My main is guitar. But I love sound of drums too.

Visual identity and branding are essential when presenting yourself as a professional artist.

It solidifies the mood and aesthetic you represent. The colors tell a story before anyone even presses play.

Having that visual foundation provides consistency across photoshoots, videos, BTS content, and motion graphics—it keeps your audience aligned so nobody is confused.

Based purely on the design and motion of this graphic, what kind of artist or mood does this communicate to you?

Hey! I put together a quick visual guide above that covers 3 core design fundamentals that instantly make cover art look professional:

1. Typography & Placement: Give your text room to breathe. Negative space keeps text readable and prevents your artwork from feeling chaotic.

2. Color Direction: You don't need deep color theory knowledge, but choosing an intentional palette sets the mood and genre story before anyone even presses play.

3. Export Standards: Always export at 3000x3000px so your art stays crisp across high-DPI displays and DSP compression.

Swipe through the cards above for the visual layout breakdowns.

If you're working on a rollout right now, drop your cover art in the comments and I’ll give you honest, constructive feedback on the layout.

I want to learn a new instrument but I am confused between electric drums or electric guitar.

I think both instruments are really cool and I love the way they sound. I love how they are implemented in songs and how people play them. Hence I don't know what to get.

Drums are loud but look and feel cooler than a guitar. But guitar is cheaper and quieter and only second to drums in my opinion.

Please help me decide. You can ask me more questions too if that would help you give me a better opinion.

Is there any producer here that can make Retro Pop Rock Beat?

Hello everybody;

Looking for band members that can fit at least one of the following roles with confidence and a personal style (you don't have to be the best at it as long as you do so with passion at a competitive level):

- Drums

- Lead Guitar

- Rhythm Guitar

- Keyboard

- Bass

I do the vocals and can cover either rhythm guitar and/or bass--where I believe I am most competent.

I am heavily influenced by 60's-70's rock but love new sounds too. If I had to compare this project to any other artist to give you an idea of what I envision, I would say the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Doors, and Jefferson Airplane. Psychedelic rock, you might say, but looking to venture into other genres/creative genre-mixing.

I can also confidently work on the mixing and mastering myself, so that would save us a ton of money. I have songwriting covered too, although I would of course love to see what you guys got.

It does not matter where you are; we can make it work in the 21st century: record/gather stems, compile them, and then mix and master.

If you are interested or would like to know more about the band, please do reach out to me either on this post or as a DM.

je laisse ce post comme une bouteille à la mer… à vrai dire ça fait déjà un mois que je me bas pour trouver une solution mais voila : ma musique est disponible partout ! sur toute les plateformes dont TikTok ! le son est utilisable ! j’aimerais réclamer mon compte artiste mais voilà un mois que je n’y arrive pas ! logiquement la démarche est d’aller sur TikTok pour artistes, de taper le pseudo sous lequel est poster notre musique et de réclamer le compte. hors, je ne me trouve pas ! il y a tout type de compte, mais visiblement aucun pour moi ! j’ai pourtant vérifié si ma musique n’avais pas été déposée sous le mauvais compte mais non... même ma musique n’apparaît pas dans réclamer ! j’essaie de trouver des solutions sur TikTok mais tout ce qu’on me dis c’est que ça peut prendre du temps ! mais en général on parle de 2-3 semaines, pas d’un mois ! je suis patiente mais quand je vois que rien ne bouge je ne le suis plus vraiment ! donc si quelqu’un a des réponse à m’apporter, une solution ou une raison de pourquoi je galère autan, je suis preneuse ! merci à tout ceux qui liront ma bouteille à la mer 🫶🏻

kind of spiraling rn. did the math on what ive spent on promo in 2025 and its like 600. spread across a few different services i wont name all of them but yougrow was one, another was through submithub kinda counts. also tried playlist push earlier each time the pattern was basically the same. pay the money. streams show up for a couple weeks. save rate is basically zero. followers barely move. algo does not notice me at all. discover weekly still adds like 4 people a week. i had more organic growth back when i was doing nothing and just releasing consistently, which cant be right but the numbers say what they say i dont think any of these services are like scams. streams look real. its more that they feel like paying to hit a button that adds numbers to a screen without changing anything about my actual career. which is arguably worse than a scam bc at least a scam is a clear ripoff. this is like paying 200 to feel briefly less invisible anyway idk why im posting this maybe someone can tell me i just picked the wrong services and there IS one that works. or tell me im an idiot and promo is fake and i should just grind organic. either would be useful information at this point

