How To Set Better Goals As a Musician In 2024

How To Set Better Goals As a Musician In 2024

2023 is finally a thing of the past! It’s been a long year, but it’s time to start looking towards the future. As a musician, it’s important to set goals for your career and create a plan to make them happen. From learning new skills and getting more followers to earning more money and booking more gigs, setting clear goals is the key to seeing your dreams come to life. Here’s how to set better goals for the new year…

How To Set Better Goals As A Musician in 2024

Let’s talk S.M.A.R.T.

When it comes to goal setting, many pros around the world use the S.M.A.R.T method. Created back in 1981, S.M.A.R.T is an acronym that helps you create specific criteria for your goals to help improve the chances of their success.

What does it stand for?

S – Specific

M – Measurable 

A – Achievable

R – Realistic

T – Timed 

How to use the S.M.A.R.T Method:

When it comes to your music career, your goals need to be realistic and specific. You should be able to quantifiably measure their success. For them to be achievable for you as an artist, you also need to be able give it a set time period for it to be accomplished by.

🧠 Pro Tip: Always write down your goals. Once they’re written down, you can look back at them whenever you start to feel lost and get right back on track.

Here’s an example:

Let’s apply the S.M.A.R.T method to, “I want more people to listen to my music”.

What’s wrong with that? — This goal needs to be more specific. First, think about where you want more people to listen to your music. Which platform do you want these listeners on? Next, make it measurable. Come up with a variable that is quantifiable. Now, it’s time to make sure it’s achievable and realistic for where you are in your career. How many new listeners are you actually capable of reaching with your resources?

Those big time goals are good to keep in the back of your mind, but starting off with unrealistic goals will make you frustrated and disappointed when you’re just starting out. You’ll eventually reach those crazy goals, but you need to start small and work your way up. That being said, this leads us to the last step. Timed.

Your goals need to have a time limit. It’s easier to stay on track when you have a set time frame to get things done. (With checkpoints along the way!)

When you apply the S.M.A.R.T method to, “I want more people to listen to my music”, it turns into something like: “I want 1000 more monthly listeners on Spotify by May 31th.” instead. You can keep it focused on your profile’s full monthly listeners or you could break it down even further by focusing on a single release.

Now, that’s doable!

Let’s try one more.

Let’s try a more complex example for applying the S.M.A.R.T method. How about, “I want to go on tour.”

Great goal!

Let’s make it specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed. Specifically where and when do you want to go on tour? Is it the right time in your career to start touring? Do you have enough fans in various cities who would buy tickets to your shows? When do you want to achieve this by? What variables do you have to meet in order to meet this goal? For example, reaching X total amount of monthly listeners by this date or cultivating X amount of fans in X cities by this date.

How does this change our original statement? Something like, “I want to go on tour” changes to something like “I will meet XYZ requirements for touring by December 1st in order to start touring by January 1st .”

Make sense? Keep in mind, you can make these goals as specific as you need to. The more specific, the better.

In Conclusion…

2023 was rough for a lot of us. However, one thing it did give us was a chance to assess ourselves. What do we want for our music careers? What’s been working? What efforts have been more time consuming than fruitful? Now that you’ve had all this time to brainstorm about the future, it’s time to make sure your goals for the new year reflect that. 2024 is a great opportunity to jump back in and hit the ground running!

Just be S.M.A.R.T. 😉

Social Media Image Sizes for 2024

Social Media Image Sizes for 2024

If you’re an active social media user, then you don’t need to be told how important accurate image sizing is on socials. Social platforms change their preferred image sizing and formatting every year, so make sure to update yours accordingly! To help you out, here are the updated requirements for 2024…

Social Media Image Sizes for 2024

TikTok

  • TikTok Profile Photo Size: 20 x 20 pixels (minimum)
  • TikTok Video Size: 1080 x 1920

✨ PRO TIP: The ideal aspect ratio for TikTok videos is 1:1 or 9:16.

Facebook

  • Profile Photo: 170 x 170 pixels
  • Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels
  • Cover Photo: 851 x 315 pixels
  • Posts & Timeline Photos: 1200 x 630 (minimum 600 x 315)
  • Facebook Event Cover Photo: 1200 x 628 pixels (recommended)

✨ PRO TIP: To avoid any compression or distortion, upload a JPG or PNG file.

X (Twitter)

  • Header Photo: 1,500 x 500 pixels
  • Profile Photo: 400 x 400 pixels
  • Twitter In-Stream Photos: 1600 x 900 pixels

✨ Find more information on in-stream photos, visit the Twitter Help Center.

