for the latest updates, sneak peeks, and more!
Week 8: Final Update (for now), Project Recap, and New Video Live!
Hello and welcome to the very last week of updates about my New Beginnings project! If you have been following this journey, you know that I have been working for the past 8+ weeks on releasing an album of original compositions, which I recently released to Spotify, YouTube, and all the other music streaming platforms.
Below is a brief recap of my project, which is also summarized in a video below.
Why Release an Album?
I have been composing for about ten years, and I've always wanted to get my music out in the world. I am passionate about my music, and I love writing it and enjoy listening to it. This is the beauty of composition – one can write music exactly how one wants to hear it! I believe there may be other people in the world with similar musical tastes who might enjoy my music as well. More importantly, I want to write music that is uplifting to people. With all of the negativity in the world, I hope that my album can provide my listeners with a little bit of joy in their days.
Project Summary and Results
I didn't initially realize that the end product of this project was going to be an album. I was initially just planning to learn music production software so that I could get the instruments in my composition to sound more realistic. However, as I was about to begin the project, I found out that the music composition software I already use (MuseScore) just recently released a new update that contained a complete instrument sample library. This virtually eliminated the need for me to learn a new computer program, so I decided to expand my project to include all the rest of the steps involved in releasing the album. Let’s take a closer look at each week.
Week 1
The object of week one was basically just to pick the pieces that I wanted to put in my album. This was actually much harder than I anticipated, because I had so many compositions that I liked, but I ended up settling on these eight tracks, which became my album.
.png)
The eight tracks in my album (screenshot from my video!)
Weeks 2-5
Editing the tracks was only supposed to take one week, but it ended up taking up two entire weeks bleeding over into the next few as well. With so many individual notes, rhythms, instruments, and dynamics in each piece, there were a lot of things I had to fiddle with in order to make it sound perfect. Also, the program was a bit glitchy, as it was just recently released and the developers have not had time to work out the bugs yet. For example, in one piece, the violas’ A4 pitch was playing back as both A4 and G4 simultaneously. In order to fix this, I had to substitute the second violins for the violas on that note only. As you can see, I sometimes had to get creative with the program to work around these odd problems.
Week 4
During week four, I started the process of joining performing rights organizations (PROs), which are organizations that keep track of performance, broadcast, etc. of music and track down royalties to give them to their rightful owners. The three I joined were ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange.
Week 5
During week four I realized that I could not finish registering with some of the PROs until my music was actually distributed. So during week five I created an account with DistroKid, which was the service I chose to stream my music. Apparently, there are quite a few music streaming options:
.png)
All the streaming platforms available through DistroKid
Week 6
During week six I continued working with DistroKid. I created my album cover, which they required in order to upload the album. After this I ran into trouble. DistroKid told me that WAV or FLAC files were best for uploading the tracks, and so I attempted to upload the tracks as WAV files. However, despite trying three separate times, the tracks consistently failed to upload. I eventually switched to MP3 files, which thankfully worked just fine.
Week 7
Week seven saw the release of my album! It was an incredibly exciting day when DistroKid emailed me to let me know that my album was live on Spotify. The main thing I did on week seven was print some beautiful posters that DistroKid generated for me and hang them up around the School of Music. If I were to redo the posters, I would make them a bit bigger and more eye-catching, because they are somewhat hard to see on the bulletin boards. This was a learning experience that I can use to my advantage in the future.
Week 8
During this past week (week eight), I made a video overview of my project using Adobe Premiere Pro, including “artifacts” from my project along the way. Having no video editing experience whatsoever, I was thankful to have a boyfriend who had used Adobe Premiere Pro before and was willing to give me tips and help me when I couldn’t figure out how to do something.
.jpeg)
BeReal while receiving Adobe Premiere Pro help from my boyfriend :)
For the actual video recording, I had to find a place in my house that was appropriate for filming a professional-looking video while being quiet enough to film professional-sounding audio! I ended up choosing a corner of my room. Not pictured in the video is my unmade bed with clothes on it to my left, and dresser full of school items and other miscellaneous objects I didn’t want in view, right behind the camera! Such are the struggles of filming in one’s house.
.png)
My room setup for recording my video
Check out my completed video here!!
Check out the video overview of my project!
Reflection
This project was an incredible and fun learning experience. Along the way, I learned how to use MuseScore 4, edit my compositions to sound as perfect as possible, join PROs, release an album via DistroKid, market my album via posters and YouTube videos, and use the Adobe Premiere Pro software. If I ever want to release another album, market more of my music, or even make another YouTube video, I now have the knowledge, skills, and tools to do that much more quickly and easily. Although I encountered technical difficulties, setbacks, and frustrations as would be expected, I am thankful that nothing went terribly wrong with the project and that I was able to fix any issues that arose with a little persistence and the occasional Google search.
Overall, this album project has inspired me to keep pursuing things like this as much as I can. Since I started college, I have not composed much music, and I had forgotten just how much I love composition. While working on this project, I found that whenever I would work on my album or edit my tracks, I was getting completely engrossed in the task and loving every minute of it. I remembered just how passionate I am about composition, and I realized that I want to work on it much more often. I also found that seemingly daunting tasks such as joining performing rights organizations, releasing an album, and making and editing a video, are actually far easier than I imagined. I think that all I needed was a nudge to figure out how to do them, and everything fell into place. Now that I have done all the hard work of figuring it out, the processes are streamlined and I could very easily do all of these things again. And I plan to!