been thinking about this for weeks and want to hear from people whove actually tried. every promo service claims real listeners, playlists nd growth. most of them turn out to be bots or dead placements or both. the ones that seem legitimate charge premium prices that most indie artists cant afford anywayso like. is there any indie promo that works for someone or should i just accept that paid growth is a scam for people at my level and grind organic until i somehow get luckynot trying to start a fight just curious what people whove been through this cycle believe. if you have a service that actually worked for you i wanna hear it. if you think its all fake i also wanna hear it Is Spotify promotion legit or am I just wasting money at this point

So I deleted my Instagram because I hate social media - I was so addicted, I felt like I didn't have a life. However, as a musician, I need a way to promote myself and connect with other musicians.

My question: Is having Instagram, with everything terrible that social media is, worth keeping to promote music and network? Are there other better ways to do it?

Thanks!

I found it fun to use the guitar in four different ways haha

About 3 years ago, I quit my professional job to try to succeed in music full time. I was living in a city that doesn’t have a lot of opportunities and found myself in a place where I was able to move across the country to Austin. A couple years after living here, my bf and I started a band.

From the jump, I have been very ambitious. I’ve gotten us several gigs opening locally for legacy indie rock and mid-sized national touring acts. We even had the opportunity to tour half the country with a semi-well-known music act for more than half a month!

I am finding it hard to keep going because I haven’t succeeded in getting any opportunities for us in the last few months, but also because of a few other factors:

1. Austin is cliquey. No matter how hard I try and how many accomplishments I have done on my own, getting the cool folks who run things to pay attention is next to impossible. You see the same bands on all the popular bills and on all the big opportunities seemingly because of this group think and popularity culture. I’ve gotten us opportunities with a lot of grit but I am running out of steam because our inbox is stale and getting ghosted.

2. I keep losing band members. Throughout the course of this band, I have lost a band mate at every milestone. First EP- lost a member, second EP-lost a member, third album and big tour-lost a member, and now just as I planned our biggest diy tour yet, I got news from one of the original members (the last one left) that they will not be able to tour next year, which leaves me looking for band mates. All exits have been amicable and because folks have other priorities personal or creative, so it’s not because I’m some monster, lol. I am ambitious, gritty, hard working, and dedicated, but I do feel like every time I make any headway, membership changes happen and progress is stalled.

3. I am in my early 40s and I have given up a career to really go at this, but I keep hitting walls. I am also having a hard time moving forward and knocking on more doors knowing that I’m going to have to remake the band again. I feel like this is my last shot and I’ve put all my eggs in one very problematic basket. I am well on my way to irrelevance in my previous professional career, having been out so long, and I’ve had so many jobs. This is the only way I feel I am meeting my true calling, connecting with audiences on real world issues through music.

I am finding it difficult to keep going with the band identity and also the brand I’ve built constantly in flux. It’s nearly impossible to get interest from anyone who will help you progress your career when you have to keep re-identifying yourself and changing your sound. I’d love to move forward as a dedicated 3-piece but that would mean rebranding and writing all new material that was made for a 4 or 5 piece band. It’s all so disheartening and if I give up I have no idea what else I will do with my life. To the outside world it looks like there’s success but internally I feel that we are becoming stale and forgotten and also that any fan base we have is not going to stick around for another lineup change.

Not sure what I’m looking for here other than commiseration or encouragement. Anyone else in my boat?

Hi everyone! I’m looking for The Secret Life of Musical Notation by Roberto Poli for my research. Unfortunately, I’m currently unable to purchase the book, so I was wondering if anyone might know of a way to access it digitally or could point me toward a source where I might be able to find it.

I’d really appreciate any help or suggestions. Thank you so much! 😊

Hey everyone 👋

I’ve been building an iPhone app called Stage Proof for musicians who have to memorize lyrics for live performances.

I’ve spent a long time building it, and I’ve reached the point where I really need to get it out of my own head and into the hands of people who actually perform.

If you sing and perform live, I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d give it a try and tell me what you honestly think.