Instagram

  • Profile Photo: 320 x 320 pixels
  • Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161 pixels
  • Instagram Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels
  • Photo Size: 1080 x 1080 pixels (square); 1080 x 1350 pixels (portrait)

✨PRO TIP: When you share an Instagram image that is sized over 1080 pixels, Instagram will size it down to 1080 pixels for you.

Instagram Reels

  • 1080 x 1920 pixels (This is an aspect ratio of 9:16.)
  • Cover photo: 1080 x 1920 pixels
  • Keep in mind that Reels are cropped to a 1:1 image in your profile feed and a 4:5 image in the home feed.

LinkedIn

  • Recommended Profile Photo: 400 x 400 pixels
  • Profile Cover Photo: 1584 x 396 pixels
  • Blog Post Link Images: 1200 x 627 pixels
  • Company Logo: 300 x 300 pixels
  • Company logo size for ads: 100 x 100 pixels

YouTube

  • Profile Photo: 800 x 800 pixels
  • Banners: 2048 x 1152 pixels
  • Thumbnail: 1280 x 720
  • Video: 1280 x 720

✨ PRO TIPS: 

  • Make sure the focus of your photo is centered for best results.
  • Files should be JPEG, GIF, BMP or PNG. Animated GIFs won’t work.
  • Photos will render at 98 x 98 pixels.

YouTube Shorts

  • Aspect Ratio: 9:16
  • Max Length: 60 seconds
  • Supported Video File Types: .MOV, .MPEG4, MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM.
How To Self Publish Your Music

How To Self Publish Your Music

Self publishing your music comes with a lot of benefits. You don’t have to share your copyrights with anyone, you aren’t bound to any publishing deals and you get ultimate control over where your work is used and how. Keep in mind, self publishing isn’t for everyone. You need to be able to commit significant time and effort to doing everything a publisher would usually do and more. But if this is something that you’re ready to take on, here’s how to do it right.

How To Self Publish Your Music

Let’s Talk Basics…

Self publishing your songs means you take on the role of both the artist and the publisher. Being a self-published writer ultimately means that you hold all the rights to your Intellectual Property (IP), which means you would be in full control of how your compositions are used and would receive all royalties associated with your share of your compositions.

This is awesome, but these perks come with a little extra work. If you’re still interested, here’s what you’ll need to do to self publish your songs…

Step 1: Make Sure Your Music Hasn’t Been Published Yet

If you’ve worked with a distributor before, you may have opted in for publishing services without even realizing it. For example, our publishing administration services are very popular with our own clients. Before you do anything, definitely make sure this doesn’t apply to you.

Step 2: Register with a PRO

In order for you to receive the royalties you’re rightfully owed, your songs need to be properly registered with a Performing Rights Organization like ASCAP, SESAC or BMI. PRO’s rely on the information you provide to determine who they need to pay and how much.

Start setting up your company by going to either www.ascap.com or www.bmi.com to obtain/fill out an application.

  • If you are a songwriter and have not yet affiliated, make sure to only do so with only one of these, not all of them.
  • To ensure you do everything right, check out this post to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Step 3: Sign Up with the MLC

The Mechanical Licensing Collective maintains the world’s most thorough database of music composition copyrights and their owners. They collect mechanical royalties from digital music streaming services and transmit those royalties to copyright holders based on the ownership claims.

Signing up with them ensures that you get all the royalties that are rightfully owed to you. You’ll need to “Connect to Collect” and become a Member of the MLC in order to collect the digital audio mechanical royalties owed to you.

Step 4: Time to Promote

Once you’ve completed those steps, you can finally start getting your publisher’s share on top of the writer’s share. Now is the time where the duties of a publisher fall onto you.

Typically, your publisher would be the one networking, seeking out sync deals for TV and film, registering copyrights, negotiating licenses, and more. When you self publish, it’s all on you.

In Conclusion…

Self-publishing typically just entails registering with a PRO to be able to manage and publish your own compositions, but it doesn’t have to end there. If you want to go even further, become a publisher and start your own publishing company! Doing so lets you do everything yourself and also gives you the ability to relay your services onto other artists who need it.

You got this.

How Releasing Music Consistently Can Improve Your Career

How Releasing Music Consistently Can Improve Your Career

As intimidating as it seems, consistently releasing new music (every month or even every week, if you believe that works for you) has many undeniable benefits. Aside from making your fans happy to hear more from you, this practice does a lot of good for artists at any level. In this post, we’ll give you 6 reasons to release new music consistently. Here’s the rundown…

How Releasing Music Consistently Can Improve Your Career

Increased Engagement

Consistency is good for engagement on any platform, no matter what you’re into. Want to get better at production? Practice every day. Want to improve your vocals? Sing every day. The same theory applies to putting out music. The more you do it, the most traction it’s going to get. And let’s face it… your fans want as much from you as they can get. When you release new music, on any platform, the amount of people who will interact with it will grow right along with you. Not to mention, from the fan point of view, there’s something exciting about being able to expect something new from your favorite artist every week.

