Every term you'll run into as an indie artist, host, or listener — defined plainly, without industry jargon. Both general ecosystem terms and Tune Tavern-specific ones.
Artists & Repertoire — the label staffers who decide who gets signed and which songs make a record.
A&R is the label function responsible for scouting new artists, evaluating demos, and shaping releases. A&R reps listen to far more demos than they sign — single-digit signing rates per year per rep are common at major labels. Getting on an A&R radar is usually a warm-intro game, not a cold-pitch game.
Related: demo, warm intro, label
Tune Tavern's paid artist tier ($5/mo) with unlimited uploads, analytics, and Discovery priority.
Artist Pro is the paid artist subscription on Tune Tavern. Free artists get up to 5 song uploads; Pro lifts that to unlimited, plus full analytics, enhanced EPK customization, and priority placement on the Discovery feed. Pro is aimed at artists with active release cadence who want to stack tracks on the platform.
Related: artist, Tune Tavern, subscription
Tune Tavern's marketplace for paid services — mix critiques, custom reviews, beats, mastering, and more.
Bartender services are the platform's marketplace for paid creator services. Hosts, producers, and engineers can list services — paid in-depth song reviews, mix critiques, mastering, vocal coaching, etc. Artists buy services with platform credit or directly via Stripe. Bartender providers keep most of the revenue; the platform takes a flat marketplace fee.
Related: marketplace, host
Someone who selects music for a playlist, blog, radio show, or other outlet. The gatekeeper layer.
Curators are the human filters between artists and audiences. They run Spotify playlists, indie blogs, college radio shows, sync libraries, TikTok promotion accounts, and more. Submission platforms like SubmitHub and Groover are essentially curator marketplaces — pay-per-pitch to a vetted list. Building direct relationships with curators in your niche outperforms platform pitches over time.
Related: submission, playlist
An unreleased or work-in-progress track sent for evaluation, feedback, or downstream consideration.
A demo is the song before it's a release. It can be rough or polished, but the defining feature is that it's not publicly released yet. Demos are pitched to labels (for signing), to producers (for collaboration), to sync supervisors (for placement), and to live review hosts (for early feedback). Mixing up demo pitches with release pitches is a common artist mistake.
Related: A&R, submission
The service that puts your music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and other streaming platforms.
Distribution services (DistroKid, TuneCore, Amuse, CD Baby) deliver your music to streaming platforms in exchange for a flat fee or revenue share. They are not promotion services — distribution gets the song available, not heard. The cheapest, fastest, and most popular indie distributors charge $20-$30/year for unlimited releases. Always own your own distribution; never sign distribution rights away in a contract unless you're getting real value back.
Related: DistroKid, TuneCore, streaming
Tune Tavern's main music browsing surface — songs ranked by recency, ratings, and host endorsement.
The Discovery feed is where listeners go to find new music on Tune Tavern. It surfaces songs that recently played in live sessions, songs trending in their genre, and songs that hosts have flagged as highlights. Unlike algorithmic feeds on streaming platforms, Discovery weights human signals (host plays, audience ratings) over raw engagement metrics, which produces qualitatively different recommendations.
Related: host, rating, Tune Tavern
Electronic Press Kit — a one-page artist profile with bio, audio, photos, and links, used for pitches.
An EPK is what reviewers, bookers, and labels open when they want to know who you are. The good version is a single URL with: 2-3 line bio, one hero photo, your strongest track embedded, links to all your streaming and social profiles, a press quote or two, and clear contact info. Tune Tavern artist pages function as a modern EPK by default.
Related: press kit, artist page
Tune Tavern's paid host tier ($20/mo, or $9/mo billed annually) with advanced analytics and tournament tools.
Headliner is Tune Tavern's subscription tier for serious hosts. It includes async paid review tools, advanced analytics, email capture, tournament bracket management, and other host-side workflow upgrades. Free hosts can still run live sessions and earn 85% of skip revenue; Headliner adds the operational layer for hosts running their show as a real business.
Related: host, Tune Tavern, subscription
Music released outside the major-label system — usually self-released or on a small label.
Indie ("independent") in 2026 covers everything from bedroom-pop artists releasing on DistroKid to small-label rosters with real publicity teams. The defining feature is that the artist owns their masters and controls their release strategy. Indie is not a genre — it's a business posture. Punk-indie, country-indie, electronic-indie, hip-hop-indie all exist.
Related: self-release, major label
A music review format where a host plays submitted songs live to an audience that reacts in real time.