Although I do not expect composition to ever be my bread and butter, there are some things I am planning to do to increase my music’s reach. I plan to keep releasing videos (especially shorts!) to generate more views on my channel and hopefully more traffic to my album. At the suggestion of the composition professor at the University of Arizona, Dr. Kay He, I plan to expand my existing website to highlight my composition experience to a greater degree. And finally, I plan to release more albums. DistroKid charges a flat fee per year, no matter how many albums one releases. So apart from the time spent composing and uploading, there is no additional cost attached to releasing more albums. My current ideas are to release an album of epic music, record and release an album of piano hymns, and any other ideas that occur to me later on. I hope that my music can be a blessing and uplifting to many listeners.
Thank you so much for following me on my journey! I hope you enjoyed reading about the project and seeing the album come to fruition. I hope to see you all again for my next project!
Week 7: My Album Is Live!!!
Welcome to Week 7 update for my album project! If this is your first time reading this blog, you have joined on a good week! This week I finally completed my goal of getting an album of original compositions released on Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, etc. Check out my album here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_klCFoiKGmTKR5ZC8cpeOWhjkuN5djTW18
Or here:
Week 7: What I did
As I discussed last week, I encountered issues with uploading my audio files to the distributing service, DistroKid, but eventually made it work by switching from WAV files to MP3 files. At the close of last week, I had submitted the tracks to DistroKid and then just had to wait for them to process and show up on the streaming services. On Thursday morning I woke up to an email from DistroKid saying that my album was live on Spotify. To say that I was excited was an understatement. I immediately sent the link to my friends and family and made plans to advertise the album at school. I added QR codes to some posters that DistroKid auto-generated for me and had them printed. Then I got to hang them up all around school, like this:
I also finished registering my compositions with ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange. Theoretically, this should be the last step in the process of registering to receive royalties for my music.
And now, it is time to introduce each piece on my album so that my listeners have an idea of what each track is about.
Track 1: Frontier – Inspired by some of the light and airy parts of the Cinderella 2015 soundtrack, this was originally intended to be a light and happy piece describing something cute and little. In the course of composing, the piece turned out to be somewhat heavier than I initially intended, but it developed an open, Coplandesque character that reminded me of the American Frontier (hence the track’s name). For the pioneers, moving Westward often symbolized a fresh start, and this is part of the reason that I titled the album “New Beginnings.”
Track 2: Azure – This was one of the first pieces I ever composed seriously, and it was written in memory of my parakeet of the same name. Azure was a beautiful blue parakeet with the sweetest disposition. He was hand-raised and thus completely hand-tame, and he used to sit on my shoulder while I practiced piano. When he died suddenly, it was a complete shock, and I still miss him. Being a musician, the natural thing to do was write music about him, and I hope that in this track I have captured the feelings of love and sweetness that surround my memories of my favorite bird.
Track 3: Voyage – This was the first orchestral piece I ever composed. Although I do not quite remember my inspiration, I believe that the main theme was inspired by the story of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the secondary theme was inspired by a sweet and surprising ending in a book called “Battling with the World.” The entire piece is meant to evoke the freshness, freedom, and excitement of a voyage on the open ocean.
Track 4: Honor the Heroes – One morning, my mother and I discovered that on the main road near our house, there was a long parade of cars and runners. As we watched, we discovered that the procession was part of the “Run for the Fallen,” which, according to their website (www.runforthefallen.org), is a group of runners who annually run one mile for each hero fallen since the beginning of the War on Terror. Seeing this run made an impression on me and inspired me to write a piece commemorating those heroes in all walks of life who make noble and selfless sacrifices for the benefit of others.
Track 7: World of Wonder – This piece was written when I attended Rocky Ridge Music Camp in the summer of 2017. I had come up with the main theme on the piano and wanted to flesh it out. The end result was a work that seemed to me to describe the beauty and wonder of experiencing a whole new world for the first time.
Track 5: Sacrificial love – One of my favorite novels is The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. My favorite character in the book (and one of my favorite characters in all fiction) is Miles Hendon, who takes the rightful prince of England under his wing when the prince is living as a pauper. In one chapter, the prince speaks out against some of the officials in the prison where he and Hendon are being wrongfully held, and he is accordingly sentenced to a flogging. In a particularly moving scene, Hendon offers to take the flogging in the prince’s place, and silently endures the pain and disgrace while the prince watches and is moved to tears. This beautiful chapter is the inspiration for this track.
Track 6: Mice – There is no specific story behind this piece, but the inspiration for the title should be fairly self-explanatory. Though French Horns would not be my typical go-to for describing the small furry creatures commonly known as mice, the rapid running notes and staccato accompaniment fit beautifully with descriptions of this pint-sized creature.