Go Viral on TikTok

TikTok also thrives on consistency. The more you post, the better your chances of it being caught up in the wave of a random trend. Every time you release music, use it to make little TikTok babies. Whether you use it to follow existing trends or to try and create new ones, the more you post the better.

Not sure how to figure out what’s trending right now? No problem. We did a whole post right here that gives you 6 of the best ways to find the hottest trends right now. And if you’re new to TikTok, here are some helpful resources to help you thrive…

Grow Your Catalog

Releasing music more frequently helps you grow your catalog significantly faster than if you waited every 6 months. This can be advantageous for streaming platforms, as the more songs you have increases your chances of being discovered through playlists and algorithms.

If you already have an extensive back catalog, did you know there are things you can do with it to keep the momentum going behind the scenes while you work on new things? Check out, “How To Maximize your Back Catalog While Working on New Releases” to learn how.

Build Momentum

Releasing songs consistently is a great way to build momentum for something bigger down the line. If you plan on going on tour or releasing a full album later in the year, you can hype up the day to come on socials with every release more often. Get everyone on board and offer incentives for streaming your tracks. If they like what they hear, they’ll share your work with their friends and grow your audience one release at a time. When whatever big day finally arrives, you’ll have a whole team of people ready to experience the fun and share it on socials.

Better Chances for Sync

If you want to get featured in movies, TV, commercials and more, it doesn’t hurt to give sync reps a lot to choose from. Although having a lot to choose from does technically help your chances, what kind of music you have out also plays a part.

Jon Mizrachi, the Senior Director of Sync Licensing for our in-house sync licensing division, Bodega Sync, explains:

“If you really want your music to stand out, it’s important to understand that songs are used in sync to support a narrative, not to tell one. If there’s a sad montage where someone dies, you’re not going to hear a song with lyrics about someone literally dying… Even in advertising, which is typically far more literal, music will be used to add depth to whatever you see in the footage or hear in the voiceover. You know what’s not a great song for Toyota? A song about Toyotas.” 

So, if you really want to focus on optimizing your music for sync, try to create universal songs that aren’t too specific. If the goal is to connect with the listener, you have to craft your songs to be as relatable as possible. In addition, once one of your songs gets featured, the chances of your other songs getting chosen for other sync opportunities goes up, too. The more music you have, the higher chance of something being perfect for that new TV show hitting the market.

Practice Makes Perfect

Putting out music more often gives you the chance to really experiment with your personal sound. You can try new things and see how your audience reacts and if it doesn’t quite hit, no big deal! Try something new the next time, and keep it moving.

At the end of the day, I realize putting out music consistently is no easy task.  Depending on your music, it may even be impossible. If you specialize in full blown musical arrangements for every track or don’t have frequent access to a studio, finishing a full song on a monthly or even weekly schedule is insane to even fathom. At the end of the day, it is up to you and this is an idea to try out where it makes sense. Challenge yourself to at least try, and see how it works for you.

Good luck!

15 Unique Gifts for Musicians

15 Unique Gifts for Musicians

What do you get a musician who has everything? A Spotify Premium subscription won’t cut it, they already have that… Headphones? They definitely have that… Not to worry, we’ve come up with some options that are sure to impress this holiday season. Here’s the rundown…

15 Unique Gifts for Musicians

Orba Handheld Multi-Instrument

The best gift for musicians - a sleek black device featuring the letter a.

The Orba Handheld Multi-Instrument is a handheld synth, looper, and MIDI controller that lets you loop Drum, Bass, Chord, and Lead parts to create songs on the go, no matter where you are. Whether you want to use the built-in speaker or hook it up to your favorite headphones, anyone can create on the go with this badass, mini music maker. // Available on Amazon right here. 🎁

Pocket DJ Mixer

best gifts for musicians

Got a DJ in your life who wishes they could bring the party wherever they go? No problem. With this Pocket DJ Mixer, they can turn their phone into a powerful, portable, party-making machine anytime, anywhere. //  Available on uncommongoods.com 🎁

Vertical Vinyl Record Player (with Bluetooth)

For those who collect records with cool artwork, I know you wish you could showcase those amazing designs a little more often. With this vertical record player, your favorite records are on full display. Not to mention this is way cooler than your traditional record player. And how does it sound? “Amazing, because a precision Audio Technica needle delivers the warm bass and rich ranges that made you love vinyl in the first place.” states the product description. When you want to stream music instead of spin it, you can also utilize its modern Bluetooth feature with ease. // Buy it right here. 🎁

Lightbulbs That Change With Music

Sure, they probably already have their home decorated to the nines with cool music decor… but do they have lightbulbs that change color with the beat of the music? This one is pretty common, but if they don’t already have these you’ll blow their minds with these lights. // Available on Amazon here. 🎁

Otamatone

A blue musical instrument, the best gift for musicians, with a long handle.

