iTunes Match: trying to get playlists from computer to show up on iPhone

I use iTunes on my MacBook Air to organize my music. I keep my music on a hard drive and connect whenever I use iTunes.

i purchased iTunes Match because I wanted to back up my music in the cloud and also be able to play music on my phone.

i synced all my songs to the cloud yesterday. Now I am looking for my playlists on my iTunes app on my phone and they are not in there - no playlists are showing up.

additionally, when I search for an artist of which I have many of their tracks in my library, the music comes up, but it is greyed out. When I try to play it it takes me to an advertisement to buy Apple Music.

Lastly, if I do not put my hard drive into my computer … when I try to play a song a pop up window comes up saying it can not be used cuz original file could not be found. … then gives the choice to cancel or Locate … when I press located a finder window comes up.

what am I missing?

also - I wanted to check to make sure all my music is backed up, but can’t seem to find it when I go to my iCloud. Seems like it backed up because it took up about 80 gb of space when I did the backup.

what happens if my hard drive fails and I need to download all that music … how do I find it to download?