Things are getting hard for some podcasters. Especially for podcasters that are creating musically. They know how to make a podcast more than talk. Podcasting is supposed to be a variety of things. When it comes to music, things can be challenging.

I knew from the beginning that I couldnot play copyrighted music. So I chose to play the keyboard and make my own music. I choose the category music commentary. This podcast the Cat Bear is not really a music show like Casey Kasem's America's top 40. It is not radio. It is talk about musical artists and songs. It is not the record album. It is not the song that you hear on the radio playing, and I didn't think I would get as far as I have gotten because my podcast is not radio.

Outside from the Internet I have a few fans. They said they didn't want to hear talk. They wanted to hear music. One of my fans said: Girl, you better pull out that keyboard.

So I started making my own music for intros to start my podcast. I have tried to make my own jingles. I'll just say it's really been an experiment. First, I didn't want to spend time making music. I wanted to go ahead and just do the podcast because playing music and editing can be a lot of work. Then you have to write the things you say and all that. Those things take time, and you want to give the podcast company the best that you can give, and you want to give your audience your best.

So I have used royalty free music to speed things up sometimes. Using what’s already out there is good too. You’ll be helping others to be heard.

Talking about your favorite song and using your own music is good but each platform has its own rules and guidlines. Everybody’s worried about copyright. Then again, people are not worried about it. I read somewhere that Spotify lets you include music as part of the podcast as long as you are exclusively on Spotify. Things keep changing constantly. One day the answer may be yes, and another day the answer may be no.

If you have permission to play your favorite artist in your podcast, make sure you write in your notes ‘by permission.’ Some artist are under Creative Commons License. You might can play those artists, but I wouldn't monetize because like I said, things are always changing.

I'm Gail nobles and you listening to the Cat Bear.