Track 8: Resurrection – The inspiration for this track ought to be self-explanatory. As a Christian, my faith is the center of my life, and so I thought it fitting to compose a piece describing the central piece of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Christ. This is by far the most programmatic piece I have ever written, and it is also the piece of which I am the most proud. The piece starts out depicting the Last Supper, when Christ tells his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled, but to believe in God (John 14). Around 0:57, the music changes scene to describe Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prays that he might be spared the anguish he knows is coming (Luke 2:26-46, Matthew 26:46). At 2:02, we hear the guards come and arrest Jesus (Luke 22:47-54a, John 18:4-9). At 3:26, Jesus’ disciple Peter is warming himself in the courtyard of the high priest, outside of where Jesus is being questioned. Three times he is asked if he knows Jesus, and three times he denies it. After the third time, he hears a rooster crow and remembers Jesus’ prediction that he would deny Jesus three times before a rooster crows twice (Mark 14:54, Luke 22: 56-60). As soon as he hears the rooster crow, Peter is struck with anguish (5:18), realizing that he has just denied his Lord, just as Jesus predicted he would. He left the courtyard and wept (Luke 24:61-62). At 5:58, Christ is being led by the soldiers to the hill on which he is to be crucified (Matthew 27:31-33, Mark 15:22). We can hear the guards nail him to the cross at 7:55 (Mark 15:25). At 8:05, His friends mourn and bury him (Mark 15:42-47, Luke 23:56). At 9:23, an earthquake shakes the ground, the stone is rolled away from the tomb, and an angel descends from heaven (Matthew 28:1-4). And at 9:38, we celebrate Christ’s resurrection (Matthew 28:6). This glorious ending is a perfect way to wrap up the album, as well as celebrate the New Beginnings brought about in countless individual’s lives (including mine!) because of Christ’s resurrection.
What I Learned
This week, I learned what I was like to have an album released! It was an extremely exciting experience that I am still enjoying.
I also learned this week that the distributing service, DistroKid, seems to collect royalties. I did not realize this, and I am going to need to investigate whether or not I am still eligible for membership in ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange if I am already receiving royalties from DistroKid.
And finally, I learned this week that I could have made my advertising posters much more effective. I did not have much time to spend on them, and this is probably part of the reason that they are not quite up to the level I would like. I would have preferred to have my picture on them, because I find that posters with someone’s picture on them are much more eye-catching than posters with just text and/or generic images. I would also have liked to use bolder colors so that they stand out even more. And finally, if I could redo the posters, I would make the QR code direct to the playlist on YouTube rather than Spotify. My boyfriend and I realized that unless you have Spotify Premium, it is nearly impossible to make the Spotify phone app play anything other than a random playlist which includes a lot of other content unrelated to the actual album that the QR code is directing the phone to. In the future, I will make sure to take what I learned into account to my advertising more effective.
A couple of my posters advertising my album around the music school
Up and Coming for Week 8!
For this next week, I am going to continue finding ways to promote and advertise my album. I will also investigate the royalties question and find out if I am still eligible to be a member of the royalties organizations if DistroKid is already collecting royalties for me. And finally, I will be making a video about this project to share with my classmates in a couple of weeks.
Thank you so much for joining me on this exciting journey, and I will see you next week!
Photo credits: Track 1 - Stephen Hui via Unsplash; Track 2 - Elizabeth R via Unsplash; Track 3 - David Dibert via Unsplash; Track 4 - Paul Chambers via Unsplash; Track 5 - licensed via Adobe Stock; Track 6 - Ricky Kharawala via Unsplash; Track 7 - Joe Yates via Unsplash; Track 8 - licensed via Adobe Stock
Week 6: Uploading to DistroKid; Sneak Peeks of Album Cover, Title, and More!
Week 6 of my project has arrived, and with it the step I have been anticipating the most. After weeks of editing my original compositions in MuseScore 4, and after creating accounts with the royalties services ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange, it was finally time to upload eight original compositions to DistroKid and get them released to all major music streaming services. Although this process was not without difficulty, it was still tremendously exciting and rewarding.
Week 6: What I did
Although I finished my main editing last week, I could not keep myself from continuing to edit little bits of the tracks to get them as close as I could to being perfect. I fiddled with tempos, adjusted the endings, and worked around weird program glitches. Finally, I exported the tracks in their final form and then continued the process of registering with the royalties companies. After creating accounts with each of the companies, I then needed to register my individual compositions. This makes sense, because even if you create an account with these companies, unless you actually send them your music, they won’t know what music to give you royalties for. Before I was able to finish this process, however, I realized that SoundExchange was asking me for my compositions’ ISRC numbers. An ISRC is an International Standard Recording Code and is assigned to individual recordings by the distributing company. So I realized that I needed to distribute my music via DistroKid before I could proceed with the royalties companies.
Distributing was the step I was anticipating the most, and it has proved to be both the most fun and the most frustrating step so far. To distribute the tracks, I first fill out their online form asking which streaming services I wanted my music distributed on (which I mentioned in last week’s post), how many tracks I was releasing, what I wanted my album cover to look like, what I wanted my album title to be, what the genre was, whether or not each track had explicit lyrics/was a “radio edit,” etc. I also had to upload individual tracks for distribution. This part was extremely enjoyable, since it felt like I was just a few steps away from releasing my album.
