A Rough Guide To Our Community

[Songstuff]

Read our Getting Started Guide

 

A Rough Guide To Our Community
 

Hubs

The Hubs pull together a view right across our community and beyond. This includes  recent forum posts, blog posts, gallery posts, news feeds from various music industry websites, music tools and more.

 

We have a hub for visitors, but also a specialist hub for members and subscribers. You can find a full list of hubs in the top menu.

 

Community Features

Featured

Featured includes features about members as writers or artists, interviews, Staff Picks from member posted content, plus content from our social media portals.

 

Forums

Our forums contain many boards. We have arranged them into categories intended to reflect the needs of different users. There is a rough guide to our forums further down this page.

 

Clubs

Members can create clubs for their music projects, based on interests etc plus we have several site clubs, for example: for Music Marketing and Promotion, Yard Getty (for Hip Hop) and Songstuff Compilation.

 

Blogs

Blogs remain a great way to engage an audience and build a following. In addition to site blogs, members can create blogs here, for example: to showcase their music, discuss music, their view of the music industry to discuss their approach to songwriting or as an online journal as a musician.

 

Gallery

The Gallery is arranged into Albums. Show us your studio, your latest gig photos with you on stage, or upload images the Songstuff staff can use to promote you and your music on social media.

 

Calendar

The Calendar is loaded with events from BMI. You can also add your gigs, release dates, launch parties, showcases, online performances etc.

 

Downloads

Coming soon, we will have a Downloads area with templates. diagrams, PDF documents and more.

 

Forums Overview

Our boards are organised into sections:

 

Getting Started

Contains links to many section of the site, including boards, articles, hubs and more.

 

Interest

These boards are about topics and goals. It is subdivided into Writing Songs, Recording and Producing Songs, Releasing Songs, Image and Video, Showcase and Finished Works.

 

Main Forums

The Main Forums are largely a different view of the Interest boards, though there are a few extra boards that don't easily fit within the Interest view. The Main Forums category has the boards  arranged by type. For example Discussion boards or Critique boards etc. In the case where a board "lives" with the Interest area, a simle link to that forum is available within the Main Forums area.

 

Site Information

It won't come as too much of a surprise that the Site Information category contains news and information about Songstuff!

 

General Discussion

We have boards dedicated to discussion. The general chat forum is the Musician's Lounge. For discussion about Songwriting we have a Song writing discussion board. A full list of discussion boards is available within the Discussion section of the Main Forums.

 

Common Places To Post Music

Members have different reasons for posting music. Songs may be at different stages from initial idea through to final release. They might be keen to get detailed feedback or just wanting some plays. They might be showing off work to members in order to attract collaborators. They might be posting to showcase their work in the hope that staff feature their work on social media and on Songstuff playlists. So we tried to reflect that within our boards.

 

The Collected Works board is intended as a kind of personal showcase to other members. Members don't tend to offer comment there beyond the "I like it" perspective. Start a thread there and just add your songs to the same thread, collecting them all together.

 

For more detailed critique, post into one of the Work In Progress critique boards. You will find several, catering for the different stages of a song.

 

• Writing WIP Early stages, lyrics only, draft songs, 1+1
• Recording and Production WIP Looking at the recording, production, arrangement and performance of a song
• Releasing Songs WIP (NEW) Focused on the actual marketing and release of a song instead of the song itself
• Here's a full list of links to Song Critique Boards. There are boards only members will see and public boards too.

 

The Musician's Lounge is where to post if you just want to get some ears on your song. It's a general chat board.

 

If you have a formal release of a track / EP / Album, where you would like to showcase it, and perhaps have it selected by Songstuff staff for promotion (in our social media, on Songstuff and Songstuff.co.uk, and our newsletter), then post to the Showcase board. It is strictly for complete, released tracks. Please include links to music, images, bio, press kit, press release etc.

 

Participation in the boards is a big thing. Generally speaking, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Any questions? The staff are friendly and happy to help.