Registering Music with ASCAP

Great! You’re now an ASCAP member! If you’re not and you’d like to be, check out my run-through on how to get signed up here. After you join, the next thing you’ll need to do is register your beautiful music with them so they can keep track of anytime you get a piece performed. Once your works are registered, ASCAP will be able to credit royalties to you anytime your music receives a performance.
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Work Title and Royalty Spread

After logging into ASCAP, you’ll want to click on the “Works” tab on the left side of the page. This will open a list (or soon to be list) of your works that are registered with ASCAP. Each of these piece registrations will include information about the work, and an assigned Work ID which ASCAP will use to help track down performances. 
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Click on “Register a Work” and add in the title of the piece. If your piece happens to have an alternative title, you can add however many exist by clicking the little plus next to “alternative title”. You may end up with other titles if you decide to change the name of a piece after it’s already been included in a program, if there’s a subtitle, or even if a program ends up having a typo. The important part is that ASCAP will be able to connect a given performance to your piece even if it has gone by other names.

The next section will cover the royalty split between the writer of the work (you), and the publisher (also probably you). This is why it’s so important to set up your own publishing name in the initial registration of the work. Again, if you’d like a run through of how to do that, check out my past blog on it here. If you only register as a writer, you’ll only be able to receive 50% of your royalties, so make sure not to miss this step! Go ahead and search up your writer name and then your publisher name. For writer, I set my role as “Composer/Author” unless I’m using someone else’s text in the work. For publisher, I set my territory as “WORLD”.
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Type of Work and Instrumentation

I often skip the recording and performer information as I usually register the work before I get a performance/premiere. If your work is part of a film/TV/commercial score, you’ll be prompted to insert that information. If it’s a concert work, you can skip to that section and specify if it has movements or not. If the work is complete in a single movement (no movements) you’ll be prompted to include the instrumentation and the approximate duration of the piece. For the instrumentation, first check that your instrumentation is unavailable, if you can find your standard ensemble, you can simply pick it there. This is great for string quartets, trios, orchestral works, and choirs. If you don’t see it there, you should pick from the menu below that. This section is specified for each unique instrument in the score. For example, if I have a work for 4 cellos and 1 didjeridu, I would select “Cello” and specify “4” in the “Number of Parts” section, and then “Add Instrument” to select “Didjeridu” and specify “1”. If you have multiple movements, you’ll be prompted to include the approximate duration of each individual movement of the work.

In the next section, if your work is an electronic piece and you sampled anything you need to credit, you can do that here. The following section touches on mentioning any public domain elements. If you’re using a public domain text, this is where you can include that.

Lastly, I usually skip the performance time on initial registration. I’ve already given the approximate duration, and because I often haven’t gotten a performance yet, this isn’t pertinent.
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Final Notes

​A couple final notes, it can be helpful and more reliable to file each of your performances manually. This can decrease the chance that a performance of one of your works gets missed in performance reporting. You can do this here by submitting a PDF of the concert program that you were a part of, along with the venue information. I would also advise that you keep track of all your performances each year so you have a record to refer to.

Should you receive your royalty check and find that there are missing performances that haven't been credited, simply click the "Contact ASCAP" button and explain the details of the missed performance that was not credited to you. ASCAP is amazing, but nobody is perfect, communicate issues you encounter and they will do their best to help you!

Congratulations on officially joining ASCAP. I hope this post was helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out anytime. Until then, thank you for reading, and happy jamming!