For this step, I had to come up with artwork for the album. I did not want to use artwork from the internet because of copyright issues, and although I thought it would be okay to use artwork from free sources like Unsplash or resources like Adobe Stock that are available to students, I wasn’t 100% sure what all the rules were for photography usage. So, just to be safe, I decided to search my camera roll for any of my own photos that might work. To my surprise, I actually found several that looked nice enough for the album cover. Most of these were from a museum called the Creation Museum, which my family and I visited several years ago. A significant portion of this museum consists of outdoor gardens with luxurious plants, flowing streams, and a large lake. This brought up an interesting question: If I use a photograph that I took of the grounds at a museum, where part of the attraction is the landscaping itself, do I owe the museum royalties from pictures I took of their landscaping? I didn’t feel like figuring this out, so I settled on a photo (from the museum) that I had taken of a a generic tree, and that did not include any of the museum’s identifying landscaping. I don’t think there is any way the museum could be upset with me over a generic tree picture, even if it was taken on their property. So with that I proudly present to you the official album cover and title, which I created in Microsoft Word:
.png)
My album cover and title revealed!
I titled the album “New Beginnings” because of the titles of Track 1 and Track 8, and because it is also the first album I have ever released. The title also reflects my hope that this album will be inspirational, uplifting, and enjoyable for my listeners.
Now for the frustrating part. I finished filling out DistroKid’s online form and waited about ten minutes for all of the tracks to upload, process, etc., only to open my email and find that each one of my tracks had encountered a problem and failed to upload. Needless to say, this was frustrating, but even more frustrating was when I tried two more times with the same result. Finally, I uploaded the tracks as a different file type, and this was successful. As of writing this post, the tracks will be sent out to stores today, and will hopefully be available to listen to soon!
Week 6: Surprises
The main surprise was, of course, the tracks not uploading to DistroKid properly. I am still not quite sure what happened there; the error message said that the files were not large enough. However, the problem files were WAV files, and the successful files were MP3 files – and WAV files are much larger than MP3 files. I am just thankful that they finally uploaded and are on their way to the stores.
.png)
My WAV audio files were apparently too small, yet the much smaller MP3 files uploaded just fine! Go figure…
The second surprise was that I was not expecting to need to distribute my music before I could register it with the royalties companies. I wasn’t exactly sure what the proper order of events was, but I was slightly surprised that this was how it needed to be done.
Week 6: What I Learned
This week I had a couple interesting learning experiences. Of course, this week I learned about the procedure for distributing music on DistroKid, and learned that this was necessary in order to create ISRC numbers for my pieces, which in turn is necessary to finish registering said pieces with the royalties companies. I learned what information DistroKid asks for when registering, and I learned that in my case the MP3 file types worked while WAV files did not.
But there were more important things that I learned this week as well. I learned that when working on a project like this, one never feels truly ready to release the pieces to the world. Even after editing and editing (and believe me, if you have read my blog you know just how much time I spent editing!), I can still listen to the tracks and think about how many things I still would like to change. Once I have changed those things, I start noticing even more detailed things I could change if I had the time and better equipment. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that I would never reach the state of “perfection” in any of my tracks, and I accept that there will always be parts of the track that I am not completely happy with. I think that this is an important lesson for anyone, but it was an especially good reminder for me as a perfectionist and a musician. I was reminded that I can, and should, train for hours to perfect my craft, but I must also maintain a healthy outlook that acknowledges that nothing will ever be perfect. Giving my best effort while still accepting these imperfections can free me up to keep creating and discovering without fear.
The second, and even more important, thing that I learned was that anyone can make things happen for themselves if only they are willing to pursue it and put in the work. If you had asked me last year if I wanted to put out an album, I would have definitely said yes – I have wanted to share my music with the world for years! But if you had asked me if I thought it would be possible, my answer would have been far less certain. I had an idea in my head that streaming one’s own music on all the major platforms was for someone else, but not for me. I suppose I knew it was possible, but I didn’t realize just how within reach it was for me. All I had to do was put in the time, effort, and dedication, and not give up, and now my music is on its way to all the major streaming platforms and will be ready for the general public to hear within the next few days. Of course, not everything is this easily attainable, but it was a good example of how much I can accomplish if only I am willing to put in the work. This was an encouraging lesson!
Up and Coming for Week 7!
This next week will be the penultimate week of my project. I have designated this week as a week to “tie up all the loose ends” and finish everything I wasn’t able to finish in previous weeks. It looks like this will just be finishing up registering my works with the royalties companies and making sure my album gets distributed properly. Then, I will be able to enjoy the fruit of my labor and share the album with all my family and friends.
And finally, if you have read this far, you deserve the best sneak peek yet – track titles and excerpts from each track! https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/katywebster/new-beginnings-4
Feel free to presave the Spotify link – I have absolutely no idea what that does, but it sounds like a great thing to do! 😊
.jpg)
Presave the album by following the link above and then clicking on this button!
Week 5: Finishing Major Editing (finally!) and Continuing Next Steps
Thank you for visiting my blog! This week was Week 5 of my project in which I am compiling, editing, and distributing an album of original compositions. It is exciting to be nearing the finish line of this project and seeing everything come together.
