Yes You Can

Playlist Like a Pro: Hacks Every Fitness Instructor Needs

• Hannah Pratt

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Tired of spending too much time on playlist prep? In this episode, I’m sharing my go-to hacks and tools to help you build high-energy, seamless playlists faster—so you can focus on what matters most: coaching an unforgettable class!

Here’s what we’ll cover:

✨ Best platforms for finding extended remixes and high-energy tracks (goodbye, awkward song fades!).
✨ How to transfer playlists between Spotify, Apple Music & more—without losing your flow.
✨ Organizing music by BPM & movement type to make class planning effortless.
✨ Leveling up transitions with DJ tools that keep the beat going strong.
✨ My favorite remix sources to keep your playlists fresh and exciting!

This is just the beginning—inside Instructor Magic, we go way deeper into music strategy, class flow, and personal branding. But today? You’re getting my best quick wins to upgrade your playlists instantly.

Want to level up in 2025? My Black Friday sale is on now for ALL courses and programs with 25% off! Use code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout.


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the yes you Can podcast, a soft place to land for fit pros and aspiring entrepreneurs looking for a motivational cheerleader who's been through it all and believes your best life is about being brave and tapping into your magic. Hi, I'm Hannah Pratt, an online coach and vulnerability queen. I'm here ready to share my experiences through grief, life and finding my place on the podium to help you level up. So grab a latte and a notebook and get ready to be inspired through the yes you Can podcast. Hello friends, welcome to another episode of the yes you Can podcast. I'm Hannah. It's been a minute, a few minutes since I have recorded a new podcast, so thank you for those who've been waiting patiently for this update. As always, life is busy and I teach full time at a college. I love it so much. It really has solidified my love for educating and the fact that now, as a spin instructor and a coach and person who creates professional development resources and courses and things for instructors, what I love the most is helping to unlock a piece of knowledge that makes everybody else's lives a little bit easier, helps them feel more confident and more skilled. Now, just as a reminder and a little plug, I do have my courses Podium Prep and Instructor magic. For those of you who are either about to embark on your journey quote-unquote to become an instructor or coach, podium prep is the mini course for you. It's under a hundred dollars, it's fantastic and full of resources. It's basically an entire training manual and a pdf format, along with videos, and well worth the cost of that program. Honestly, I should be selling it as a certification at this point, but that is something for 2025. And then Instructor Magic is, of course, my signature online program for spin instructors and studio owners who really want to develop consistently waitlisted classes, a personal brand and reach people on a much deeper level than surface level motivation so level up, fill classes and change lives is my tagline for that program for a reason and I've had more than 400 people take instructor magic at this point, which is absolutely wild. So if you want to join either program, details are in the show notes with upcoming masterclasses and whether the doors are open or not at the time of this recording you can see in the show notes. But it's a fantastic program and you get online Zoom calls with me, in addition to an entire vault of masterclasses from subject matter experts, and I'm so excited to be adding to future rounds with some new friends, both people who are taking the course and also new masterclass instructors. Today's episode is scratching the surface of making your life easier as a fit pro with music tools.

Speaker 1:

Now, for those of you who are new to me and what I do, I have been a DJ far longer than I've been a spin instructor or a coach. I began my career in this world by becoming a DJ when I was I don't know early 20s, and at the time there was far less, far, far less music tools available to us. So I just scoured the internet. I was looking on music blogs Anybody who was doing this back in the day can empathize with this but finding music blogs, finding links that artists and producers had included to downloads SoundCloud was out, but it wasn't really what it is today. There wasn't an algorithm or create a you know, start a radio or any of the things I'm about to talk about. Spotify didn't exist. Apple Music was iTunes. It was the Wild West, and you really had to either buy your music, which I still do to this day, or find remixes online. And so I am. I'm not gonna say I'm an expert, but I'm really, really good at this in terms of finding music. One thing that I just posted a reel about that I've sort of been talking about, is that a lot of instructors will tell me that they have a hard time finding longer remixes, and I get that, but there are places to look, and so I'm going to be talking about those secret hacks today. So five music tools for instructors. Number one using the algorithm to your advantage. So once you start to tell a program like Spotify or Apple Music or SoundCloud or even YouTube what you like, it's going to try and serve up more or suggested tracks that are similar to that. Now, in Spotify, there's the Discover Weekly, there's the different playlists that it gives you that's based on a particular genre that you're loving, and so, the more that you love those songs, save those songs and put those songs into playlists. Obviously, it's going to continue to serve up things that you like.

