Starting the Channel
YouTube is a platform where users can share their videos with millions of others, making it the perfect place for composers to upload videos of their music, enabling people to listen, share and interact with their content.
When starting a YouTube channel, you will need to provide an email address and password. Once you select the option to create an account for YouTube via Google you will be asked if the account will be a business or personal account.
A business account allows more people to sign in at one time meaning the page can be managed by various people. You will need to then name your channel and provide an image for your profile which will be viewed by others.
It is important to remember when naming your channel, your channel name is your brand. It needs to be catchy and easy to remember, you should also do a quick name search on YouTube to make sure that channel name is not taken, or any other similar named accounts are taken. Your viewers should immediately know what your channel is about based on the channel name. YouTube will offer the option for you to select your own name, from the email address or manually type one in. Once these selections are made, your profile is live allowing you to comment, share, watch and interact with other videos and users.
You are now also set to upload any videos of your choice to your channel.
It is important to consider the following tips once your channel is live:
- 1. Know your channel’s purpose.
- 2. Create a banner that relates to the channel and shows an insight to what the channel is about.
- 3. Get to know YouTube analytics.
- 4. Don’t worry too much about your camera as the audio is the main purpose.
- 5. Share with people to engage with your videos and gain views and collaborations.
If you have an old instrument lying around, why not record some mini-compositions with it and share the performances on your YouTube channel?
Now that the channel is active, you are able to upload your content. As a composer, you will be uploading videos of your music, so it is important to check the sound is correct and clear before you upload. You also want the videos to have eye catching thumbnails and titles so that they stand out to wide audiences and grab the attention of the target audience.
The channels thumbnails act as billboards for the videos and are the first thing that people notice so you want to stand out and they are the way viewers decide what to watch when they’re skimming through search results. Your thumbnails should communicate a message to your viewers about what the video is about, including both pictures and text. You can also spend extra time to spend editing your thumbnails by using editing applications such as – Canva, PicMonkey, PicsArt or Adobe Photoshop.
It is important to consider the following tips when creating a thumbnail for your video:
- Use clear, appealing pictures that go with the title of the video.
- Use as little text as possible to convey more as busy thumbnails confuse your audience
- Do not use clickbait! This will mislead your audience and they may feel mislead when viewing the video and you are in danger of losing viewers if you use clickbait.
- Do not use too many colours, this can be very distracting and distract the viewer from the main purpose of the video, so try and still to an aesthetically pleasing colour scheme.
Video production can be daunting to composers when they first start out, but there are actually a lot of transferrable skills that carry over from audio editing.
Producing your Content
Now you have set up your channel, the next step is to film/record your music, edit the final work and upload onto YouTube. Surprisingly, you do not need fancy cameras or equipment to create good high quality videos that show off your work well.
The lighting and sound are the most significant aspects to consider. Two tips for lighting and sound are:
- 1. Regardless of if you use your phone or a camera to film, consider using a microphone. Most people listen to the videos instead of watching them.
- 2. Phone images look better than camera clips when the light is bright and natural lights are better than using studio lights.
When editing your videos, you can use many applications that are free such as iMovie (found on iPhone’s), Final Cut Pro (FCP) and Windows Movie Maker. As you become more familiar with the applications when editing, you will then be able to decide if you want to upgrade and purchase a more advanced video editing software.
YouTube Video Ideas for Composers
- Performance Piece
- Preparing For a Performance/Music Video/Photo Shoot/Recording Session
- Album Review
- Individual Song Review
- Discuss Music News
- Review Music Videos
- Interviews with other Composers
- Review a Rehearsal
- Music Tutorials
- Cover a Musical Event
We hope you enjoyed this article!
Contact - jack@northernfilmorchestra.com
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