Week 5: What I did
This work week was slightly shorter, since the last update was posted late and also since I was sick over the weekend. However, it was a productive week as I was finally able to finish all of my major editing. In last week’s blog post I discussed possibly needing to strike two tracks from my album, and I have since rectified the issues with both pieces. First, I was able to find the file for Track 1 on my family’s old laptop, since it somehow was not on my computer anywhere. I was able to download it onto my computer and polish it to sound how it should. Second, I asked a group of my classmates to listen to track 6 and let me know if they thought it sounded polished enough for the album, since I thought that there was some noticeable unevenness in the playback. However, the feedback I received on the track was positive, and upon listening again myself, I didn’t hear the unevenness I thought I had heard before. So I decided to include the track.
I also listened through all of the compositions today and made notes of some very minor things I might still like to change if they can be changed, and if I have time. These are things that I did not notice in the initial editing process, partly because the playback in MuseScore 4 is very choppy and I can’t always hear how the piece truly sounds until I export the file as an MP3. Then once I export it, I begin noticing little fixes that I would still like to make, that I could not hear before. I know that I will not ever get the pieces perfect, but I am very passionate about my own compositions, and I think it would bother me if I let myself release them without trying my absolute hardest to fix everything that I noticed.
This week I also continued the process of registering with the ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange so that I will be able to collect any royalties I might receive from releasing my compositions into the world.
And finally, one of the most exciting steps was creating an account with DistroKid, which is the organization I will be using to distribute my music on various streaming platforms. The farther I proceeded with the application, the more excited I became about how close I am to releasing my music.
Week 5: Surprises
I think the biggest surprise this week came when I was registering for DistroKid. When it asked me which streaming services I wanted to distribute on, I was stunned by just how many there were. There were twenty-seven different options, probably only a third of which I had even heard of, much less considered streaming my music on.
.png)
The streaming service options on DistroKid – so many possibilities!!
It seems like there would be no downside to streaming on all of these platforms – the more people have access to my music, the better for me!
DistroKid also apparently has a mastering option, which I surprised about. I was initially excited until I actually listened to the finished product. To test it out, I uploaded Track 2, and this was the result after mastering:
Track 2 after DistroKid's mastering
In contrast, this is the track before mastering:
Track 2 Original
The benefit of the mastered track is that it naturally plays at a higher volume, which I appreciate since I usually have to turn up my volume significantly when listening to my own tracks. However, that was all that I liked about the mastered version. The original maintains a soft, lush tone that the mastered version completely lacked. The original version even has a more realistic sound while the mastered version sounded more fake. I would rather keep the integrity of the sound and forgo some volume, so I plan to stick with the original tracks unless the mastering has a different effect on any of the other tracks.
Week 5: What I Learned
Since Week 5 was mostly a continuation of previous weeks, it was not the biggest week for learning new things. As I mentioned above, I did learn more about how DistroKid works, about the available streaming options, and about the mastering feature. I also learned how user-friendly DistroKid is and how easy it seems to be (so far!) to get tracks distributed. It is definitely something I will keep in mind if I ever distribute more tracks in the future.
Up and Coming for Week 6!
This week I will need to finish the registration process for ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange. I will try to have this completely finished by next week, although the process seems a little complicated for some of them and I am not entirely sure what I am doing. Once I am finished with that, I plan to complete the DistroKid registration, including finding/creating an appropriate picture for my album, and then clicking the final button to release my music to the world!
If you have read this far, thank you! Enjoy two sneak peeks of two of my compositions and a cute cat pic!
Sneak Peek of Track 3
Sneak Peek of Track 4
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
My boyfriend’s cat listening to Track 2 with me – he was falling asleep like this!
Week 4: Late update, Senior Recital, Registering with PROs, and Encountering Issues
If you have reached this page, thank you so much for following me on my journey! If this is your first time here, I am releasing an album of original compositions to Spotify, YouTube, and any other streaming platform I decide on. As I mentioned in my last post, last week was Spring Break and so I did not post an update. This week I am also posting late due to a very special and exciting event that occurred this week – my senior recital! Check out the video below or on my Videos page!
Senior Recital this week!
Week 4: What I did
Week 4 was a very exciting week as I finally (almost) moved on from editing to the next step: signing up with Performing Rights Organizations (PROs)! These are nonprofit organizations that are responsible for monitoring music usage across different platforms and making sure all the proper royalties go to their respective owners. The three I signed up for are ASCAP, MLC, and SoundExchange. ASCAP covers royalties from live performances and live radio broadcasts. MLC collects royalties from production of records, CDs, etc. as well as digital streaming. SoundExchange collects royalties from recordings. Although I still not entirely sure the details of what each of these covers, I was told to register with each one of them and I will continue to learn more about them as I work with them. The process was interesting – I did not expect to have to put in so much personal information. Since these companies exist to provide royalties to their members, they need to gather information that will let them send their members direct deposits and generate tax forms. So they needed my name, date of birth, address, social security number, bank account information, etc. One even asked for pictures of my driver’s license and a voided check. It felt weird providing all of that information to an organization I wasn’t intimately familiar with, but I know that the website is reputable so I was willing to provide whatever they asked for.
.png)
This week I joined ASCAP!
.png)
…And SoundExchange!
