The anticipation was building in her mind. She felt nervous and exhilarated at the same time. But it was her chance to shine. She turned on her television and flipped to channel 46, tuning into Lifetime’s Dance Moms. She was not a fan of the show. Instead, she was the musical artist whose song was featured on the show.

The singer is alum Christina Li (’11). On season 1 episode 11 of the show, which aired on January 10 two years ago, contestant Maddy Ziegler performed a solo to Christina’s song “Disappear.” The show found her song through Jingle Punks, a website that allows artists to upload their songs for the TV show music directors.

However, her song was not originally given credit on the show. According to Christina, this delay may have affected potential sales on iTunes. She did not think that her status as a student impacted the recognition she received, but rather the lack of credit can be attributed to the hands-off nature of Jingle Punks.

“We [artists] just upload the music and find out about the sync [the music being used on TV] afterwards,” she said.

Though the show did eventually credit her, Steve Gordon, an entertainment industry lawyer, maintains, in his paper on the subject, that “the instant spike in sales immediately after is irreplaceable.”

This year, Christina released a music video for “Disappear.” With a limited college student budget, she created everything in the video herself, using a minimalist concept. She employed simple single shots and simple effects, rather than elaborate sets to get the message of the song across.

Her interest in music started in elementary school, but she started seriously pursuing music during her high school freshman year. She began going to San Francisco and networking with artists in the area.  During high school she not only joined Downbeat at school and performed in several musicals but also recorded songs in studios and uploaded her work onto iTunes. Christina currently attends New York University’s Tisch School of Arts, specifically the Clive Davis School of Recorded Music.

She recommends that students pursuing a career in music should “concentrate on collaborating, making great friends, and learning from those around you.”

Christina described Tisch’s encouragement of her music creation.

“I’m lucky in that being a student at Clive Davis means being a content creator. My homework is often writing songs or collaborating or recording others, so the balance [of a student and content creator] is built into the system,” she said.

School policies give Christina all the rights to her songs after they have been graded by professors.  The reason for the delayed release of songs is so that a professor is not influenced by the song’s potential popularity. Currently, she does not have an agent, but she looks forward to continuing her career and seeing where it takes her.

The Students as Content Creators (SACC) project is an ongoing series of articles that relate the process of young people producing their own ideas in various areas of business, science, art, music, theater, and more. Some stories also examine potential conflicts that may arise due to ownership issues.

The SACC symbol used in this article is a derivative of the trademarked Creative Commons logo.