Speaker 1:

Now, what I love to do is not just find music that's like the ones that I'm interested in, but once I find an artist that I seem to have a lot of songs of, I will make sure that I go to all of their albums. So when you click on a song and you really, really love it. You can go to the album, right. So go to artists and see actually what else they've got. That's similar to this. You can also go to song radio. So, on the three dots in Spotify, go to song radio and it'll start a radio playlist, essentially of 50 tracks that are similar to that one that you've chosen. Now, this is an imperfect thing, of course. It's not going to send you everything that you like, but it is a really good way to get inspired. So super obvious. Just want to cover it off. Use the algorithm, whether that's on Spotify or Apple Music or even SoundCloud. A lot of people don't know that you can start a radio, or in SoundCloud it's called Station. So three dots, same thing, station, and it'll also give you 50 tracks like that.

Speaker 1:

I personally don't find the home feed of SoundCloud that great, like it gives you mixes. You know, mix one, mix two, mix three. I don't always find those to be the best, but there are similar things in as to Spotify, and it does get better every day. Now, for those who've been around for a long time, you know that I play all my music in Apple Music and a lot of you are probably listening, being like what, anna, you just talked about SoundCloud, spotify. I find new music on every platform.

Speaker 1:

As an instructor, I claim my expenses. I claim the amount that I pay for my monthly subscriptions. I claim the amount that I pay for my monthly subscriptions. It's a write-off, okay, and if you don't know what a write-off is, don't look at the Schitt's Creek episode. It means that you reduce the amount of revenue you can claim on your taxes or that you claim in your taxes by subtracting the cost of whatever it is that you need to do your business Now. For spin instructors, that would mean you need to do your business Now. For spin instructors, that would mean you need to be a contractor. I'm not going to go down that road of explaining sole proprietorship versus incorporation, versus just being a contractor or a full-time employee, for many, many reasons. But if you are a contractor meaning you don't get benefits and you have to claim your own taxes this is an easy way of of reducing that total amount of income that you claim, because it is necessary. So I digress.

Speaker 1:

I use Spotify to find my music, I use SoundCloud to find my music, I use YouTube music to find my music and I play it all through Apple Music and I play it all through Apple Music. So music tool number two is for those of you who aren't super satisfied with a remix Maybe it's too long, maybe it's too short, maybe it has a weird intro. This is a throwback and really showing my millennial age, but if you, if you remember the days of LimeWire for anybody who's here which is basically Napster we would illegally download songs. So this is exactly what I mean. I've been DJing and downloading music my entire life, making mixed CDs and so forth. Itunes or now Apple Music is the best platform if you have a Mac and you play your music off of your computer that you own, because the operating system favors Apple products and programs, so it is going to favor Apple Music and the sound is better.

Speaker 1:

There is absolutely no comparison between Spotify and Apple Music. It is louder and what's even better is you can go into each track that you have downloaded. Same thing there's stations. There's not quite as good of music finding tools, I would say, in Apple Music, but still you can still find the station. It'll still serve you up various things. It's just not my place that I'll go to find new music, necessarily, but there is no comparison, as I mentioned, for playing back.

Speaker 1:

So go to the three dots in Apple Music Just listen, hear me out. Go to get info. Go to options. You will see a start and a stop button, checkmark box and you can and volume adjust. So you can adjust the volume of each track. If you have a local file that is way too loud, you can reduce the overall volume of it. You can increase the overall volume of any other track. You can equalize it by giving it an increased bass. You can change the track itself in the way that you play it back. I think this is already a better reason than using Spotify. But if you go into the start, stop.

