As I continue on my music journey, I feel the need to reflect back.
It was always my dream to release a music album. I didn’t think I could ever pull it off, but the idea had always stayed in the back of my mind. Then about 8 years ago I finally decided to do away with the doubts and make my dream a reality. I didn’t want to regret not giving it a shot and not ever knowing if something positive could come from it.
But it’s one thing to write music and a whole other thing to release it to the world. I’d say the most challenging aspect for me was (and still is) the business side of things. Starting off, I knew nothing about the music business world. I had no manager, no team. All I could do was just keep researching and learning, even though I’d much rather compose all day long.
And now I know more. I still have no manager, no team. And I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’d like to think that I’m learning from my mistakes.
Here's a timeline of my path towards releasing Coffee O’Clock (my apologies for all the stuff that I left out, and I also have no affiliation with any products or services mentioned):
2017
-I bought Sibelius, a music notation software. Growing up I used Encore, but getting Sibelius to make my sheet music look more professional seemed to validate my work.
2019
-I upgraded to Sibelius Ultimate as it was time to get serious.
-I also started researching the music business world in more depth.
2019-2022
-I did so much writing and re-writing. I got a lot of work done during the lockdown.
-In Feb 2022 I submitted “For All Those We’ve Lost” to the CFMTA contest. In May 2022 I found out my entry didn’t win, but I used the opportunity to improve it.
Apr 2022
-I applied for a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. It was a long shot given its competitive nature, but I had to try.
June 2022
-I started practising the piano more regularly again to get my hands back into shape (this involved a lot of boring Hanon exercises). But my hands will never get back to their prime.
Aug 2022
-I found out I didn’t get the grant. Now, the good thing about applying for it was that the whole process forced me to figure out my album release in great detail. The bad thing about not getting the grant meant I had to revamp my plan. For example, fun fact, my first album was originally going to include the violin and clarinet.
Apr 2023
-This month I got a business number from the CRA and I booked a recording session. Now, there’s nothing quite like telling the government, “I’m going to try to make some money, so here’s my personal information so you can tax me” and putting down a deposit to reserve a studio date that makes my plan feel very real. There’s no turning back now. Well, I still could.
June 2023
-I used Fiverr to design my logo.
July 2023
-It might surprise you to learn that the 5 tracks for my album were actually written 15-20 years ago. But they’ve gone through some major and minor edits over the past few years. And by this point in time, I felt my music was as good as it was ever going to be, so I stopped editing and switched gears to practising.
-I had a photo session, courtesy of Vish Hansa. (If I look awkward in those pictures, blame me, not him!)
Sept 2023
-On Sept 8/23, after all these years of hard work and staying up late, along with countless moments of wanting to give up, I finally recorded my album! It was done at Union Sound Company with Darren McGill as the engineer. For me, it was 3 long, stressful hours. At least the Yamaha C7 Grand made me sound much better than I really am. But when I got home and checked the video footage I had recorded, I realized that during “Courtship for Two” I accidentally had the camera facing away from me, oops.
-By Sept 28/23, Jeff Elliot of Fedge Album Mastering had finished mastering my album. Now I don’t understand mastering at all, but I knew it had to be done. But the expenses were starting to pile up.
Oct 2023
-I bought my website domain from Bandzoogle and started messing around with the design.
-I used Fiverr to start working on my music videos.
Nov 2023
-I used Fiverr for my album artwork.
Dec 2023
-I started figuring out my merchandise.
-I finished writing music for my next album and booked a recording session. (Working on 2 albums simultaneously in order to keep the momentum going seemed like a good idea at the time, but note to self, don't do that again.)
Jan 2024
-I started writing a children’s book. (Because I didn’t have enough work to do. </sarcasm>)
Feb 2024
-I had to learn how to use OpenShot so I could edit my videos. Making Canvas videos for Spotify was harder than I thought.
Mar 2024
-Right after my website went live I realized I had to set up a privacy/cookie policy (but nobody in the music business world seems to mention this issue).
-I worked on other Google/internet-related things, like search console, analytics, business profile, sitemap, PayPal Business, etc., and most of them gave me some trouble at one point or another.
-I registered for GST (and was thankful I had already obtained a business number).
-I registered for VAT OSS and UK VAT. For the former, my application didn’t go through because I completely misunderstood everything about it (and I won’t bother trying again). As for the latter, the application form was probably the longest and most confusing one I’ve ever filled out in my entire life. (Now I did get approved for UK VAT, but I realized I had made some errors in my application, plus I wasn’t making any sales in the UK, and so I ultimately decided to cancel it. Unfortunately, doing so was even harder than the application process itself. I would only succeed in cancelling UK VAT in July 2024, luckily before I was due to pay taxes.)
-I uploaded my debut single to TuneCore (which distributes music to Spotify, Apple Music, etc.) weeks ahead of the release date because processing takes time. This was an exciting moment for me because it was the next major step in getting my music out into the world.
Apr 2024
-I registered for PST (for QC, MB, BC, and SK).
-Figuring out international sales taxes was a nightmare (see VAT above as an example), so I decided to limit my sales to Canada and America (I knew there was no way I’d hit the economic nexus threshold of $100,000 that most states have).
-I set up Bandcamp. (I eventually cancelled it in Feb 2025 because of VAT issues.)
-I set up my profiles for Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube (it took me a while to get an Official Artist Channel through TuneCore).
-On Apr 19/24 my debut single, “First Sight”, was released. That was another happy milestone for me.
May 2024
-On May 3/24 I recorded my 2nd album at Union Sound again. It was less stressful for me this time around because there was less pressure. I did it once, I can do it again.
-I registered for SOCAN, Re:Sound, and CONNECT in order to collect royalties. (But at the end of Dec 2024 CONNECT was going to quit on me because I was a small-time artist, so I switched to SOPROQ.)
-On May 31/24 I released my next single, “Memory of Hope”.
June 2024
-I mailed out my CDs to some radio stations. Nothing came of it, but at least I tried.
-I sent in my information to Mediabase and AllMusic.
-I created a profile on MusicBrainz.
-I uploaded my 1st album to Songtradr for licensing purposes only, not distribution. By the way, their ID verification system was very frustrating. (I eventually cancelled Songtradr in Feb 2025 because my music wasn't getting picked up.)
July 12/24
-Well, I did it! Coffee O’Clock had finally dropped! It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but I’m very proud of my accomplishment and persistence after all this time.
I didn’t intend for this post to be a guideline of what to do or what not to do, but I still hope it was a little bit informative should you decide to release your own music album. Please feel free to leave me a comment or question.