Week 4: Surprises
The biggest surprise this week was unfortunately not a pleasant one. I realized that the piece I wanted to use as Track 1 is not on my computer anywhere. I do have the first file I created of it, which has a few bits and pieces, but nothing after that. I am not quite sure how that happened and I am planning to go looking for the final with the completed version this week. If it still exists, it would be either on our old laptop (which I think I used to compose it), our new desktop computer, or one of two thumb drives. If I cannot find it, I could theoretically completely re-enter it from the printouts I have, but that would take more time than I currently have to spend on it. I have high hopes that I will be able to find it on one of my other devices or thumb drives, but if not I will have to take it off the album and perhaps use it at a later date. If I do find it, I will then still need to edit it to get it ready to include in my album.
I also had a realization that one of my current pieces on the album, Track 6, simply may not sound as good as I need it to. It is a piece for four French horns, and the French horns are difficult to control in MuseScore 4. This piece alternates between rapid sixteenth notes and short, staccato eighth notes, and no matter what I do the eighth notes always play much louder than the sixteenth notes. I wouldn’t mind this so much if it only happened in few isolated places, but as it is, the entire piece gives the impression of random notes constantly poking out at a higher dynamic than all the rest. I asked some friends for their feedback regarding whether or not the piece sounds good enough to be included in the album, but there is a chance that I might need to replace it or just completely remove it from the album.
Worst-case scenario, these unfortunate surprises would leave me with only six tracks in the album. I would be okay with this. I was hoping for eight, and I still think this would be the ideal number, but if I only had six or seven I also think this would be fine, although it would be a very short album. I am hoping for the best with Tracks 1 and 6 so that I can keep the album length I originally planned!
Week 4: What I learned
What I learned this week mostly involved the process of creating accounts with the PROs. As I mentioned above, I am learning more about which PRO covers what aspect of music usage, and I am also learning the process of getting my music covered. What I learned was that the first step of creating accounts with each of these organizations is just that – the first step. I will still need to perform additional steps in order for my music to be protected by these organizations. For ASCAP, I have been assigned an Interested Party Information (IPI) number, and I can now proceed to the next step of registering my music with them. For MLC, I still need to “create a Member.” According to the email they sent me, “A Member is a person or entity that is authorized to administer musical works and receive mechanical royalties related to their use.” And finally, I will need to register my compositions with them. And for SoundExchange, I need to submit claims for my sound recordings through their online Portal SoundExchange Direct (SXDirect). This will be the next step for the coming week.
Registering with these organizations and learning how to use them to protect my music will be important for my future career, because I will already have these memberships in place should I want to release any additional albums in the future. Also, if I ever want to make any recordings of me playing piano, I can receive royalties from these as well.
Up and Coming for Week 5!
This week will include the continuation of several previous tasks as well as the addition of a new task. I will set out to find Track 1 and decide whether or not to keep Track 6. If I decide to replace either of these tracks, I will find suitable replacements and edit them in MuseScore 4. I will also proceed to the next steps for all three PROs and see how far I can get with this process. And finally, I will begin the process of registering with DistroKid to get my music distributed on whatever platforms I choose. Follow along for more updates (hopefully on-time ones!) as I continue this process!
Week 3: More Editing, Next Step Planning
Thank you for joining me on my project journey! This week was week three out of eight of working on producing, copyrighting, and distributing an album of original compositions. Working on this project has reminded me just how much I love composition and how much I hope it can be part of my professional life.
Week 3: What I did
Over the past two weeks, I have been importing the compositions I plan to use in my album into MuseScore 4 and editing them to make them sound as I imagined. I don’t think I realized how long editing the compositions was going to take! Though the fundamentals of how MuseScore works are still the same in the new update, how the sounds work is completely different. As I have discussed, the new instrument sample library is both the biggest blessing and the biggest curse. The playback sounds vastly more realistic, but it is much more finicky and takes quite a bit of adjusting to make it sound correct. Most of this week was spent editing the piece which will become Track 8 of the album. Though I love almost all of my compositions (otherwise I wouldn’t write them!), this one would have to be my favorite. I like to refer to it as my magnum opus – it is nearly eleven minutes long and scored for full orchestra and choir. It is a programmatic work recounting a story that is deeply meaningful to me. In fact, this is the piece I first used to test out MuseScore 4 – and when I heard the ending played by the sampled instrument sounds for the first time (and also several times after that), I cried! I genuinely cannot wait to show this piece to you and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.
.jpg)
Showing my mom Track 8 while she sorted beans! She loved it :)
I also planned to look into the process of copyrighting and distributing my music this week. However, in extremely timely fashion, one of my classes this week hosted a guest speaker named Dan Coleman, who talked about the intricacies of music copyright. Dan Coleman is the co-founder of Modern Works Music Publishing and is the composer-in-residence at the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, so he was the perfect person to discuss these issues. He basically told us everything that I needed to know regarding the next steps for my compositions. As a result, I did not need to do the research I thought I needed to do, and I was able to spend more time fine-tuning my pieces.
Week 3: Surprises
There were not too many surprises this week. The main surprise was probably just how much time it took to edit Track 8. I could have spent less time on it, and there were a few parts that probably did not need to be edited. However, I knew I would be unsatisfied if I left those parts unedited, and I wanted this track to be as perfect as it could possibly be. By the end of last night, I did in fact get it quite close to exactly how I wanted it and I do not regret one minute of the time I spent on it.