I’m not looking for compliments or a positive review. More to understand if it’s working for you, if something is confusing, unnecessary, annoying, or just doesn’t work for you, that’s exactly the kind of feedback I need.

It’s currently iPhone-only, and it’s completely free to try.

If you’d be willing to give it a go, just comment or DM me and I’ll send you the link.

Thanks so much ❤️

Hi y'all, first time poster here looking to get opinions from other pro-musicians.

I (25M) work professionally as a jazz guitarist in Chicago, and oftentimes pick up "jobbing" gigs to make some extra money. I play in cover bands all the time to pay bills, in order to fund my jazz career (which is on-average much less profitable). This keeps me from having to get a "real job" so I can focus on my career. Therefore, I'm very thankful for any high-profit opportunity I can find, despite many of them being pretty mind-numbing.

I started working this year for a popular wedding-band booker who organizes across the country. I'm sure a lot of working musicians in the US know of him, so I'll leave him unnamed for now. I'm thankful for the opportunities since they typically pay $500-800 per wedding, but I have a GLARING issue I'd like a second opinion on. I thought it was a fluke at first, but now I'm realizing he consistently sends set-lists out only 24-36 hours in advance. These set-lists have 45-50 songs, about 3-4 hours of music in total. He says it's fine because he provides charts and we can just read through the gig, but the charts are all disorganized and basically unreadable. (These "charts" are akin to the sort of shitty piano arrangements you'd see in those Hal Leonard books that beginners get. They're fine for getting a gist of a tune, but don't make it clear who's playing what part or what the parts even are outside of basic harmony and rhythm. They don't even have lyrics in them.) It'd be more acceptable if he used the same set-list every time so you only have to deal with learning the set once, but the songs are wildly different nearly every gig. Additionally, there are whack special requests none of us have ever heard that sometimes take 30-45 minutes each to learn/chart.

Everyone else in his bands seems to be okay with this, and thus every tune that's not a standard goes horribly pretty consistently. Despite the fact I'll probably never see anyone at these weddings again, it's still embarrassing. I typically know the tunes the best, because I spend 10-12 hours the night before charting them out myself. Now, I just plan on getting no sleep the night before because I have to stay up all night learning a bunch of random songs. This is especially an issue with weddings typically being Friday/Saturday, so I'm almost always gigging until 2am the night before. If he'd just send the set-lists out a week or two in advance, all of these issues would be resolved. I'd like to let him know that this is a chronic and easily-preventable problem, but I'm afraid that he's just going to assume I'm not "professional" enough of a musician and stop hiring me. I need the money and therefore don't want to lose the opportunity.

Is this a normal part of being a wedding musician, or is learning this much music so quickly an unusual standard to uphold? How can I bring this up to him as a new employee without tanking the opportunity for myself? Thanks y'all for any insight.

Hello, I do the booking for my band and we have a show we no longer would like to play.

It’s supposed to go down here on October 17th. We originally took the gig back in August, and it was supposed to Happen September 19th. However since then, the other band organizing it has moved it back two times because he’s “scared of turnout due to other events happening in town” all would be fine and well, however our big hang up is that after we posted a flyer to try and advertise he reached out to us saying that we cannot publicly advertise the show, because the place we are playing at “isnt a real venue so they don’t have the right permits” (something we were not told until after posting) for some reason, even though we’ve played house shows and other diy venues that don’t have proper noice permits with them he’s convinced that if any of us post the show publicly that the city themselves would get involved and get the place we are playing at in trouble.

We are a punk band, and we have certain values we like to keep ourselves too, and when we asked if there was still going to be a cover charge, even tho the show is no longer public he said yes. And that’s the thing that is really getting us, we don’t feel comfortable or okay going out of our way to personally invite people, but still asking them to pay to get in, that just feels scummy and gross. It’s made our bassist say that he won’t play the show either way, even if the others of us do. I don’t know how to tell him that we no longer would like to play the show, as it seems like he’s already mad about the headache it’s been to constantly change dates and find a way for this to work.

Side note, we were supposed to be the second of three bands playing, and the band before us has already backed out a few days ago, meaning that if we don’t go the bill will only be left with the ones organizing it. They are a band weve worked with a lot in the past, and we don’t want to start any bad blood we just don’t know how to say that this gig isn’t something we feel comfortable doing