I always find creating new playlists on Spotify a good way of sorting out your music library. Especially if you are a massive music fan like me, who enjoys many music genres. Putting my earphones in and listening to my Rise and Shine playlist on Spotify is the FIRST thing I do every morning and tend to listen to my Chilled or Sleep playlists before bed, as well as many other playlists throughout the day. Therefore, with music making up such a big part of my everyday life, making a playlist for certain emotions, times of the day or events needs to be an efficient and easy process for me to do.
That’s why for this blog post I am going to go through a step by step guide of how I go about creating a new playlist on Spotify and also include some helpful apps, websites and resources on searching or discovering new music that can help you in the creation process.
Spotify Link- https://www.spotify.com/uk/
STEP 1: WHAT’S THE PLAYLIST?
So firstly, what’s the playlist? Decide on your theme for the playlist- what is it for? What is the mood and feel of the playlist? What genres of music would be best for this? Maybe have a few of these ideas in mind when clicking that new playlist button on Spotify.
Is it a happy playlist? Is it for a specific event? Does it involve certain artists?
These types of questions could help you deciding where to go next whilst looking for music and artists to include.
My next blog post following this one will look at the themes of playlists and some essential playlists that I have created that you might also want to, so if you are struggling for ideas then stick around for that to help you on Step 1.
STEP 2: TITLE OF PLAYLISTS.
Once you’ve got an idea for your playlist, then the next thing to do is to create a title for it. Something punchy, short and memorable is definitely ideal. This is because if like me you have just over 100 playlists that you’ve created on Spotify, its best to keep it short in order to scroll down the alphabetic bar to find the playlist easily.
Also, if you are familiar with emojis on your phone or tablet devices, wherever you are making the playlist on, I do recommend using them. Like I said if you have quite a few playlists on Spotify, it can make it a lot easier to find the playlists you’re looking for by adding an emoji at the end of the title that represents it.
E.g. Christmas playlist – *Santa emoji*, Rainy day playlist- *umbrella emoji*, Car playlist- *car emoji* and so on…
STEP 3: FIND MUSIC TO ADD.
Got the theme? Got the title? Great! So, the next thing is to find music to actually add to your playlist.
You might already know exactly what kind of music you want in your playlist; it might involve a certain artist or a certain genre of music. However, if you are struggling for music to include, then there are some certain resources and ways to discover new music to add to your playlists that I have found quite helpful.
Artists scroll through- Firstly, I find scrolling through the artists you are following useful, to see if any of your favourite artists stand out to you and some of their songs you might want to add to your playlist.
Spotify inspiration- Spotify already have a lot of pre-made playlists on there, so if you
are making a playlist for say a party, then search party playlist into Spotify and that might give you some inspiration for the type of
music or artists you might want to add to your own playlist.
Shazam- The app ‘Shazam’ is a good way of discovering new songs that you hear and you don’t know the title of the song or the artist. Do you ever find yourself in a shop and wishing you knew what song was playing? Are you ever watching a TV show or film and wish you knew what song that is? Then this app is definitely a necessity. It uses hearing technology to identify the song and artist, whilst also saving all of the songs that you have ‘Shazamed’ and makes you playlists off of the artists you like. I have found it really useful and time efficient in discovering new music especially from all of the TV shows I watch.
Shazam link- https://www.shazam.com/gb/apps
TuneFind.com- speaking of music in TV and movies, I have found the website TuneFind.Com useful as it tells you every song used in a TV show and film, including what scene it was used in and which episode and season of the show. This can be helpful if you don’t always have your phone on hand to use the Shazam app, just remember the scene the song was used in and go to this website to discover the song. This site can also be essential if you are making a playlist based on a TV show, film, character or ship pairing. For example, whilst watching a show on Netflix such as The Vampire Diaries which has 8 seasons (took me 6 months!), TuneFind was really useful to collate together my favourite songs from the show.
TuneFind.com Link- https://www.tunefind.com/
YouTube- YouTube can also be helpful discovering songs if none of the other resources work or won’t help, then you could type lyrics into YouTube and the song will come up, or type the lyrics into Google, there are always ways of discovering music you want and need. Also, with so many edits and fan-cams on YouTube of TV shows and characters, this can also help you discover songs that remind you of fiction.
Recommended- Once you have added a few songs to your playlist, Spotify have added a new feature where at the bottom of your own created playlist they will show you recommended songs to add to it, based off the artist, genre and theme of your music already added in the playlist. This is good just to add a few extra songs to your playlist that would work well with the music you’ve already included.
STEP 4: FINISH AND SAVE PLAYLIST.
You’re done! Now the only last thing to do is to save your playlist and make it public for others to see, or keep it private for yourself.
Go forth and make your music! 😊
Now I’ve gone through the process of how I create my music playlists, my next blog post will be descriptions on my own personal favourite playlists that I have created and any essential playlists you should have in your own library. As well as recommendations for other playlists you could create. So, check out my next blog post if that might be something that interests you!
Gem x
Gem's Blog 