.png)
I spent quite a lot of time on this portion of Track 8. Audio of this portion is at the end of this post!
Week 3: What I Learned
The most interesting things I learned this week were related to Dan Coleman’s lecture on music licensing. I learned that there are multiple different aspects of music that need to be licensed separately by those using the music, and so the composer can actually earn several different kinds of royalties on the same work. The most obvious kind of licensing is performance/broadcast licensing, which is needed for live performances and radio broadcasts. In order to receive royalties for performances and broadcasts of their works, a composer must join a Performing Rights Organization (PRO). These include ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR, and SoundExchange. While the ASCAP, BMI, and SoundExchange are open to any artist, SESAC and GMR can only be joined by invitation.
The second type of licensing is mechanical licensing. This licensing covers the distribution of someone else’s work on a physical record or disc. It also applies to online streaming services. In order to be eligible to receive royalties for things like these, a composer must join MLC, or Mechanical Licensing Collective.
The third type of licensing is synchronization licensing. This applies when someone decides to use your music to accompany film, TV, or video. Dan Coleman did not suggest any licensing organization specifically for this, so I assume that it is either covered by a membership in one of the PROs or that it is not necessary for most composers.
As you can imagine, there can be many layers of licensing involved with using someone else’s music. While this can be a nightmare for the user, it is beneficial for the composer because they can end up being paid several different royalties for the same thing. Although I do not have unrealistic expectations regarding making a fortune with this album, I do think it would be exciting to earn a little bit in royalties here and there – I’ve put in the work so I might as well earn something if I can!
Up and Coming for Week 4!
This next "week" will actually cover a two-week span, since my school’s Spring Break is next week and I am not going to make myself post unless I want to!
Over the next two weeks then, I plan to join ASCAP or BMI (apparently you can’t join both), SoundExchange, and MLC. There is also one more track that I still need to edit before all eight will finally be complete.
This closes out week 3 - thank you for joining me! To conclude, I will leave you with three different versions of a portion of Track 8 - enjoy! And be sure to stay tuned for more updates about this project!
1) Track 8 with old computer-generated MuseScore 3 playback sounds
2) Track 8 with new sampled MuseScore 4
playback sounds BEFORE editing
3) Track 8 with new sampled MuseScore 4
playback sounds AFTER editing
Week 2: Editing in MuseScore 4!
Welcome to the second week of my album project! If this is your first time here, I am working on creating, copyrighting, and distributing an album of original compositions over the course of eight weeks. Last week I chose eight compositions that I wanted to include in my album, found descriptive photos to accompany them, and began inputting them into MuseScore 4. This week I continued that process, learning and problem-solving along the way.
Working on Track 2!
Week 2: What I did
This week I set out to transfer the rest of the compositions for the album into MuseScore 4 and edit them. The new MuseScore update includes sampled instrument sounds (explained in the Week 1 blog post), and although this makes the pieces sound overall incredible, some things still need to be adjusted to sound how I imagined them. The main aspects of the pieces that needed to be changed were dynamics. Since I am now working with a completely different set of playback sounds, sometimes the loudness of each instrument relative to the others is completely different than it was with the previous set of sounds. For example, if in the old MuseScore version the violins sounded fine at a “piano” dynamic, they might be too quiet in MuseScore 4. I had to do a lot of editing of the dynamics so that the balance of all the different instruments still sounded correct.
I also had a chance to make some edits to the individual pieces if I was not completely happy with how I had written a certain section. In Track 5, for example, there were few mistakes that had been bothering me for a while, as well as improvements I had been wanting to make. I was able to work on these and think the piece sounds overall better in those spots.
The editing was both incredibly fulfilling and slightly frustrating for reasons I will explain in the next section. I did not quite finish all the compositions, but as of writing this blog post I have four of the compositions completely finished and ready to go, and two more halfway there. Check out a sneak peek of one of the compositions on my YouTube channel!
Sneak peek of Track 7 before and after the sampled instrument sounds
Week 2: Surprises
This week’s work did hold a few surprises, but thankfully nothing major or completely unexpected happened. The surprises were mainly specific weaknesses of MuseScore 4 that I had to work around.
After working with this update for a couple of weeks, it is clear that it is still in its early stages after release. The playback is very choppy when more than a few instruments are playing at once, the program crashes more often than I’d like, and the playback dynamics and even occasionally rhythms can change abruptly for no good reason. The weirdest and most humorous glitch was when I opened an old score in the new program and all of the instruments except for a few random ones were set to the “grand piano” sound. I had to manually change them all to the instruments they were supposed to be. Love technology!
.png)
Gotta love technology...why did MuseScore automatically set almost all the instruments to
the "Grand Piano" sound???