Speaker 1:

This is where it gets really fun. You can cut your tracks, especially if they're too long. I have a seven minute really good track called Rejoice that I love to play. It's too long. It's just seven minutes is too long for me and my playlist. So I started halfway through at a point where it sort of sounds like the song could be beginning and I make that song three and a half minutes. So play around with this, have fun with it. But you can change the details of your tracks. You can rename them. You can also organize your music by bpm with a smart playlist generator within apple music. The trouble is it won't always at least in my experience, it wasn't always great with recognizing local files. But ask any soulcle instructor or any other instructor who really cares about their music and is as obsessed with about it as I am, and they'll probably go on about Apple Music versus versus Spotify. Christina Giroux, power and Flow gals all use Apple Music. Ok, so you heard it here first. So changing the platforms based on what it is that you're choosing so we talked about how to find music using those different platforms and then also the playback is something to be really be considerate of.

Speaker 1:

Three is making sure your transitions are solid. So this is something that, as a DJ, I care about a lot. I care about the, the transition from one track to the next. Now, if you do, if you have your song that is perfectly cut and so you haven't had to make an adjustment, or maybe you did and it's and it's at a right spot thinking about that outro and how it's going to flow into the next track is really key. I would listen to it. Make sure your transitions are 8 to 12 seconds. Any shorter and you just risk having silence, which is fine. I don't mind having silence in my rides at all but another option is besides just using the transitions that are available both within Spotify and Apple Music is also to use virtual DJ.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is something I have a tutorial in Instructor Magic on how to do, where you can actually beat match. This is the coolest thing. You can beat match the tracks so that the BPM will change at the beginning when they're transitioning together. Now, obviously, it's a bit easier if you have songs that are similar BPMs, which is not always what we would do in a playlist, because we might go from a climb to a race and then something that's more of an interval style or a jog. So it's going to be that's going to be the time when this would really really help. It'll lay the music on top of each other and slow one track down, speed the other one up, and it'll sound extremely seamless. Now, if you're an instructor magic, look inside Kajabi, where we have our course portal, and you will find the tutorial within advanced music techniques, and I go through how to create. You can play back your entire playlist on virtual DJ instead of Apple Music. You can also record an entire session. So, just like, have your playlist go, have those transitions set and then you literally have 45 minutes as a track in Apple Music or Spotify that you can play, which is very, very cool and another way to level up sort of what it is that you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Okay, four, subscribe to DJ record pools. This is an industry secret that a lot of you know about but a lot more of you do not know about. So, for a subscription fee, of course, and this might be something that your studio looks at. Paying for you and giving you all a login to share, which is something that we have at Wheelhouse, is really worthwhile. To find those extended remixes to tracks that are very, very short, I've just found I think it's probably partly because there is such a lack of attention span that we see, basically across the board with everything in life is people have a shorter attention span, tracks are coming out and being released shorter and shorter and again, I just shared a reel about this specific topic, but I didn't talk about this hack. I talked about how you can loop those songs, which'll talk about in a minute, but you can also find extended remixes. So look for club remixes, look for extended remixes in the actual title. Often when you are downloading a track from SoundCloud, you will be able to see that if you go through all the steps and the artist is giving you permission to download, they will give you multiple files to download.

Speaker 1:

Now that is one for the extended remix and then usually like more of a radio edit. So the difference between those two radio is it's a shorter version. Extended is exactly what it sounds like, but those are for DJs. So to that mix. That transition that I was just talking about in point four, I'm sorry. Point three is the transition between each track is something DJs care about. They want to care about the entire experience of who's listening, which means making it seamless from one track to the next. It's really hard to do that when there's lyrics at the beginning or end of a track. So what you'll find is the extended remix is a little bit longer, maybe a minute or two longer, and there is more of an instrumental beginning and an end. That purpose is to help djs mix from one track to the next. Now you can do the same thing either by by using the transitions to your benefit, you can find an extended remix and have it be a longer track and then cut that beginning and end.

Speaker 1:

If you use Apple Music, so again, use Apple Music. And you can also look on DJ Record Pool. So these are subscription platforms. They're called BPM, supreme DJ City. There's others, for sure. Where you log in and you can download shorter or longer versions of a track, you can find a track. You can find a whole bunch of remixes of a track. So if I look for Not Like Us, for instance by Kendrick Lamar, and I want to find different remixes, you might be.