An Otamatone is a synthesizer that’s shaped like an eighth note (it also somewhat resembles a tadpole, or a ladle (otamajakushi being Japanese for tadpole and ladle), with sound emerging from the “mouth”. All you have to do is squeeze the head and control the pitch by the stem piece. (Higher up on the stem equals lower sound, and vice versa.) It may not help the musician in your life create any amazing  songs to top charts with, but it sure is fun to play with. // Buy it on Amazon right here. 🎁

Customized Spinning Record Shot Tray

This is an up cycled shot glass holder that spins… Need I say more? You can even personalize the label with your own record title, subtitle, and five songs of your choice. For any musicians in your life turning 21 (or just your fun rocker uncle who likes to drink), this is a fun gift that never gets old. // Available on uncommongoods.com 🎁

Turntable Cheese Board

best gifts for musicians

Pay homage to vinyl with this turntable-inspired cheese board featuring a slate platter and hidden slicer. This gift bound to make every jaw drop at the holiday party. If you don’t buy it, I definitely will… // Available on uncommon goods.com 🎁

Masterclass Subscription

Masterclass is an amazing subscription for any creative in your life. From artists to musicians and everyone in-between, Masterclass offers classes from the best teachers in the world. A-list celebrities, some of the greatest musicians of all time, and artists from all over the world come together to teach personalized classes on a wide variety of topics.

On it, you can learn about producing and beat making from Timbaland. Deadmau5 teaches electronic music production. Ringo Starr teaches drumming and creative collaboration. You can even dive into the soul of guitar with Carlos Santana. And that’s just a few of the people they have to offer… // Check it out on Masterclass.com(Thank me later.) 🎁

Eargasm High Fidelity Earplugs

A box filled with the finest earplugs, perfect as a gift for musicians.

If you’re stubborn like me, you’ve been in denial about the damage loud music has been doing to your ears for years. Now, there’s really no excuse with earplugs like these. They filter out the damaging sound waves and leave you still able to hear, not only the music, but even conversations with your neighbor, just fine. // Get them on Amazon here. 🎁

Shower Speaker

best gifts for musicians

Most of us already have a bluetooth speaker that we love and cherish. Musicians baby our speakers like a newborn, so we’re probably not taking it into the shower with us. (No matter how bad we want to…) No problem! This speaker is made for those shower singalongs. Not only is it waterproof, but it has a suction cup on the back for easy suction to the wall of your shower. // Available on Amazon right here. 🎁

Guitar Pick Hole Punch

gifts for musicians

Give a guitar player a pick, and they’ll play for a day. Give them a guitar pick hole punch, and well… you get it. Give the gift of infinite guitar picks made from whatever their heart desires with this Guitar Pick Hole Punch. // Available on Amazon here. 🎁

“This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession”

best gifts for musicians

This one’s a no brainer… Give the gift of knowledge with this masterful work of art written by Daniel J. Levitin. “This Is Your Brain On Music” is a groundbreaking union of art and science. Rocker-turned-neuroscientist, Daniel J. Levitin, explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. // Available on Amazon.com… 🎁

Vinyl Record Coasters

best gifts for musicians

Protect your table from rings and your drinks from slipping with these trendy vinyl coasters. These are the perfect gift for any music lover in need not some simple yet practical home decor. // Available on Amazon.com…. 🎁

DIY Synth Kit

best gifts for musicians

Perfect for the DIY DJ in your life, this kit lets you construct three different mini-synths, adding awesome dimension to electronic music! // Available on uncommongoods.com 🎁

Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator (PO-33 K.O!)

Kool kool kool kool kool kool...the best gifts for musicians!

This baby is #1 on my wish list this year. It’s a powerful micro sampler, synthesizer & sequencer, all packed into a small and ultra-portable design. With studio quality sound, play chromatic melodies and drum sounds, sequence it all and add effects on top to create something truly original. // Buy it on their website here. 🎁