Questions asked by existing artists and those wanting to create an artist profile.
Artist accounts are by invite only at this current time. If you haven't received an invite but would like to request one, please reach out to us via our support page, providing some details about who you are and links to your music.
These streaming services are not worship-centric, and therefore won't ever be able to provide the kind of categorisation that Unified Praise provides. For instance, Unified Praise allows you to search for songs that are linked to a specific Bible passage, or songs that are based on themes like "lament" or "communion".
Unified Praise doesn't intend to compete with other streaming services, and doesn't expect exclusivity. Instead, Unified Praise aims to specialise where the other services can't, by being entirely focused on worship. With a major streaming service, worship music is a drop in the ocean, and finding something matching a particular theme or Bible passage is practically impossible. Unified Praise is a solution to this problem.
We want Unified Praise's public catalogue to be a list of songs that people would generally consider complete. If your song fits that definition in your opinion, it's probably ready to be added and made public. We recognise that this is a very subjective thing, so we deliberately don't put any definition on what a "finished" song is. Just remember that the song represents you, so you should be comfortable with that.
Also consider that a song composition can be finished, but the recording may be basic or low-key. This is fine, and we encourage people to put up recordings of all kinds as long as they represent the song well.
You can also add songs and make them private. This may be useful for songs that are almost ready, but you want to test in a smaller context. For instance, you may want to try out a song at your local church to gather feedback, and you'd like to give the worship team access to chords, lyrics and lead sheets. In this situation you can upload the song to Unified Praise as private until you're ready to release it to the world.
Yes - we provide a chord and lyric editor that allows you to write out the lyrics and chords for your song. When you make the song public, any user with a Unified Praise account will be able to download the lyrics or chords in multiple formats. We support PDF, ChordPro, Onsong and OpenSong formats.
Currently, there's no way to generate revenue directly from Unified Praise. However, artist profiles can link to other websites and feature a donation button, which can indirectly generate revenue.
Currently, there's no option to allow people to download music files for a song. If you'd like to request this feature, please let us know!
Yes - you can add YouTube videos to songs, which will then show on the song profile.
No - Unified Praise is not a publisher. If you want to publish your worship songs you can contact CCLI about setting up a self-service account or take a less DIY approach by using a publisher. We can recommend churchsongs.co.uk as a publisher that supports local songwriters and isn't overly restrictive about who signs up.
No - songs don't need to be published with CCLI or any other organisation before uploading to Unified Praise. Publishing gives clarity over the authorship and intended use of a song, and publishing with CCLI will allow churches to report the use of your song, which in turn can generate revenue for you as the songwriter. Publishing your songs will therefore only be relevant for you if you intend to use them in a church worship context.
You can upload songs to Unified Praise whether they are published or not. Your song is protected by copyright, so you don't need to publish your song to ensure ownership.
As long as the recording is understandable and representative of the song, there are no requirements to have a particular level of production, arrangement or performance. You will find a big range of production quality on the site. Current popular worship songs have exceptional production quality, and we have perhaps become conditioned to expect it. But we believe it's time to break those expectations and focus more on the quality of the song composition over the quality of the recording and performance.