Speaker 1:

This is especially helpful for those of you who want clean music, and I have to be honest, I haven't used my DJ record pool in a minute, but I know that when I log in, if I really really wanted to find a track, I could find a whole bunch of different types of options, and they even will categorize the track into different like moods. So ones that are happier, because we know that remix can is not. They're not all equal, right. There's some that are better, keep the intention of the song sort of at in the focus, and others that are not quite as good. So there's a whole bunch of different options as long as you subscribe to one of these record pools, and I would recommend especially if you're thinking about advanced musical techniques, this is or even just reducing the amount of time that you were spending making playlists, which is something I advocate really hard, for this is another tool to absolutely consider.

Speaker 1:

Five this is going to be a bit of a two parter, so one is, if you are I don't get any kickbacks, by the way, for like supporting Apple Music and talking about it, it's just my preference and one that I think everybody should have and share with me is, if you want to transfer your playlist from one platform to the next, use something called Soundiz. That's sound and then double I-Z and it'll transfer your playlist from Spotify to Apple Music or from SoundCloud to any of theirs others. Now, the key is that the file has to actually be on one of these platforms, so your local files will have to be something that you manually, manually change over or create a file path words, path to. But, all in all, pretty, really pretty good tool to help you safeguard your music and make sure that you are not relying on one platform. That is the worst, when you have all your playlists in one platform and are afraid that the other one is. There's nothing there and you haven't backed up your music or you only have it playlists in one platform. I like to have my playlist in both and two places and it's just helpful and it's it's nice to be able to do this in seconds Five.

Speaker 1:

Part two is going to be categorize your music, making playlists. So create a playlist that is climbs, create a playlist that is fast climbs, jogs, whatever it is that you would use in terms of a type of movement that corresponds with a BPM, and throw those tracks in there. Do it frequently, because your playlists are only as good as your ability to find music in your library. And if you've been doing it as long as I have, or even for a year or two, you're going to have thousands of songs that you have in your library and you have to remind yourself constantly what they are. It gets faster and a little easier to sort of recall things, but sometimes I forget about music I've had for a long time or haven't played in a long time and I can't find it, and it's the absolute worst. So make a playlist that is climbs, jogs, races, fast climbs. You can even categorize in other ways if you would prefer choreography based folders, but just throw your playlist in there by organized by track so that you can quickly go in and even do like track one, track two, track three, whatever it is, and make a playlist super, super, super quick. So that was a fast, a fast review of my favorite playlisting and musicality sort of hacks and tips. All of those resources will be in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

This is scratching the surface of the type of stuff I teach inside instructor magic. This is really tactical stuff like tools, but what I teach is strategy. What I teach is a deep reframe and evolution of how you coach while giving you these direct things that can help you level up super, super quickly. My goal is that you spend less time making playlists, more time focusing on motivation and coaching and building your personal brand, so that you know with confidence that when you go to teach a class, you're going to have a full room and the people who leave are going to be singing your praises and bringing more friends to your space, because you are somebody who cares about what you do and you want to impact as many lives as possible. So it is actually a disservice when you don't promote your classes, when you don't take them seriously, when you waste time thinking about the stuff that doesn't matter. So when I talk about musicality and playlisting, I always do it with. The caveat of this is to help you make better playlists faster so that you can focus on everything else, because people don't remember the songs you play. They remember how you made them feel and their overall experience.

Speaker 1:

If you are in, if you want to learn more, you can find information on the show notes. I'm going to be having a big March sale coming up really, really soon, but I will. Anybody who's interested now. I'll send you the link just so you can get in, because I don't want to. I don't want to prevent you from joining the community. It's truly a magical place and we share with each other, we celebrate each other, we ask a lot of questions and then there's live calls every single month. That's it, friends.

Speaker 1:

If you love this episode, I really appreciate a rating and review that lets other people know that this is a great podcast to listen to. I would also love it if you could share on Instagram. I do this all when I have time. I edited the whole thing myself. I don't have anybody else working in my business with me right now. It is just your girl, and so it takes a lot of time and I all I ask is for a rating, review and a share with anybody else who you think could use this in their lives. Have a great day and I will see you in Apple music. Thanks for listening all the way to the end of the yes you Can podcast. If you loved this one, I would so appreciate a rating and a review on Apple podcasts that lets others know that, hey, this is a good podcast and it's worthwhile to listen to. If you really loved it, make sure to share with somebody you love who could benefit from a little magic and motivation in their lives. Thanks so much, friends, and have a great day.