One of the issues I ran into while editing my compositions is what I will call the issue of “terraced dynamics.” Terraced dynamics are basically distinct, “stairstep” dynamic levels with no additional levels in between. For example, quiet music could be at a “piano” dynamic or a “mezzo-piano” dynamic, but with no options in between. While this term is generally used to describe a performance practice of Baroque music, it applies here too. Because the instrumentalists who recorded the sampled sounds did not have infinite time to record infinite different dynamic levels, the program has a limited number of dynamic options. While it does offer eight main dynamic levels and six additional ones, sometimes these still aren’t quite enough. For example, sometimes “piano” is too soft and “mezzo-piano” is too loud, but there isn’t an option in between. I just had to adjust the dynamics of all the instruments as best as I could to achieve the balance I was looking for.
A related issue I ran into was that the tone quality of some instruments was noticeably different between different dynamic levels. To illustrate this, imagine listening to a recording of a violinist playing at a very soft dynamic. No matter how high you turn up the radio volume knob, you will always be able to tell that the violinist was playing quietly because the violin has a very soft tone at lower dynamics. Then imagine listening to a recording of the violinist playing very loudly – no matter how far you turn the volume down you will still be able to tell that the violinist was playing loudly. This difference in tone at different dynamic levels is very obvious in the sampled sounds, and while this makes the instruments sound far more authentic, it has its downsides. When editing French horn parts, I found that all dynamics mezzo-forte and higher had a very forceful, brassy sound. If I wanted a rounded, noble, softer French horn sound, I had to keep the dynamic at mezzo-piano or softer. This was very impractical when I needed a French horn melody to cut through the rest of the instruments but still maintain a softer tone. While this is possible for live musicians to do, the computer can't do it quite yet. My workaround was to keep the French horn melody at mezzo-piano and either set all the other dynamics at a slightly lower level, or duplicate the French horn melody in multiple French horns simultaneously (for greater overall volume) and set them all to mezzo-piano (to achieve the softer tone). With these strategies I was able to overcome this challenge in most cases.
Week 2: What I Learned
I think the most significant thing I learned this week was how much I still appreciate live performances. As wonderful as sampled sounds are, they simply cannot substitute for a real live orchestra (at least not in MuseScore 4). There are so many minute details that musicians think about that the computer program simply cannot: connecting one note to the next, adjusting the exact dynamic to fit the exact mood and balance of the piece, playing with a louder dynamic but a soft tone, taking extra time for dramatic effect, etc. And of course only live musicians can imbue a performance with meaning and emotion (although playing my pieces through MuseScore 4 can still make me cry!). So while I still plan to use the computer to my advantage to make music that I hope will inspire my listeners, this project has only made me appreciate real musicians even more. Perhaps someday I will be able to record an album live!
Up and Coming for Week 3!
This coming week will look partially similar to this past week. I will need to finish editing the rest of my compositions to prepare them for inclusion in my album. I also need to research the copyrighting process and the process of distributing music using DistroKid. Stay tuned and be sure to check for updates on my website and YouTube channel!
Week 1
I was very excited to start work on my album this week! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed working on music composition. After about an hour or so of work, the table was quite the scholarly mess!
This week, I selected eight compositions that I wanted to include in my album. I was not expecting this task to be so difficult! As I looked through my old compositions, I found that there were far more than eight that I wanted to include. In order to narrow down the number of tracks, I had to decide which ones were the most important pieces and then let the others go. I did, however, keep a few additional options just in case one of the original eight didn't work out.
The next thing I had to consider was the order of pieces. To determine how I wanted to order the tracks, I considered the mood of the piece and the piece's instrumentation. For example, I tried not to put two French Horn quartet pieces right next to each other, and I tried to intersperse serious pieces with more upbeat ones. I believe that organizing these tracks was good practice for me, as I will need to organize pieces in other ways in the future: for my own solo recital(s), student recitals, and perhaps even future albums.
Although I have selected both the album name and all of the album tracks (at least tentatively), these pieces of information are both classified at the moment. Instead of revealing the track names, I have chosen pictures that represent each of the tracks to give you a taste of the content without giving anything away.
I also had to completely rewrite one of the tracks in MuseScore, because I couldn't find the file on either my old computer or my family's old laptop. So I ended up copying it into the computer from a printout that I had. Inputting it into MuseScore revealed that MuseScore has not changed much at all in terms of functionality since I last used it, and that was encouraging. I did learn some specifics about how the new sample library works that will help me figure out how to make future tracks sound their best.
Next week I will be importing the other tracks into MuseScore 4 and adjusting dynamics, articulations, etc. to make the tracks sound like I want them too. Stay tuned for another update next week as I dive into editing the individual tracks!
Project Overview
Music composition has always been one of my passions. Prior to college, I was involved in the Young Composers Project (YCP), a wonderful opportunity offered by the Tucson Symphony Orchestra (TSO). I wrote dozens of short pieces but have never had a chance to do much with them after graduating the program. This project is my chance to do just that! First, I will be selecting between five and eight of my existing compositions and import them into MuseScore 4. MuseScore 4 is the newest update of the music composition software Musescore, and one of its new features is an amazing orchestra sample library, which means that the individual notes you will hear in the playback were actually performed by real instruments rather than computer generated. This will ideally make my compositions sound much more like they were performed by live musicians. Once all of the compositions sound how I want them to, I will submit an application to get the album copyrighted. Then I will attempt to get them distributed on Spotify, YouTube, etc. with the service DistroKid. Follow this page for details as the project unfolds - I am excited to share my progress with you!