Live music review streams emerged on Twitch around 2020 and grew into a defined category by 2024-2026. The format: a host runs a scheduled live stream, plays songs from a submissions queue, reacts on camera, and the audience chats, rates, and votes. Distinct from async curator reviews because the moment is public and reactions are immediate. Tune Tavern is the purpose-built platform for the format; Twitch, YouTube Live, and Kick host individual streamers.
Related: host, submission, Tune Tavern
The final polishing step before a song is distributed — loudness, EQ, and consistency across the album.
Mastering is the last technical step in production. A mastering engineer takes the final mix and tunes the loudness, EQ, stereo image, and dynamics so the song competes with commercial releases and flows well alongside other tracks. Modern mastering is often AI-assisted (LANDR, eMastered) but human mastering engineers still produce the highest-quality results for serious releases.
Related: mix, mix engineer
The stage of production where individual tracks (vocals, drums, guitars) are balanced into one cohesive song.
Mixing happens after recording, before mastering. The mix engineer balances levels, sets panning, adds reverb and effects, and shapes the overall sound. A good mix is usually invisible — you don't notice it because it just sounds right. A bad mix is the first thing reviewers point at, because everything else in the song is downstream of how it sounds.
Related: mastering, production
Tune Tavern's free tier for hosts — run live sessions, accept submissions, earn 85% of skip revenue.
Open Mic is the free Tune Tavern plan for hosts. It includes live session hosting, submission queue management, paid skip revenue (host keeps 85%), and basic host analytics. Upgrade to Headliner ($20/mo or $9/mo annual) for advanced analytics, email capture, tournament tools, and async paid review features.
Related: host, Headliner, Tune Tavern
A targeted message sending your song to a specific reviewer, curator, or industry contact.
A pitch is a focused, personalized message asking someone to listen to your music for a specific reason. The good version is four lines: who you are, what the song is, why this specific recipient should care, and a private streaming link. The bad version is mass-sent, generic, three paragraphs long, and attaches a PDF. Pitch quality predicts response rate more than song quality does, at the margins.
Related: submission, demo
A 1-5 star score from a listener on a specific song, with optional written review.
Tune Tavern uses a 5-star rating scale. Listeners can rate any song they've heard — in a live session, on the Discovery feed, or on the song's public page. Ratings aggregate to an average score that appears on the song page and influences Discovery ranking. Written reviews are optional but encouraged; they accumulate as social proof and contribute to the song's public SEO surface.
Related: review, Discovery feed
Structured feedback on a song — written, spoken, or in audience reactions during a live session.
On Tune Tavern, a review can take three forms: spoken host feedback during a live session (captured in the session recording), a 1-5 star rating with optional written body left by an audience member, or a formal written review through the bartender services marketplace. All three accumulate on the song's public page.
Related: rating, live music review
A paid mechanism for artists to jump ahead of the regular submission order in a live music review session.
On Tune Tavern, hosts can enable a skip queue with multiple paid tiers. Artists who want to be guaranteed a play in a specific session can pay a skip fee — usually $2-$10 — to jump the queue. 85% of skip revenue goes to the host. The skip queue is the platform's main monetization rail for both hosts and artists who want fast turnaround.
Related: host, submission, live review
Tune Tavern's head-to-head music tournament bracket — songs face off, audiences vote, winners advance.
Song Wars is a tournament format where submitted songs are paired head-to-head and audiences vote on the winner. Brackets typically run 8, 16, or 32 songs. Winners advance through quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. Champions earn a badge, Hall of Champions placement, and significant visibility on the platform. Hosts use Song Wars as a special-event format to drive viewer engagement.
Related: tournament, bracket, champion
Music licensing for use in film, TV, advertising, or games. Often more lucrative than streaming royalties.
A sync deal is when your song gets placed in a piece of visual media — a Netflix show, a car commercial, a video game soundtrack. Sync supervisors discover music through pitch platforms (Musicbed, Marmoset), pitch services (Music Xray), and direct relationships. A single sync placement can pay $500-$50,000+ depending on the project. Sync is a major income stream for indie artists who write moody, atmospheric, or trailer-ready material.
Related: licensing, music supervisor
Being introduced to a contact through a mutual connection. Massively outperforms cold pitches.
A warm intro is when someone you both know connects you to a contact. In music, warm intros are the difference between getting an A&R rep to listen and your email being binned. Even small warm intros — "my manager mentioned you might dig this" — get 5-10x response rates over cold pitches. Building warm-intro infrastructure is more valuable long-term than perfecting cold-pitch templates.
Related: A&R, pitch, manager
Submit a song to a live review session. See ratings, reviews, EPK, skip queue, and Song Wars in actual use.
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