I’m an illustrator and graphic designer who’s just beginning to learn how to do music, and I feel that I needed a video like this. I remember reading Steal Like an Artist many years ago and it made me try different art styles that I loved until I found one to call “mine”. But I forgot abt the book and I didn’t think for a second that it could be applied to music as well, this opens a lot of doors. So thank you for this!
As a musician who has played live for 12+ years and recorded several projects with bands, this video spoke to me in a moment that I needed to see it. I've been working on a solo project with myself writing, performing, and producing everything, but have been hitting serious creative roadblocks and frustrations with the quality of my output. I think I needed to hear this from someone else. Helped me take a step back from the project and look at it from a high level. Best of luck on your journey.
Thank you so much for writing this, it's so lovely 🥰 dare ya to do some stealin' My favourite quote from the book is Mark Twain - "It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected"
Yay thank you!! Yeah it seems like such a legit approach. This week I'm checking out the first songs of artists I love, and a bunch are clearly just ripping off their heroes (e.g. David Bowie sounds exactly like John Lennon). There's a Mark Twain quote from the "Steal like an artist" book - "It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected" that I really like 😎
Dude I’m also just starting to make music and I love this idea/format for showing your journey, and steps taken while learning, I’ve never been one for recording videos of the process, but I think it’s a great insight, and I might have to give it a go! Very inspiring
Do it do it do! Where are you at in your journey, have you picked a DAW yet? I highly recommend remaking some songs as the first thing - I saw someone say that like "when you're learning the guitar, it's second nature to learn it by learning songs you love, but for some reason with production everyone thinks they have to start by making songs from scratch, and then their songs suck and they get disheartened"
Find an instrument your genuinely interested in, guitar or piano would be best, and learn them over the course of a couple years, learn music theory that advances ur playing for the specific instrument and then implement that ability into ur songwriting, once I had 3 solid years of guitar playing under my belt, the desire to create songs came. And with that desire, the songs came as well, effortlessly. I’ve now got songs planned for 3 albums and enough throwaways songs for 2 more, all within one year. I might have a natural incline towards making music but ik that learning guitar is the only reason I’m here today. I don’t have to sit down and force anything, it all comes to me naturally, no effort needed.
@@TheDollarKing yeah this definitely seems like the way, it's abundantly clear to me that there's no overnight success, you can only learn so much in a day/week/month, you need solid fundamentals which then unlock further things, etc etc. Very grateful to teenage me for learning the guitar!
Another STEM dude looking for creative outlet here! Love to see you putting out early work, most people only ever show such high level production and it's demoralising. Ive wanted to make some content like this about learning stuff but never found the time. Love the song at 17:00, thats a bop. I have some mates who do music seriously and they absolutely do this to at least start new songs, its a great idea. One thing ive tried and enjoyed is taking from like 5 songs on one album and making a song that would fit the original album, its cool to nail an existing style!
Ayyy amazing, thank you for the comment!! If you haven't seen it yet, this video rulessss for showing how everyone sucks at the beginning ruclips.net/video/QsAu21ako30/видео.html I'm also working on a vid at the moment where I listen to the earliest published stuff by artists (like Tyler the Creator, Chappell Roan, Kendrick Lamar etc) 😎 I love the idea of trying to make a song that fits on a beloved album!! Might do this for the Strokes
Eu me sinto como você, amigo! Também sou extremamente crítico com o que crio, mas sei exatamente o que gosto e o que admiro em outros artistas. Let's create and be happy!
I use this type of method a lot. Usually it’s a bit hard for me to come up with anything original when I do it with music I listen to regularly though. I like to take songs that I enjoy but don’t listen to a lot, make a bass line or something over it, then build from there with elements from stuff I do listen to. I’ve been working on a spooky project recently so I decided to take inspiration from classical music. I added elements of the punk and emo stuff I typically listen to and it turned out really cool and unique
Yeah 100%, I found if it's something that sounds too iconic then all I can hear is the original thing, whereas a more background element totally works. Hell yeah that sounds sick, did you publish it?
@@alexiscreatingthings It’s not published quite yet. So far I have 5 songs but I’m aiming for 10 or 11. Hopefully I’ll be able to release it sometime soon though
Interesting way to write songs. I believe that nearly all songwriting is interpolating to a degree, some songs more than others. But I believe musicians should all embrace this instinct because it only adds to the aforementioned inspiration, creating more dialogue in the conversation of music. Cool video dude, keep it up!
Thank you!! Yeah there's a Bowie quote from the Steal Like an Artist book - "The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from", and then another quote from William Ralph Inge - "What is originality? Undetected plagiarism", so I'm super excited to have flipped this switch in my brain ✨
Amazing video, sometimes a bit long for my internet fried brain, but love the Frankensteining vibes and i think it just makes everything sound so much more grounded and real, love it
This video is really cool and interesting and I quite like some of the music you've made here, I know your not asking for constructive criticism but i do have a few thoughts about your songs. I think the main issue in your production is you don't lean enough into the inherent lofi nature of the way your recording. It felt like in some of these songs you were striving for a professional sound that you admire in the artists you look up to but you never quite achieve it, but there are many great albums made just in a bedroom with a guitar. And if you lean more into it kinda sounding bad I think you'll find a sound that is more fitting to the environment in which you are making music, instead of trying to sound like something your not. Keep it up though, I'm excited to see where you end up.
A specific example of this is your midi drums, obviously you don't need real drums to make good songs but when the fake drums your using are trying to mimic real drums it ends up in a sort of uncanny valley, where if the drums were just obviously fake l(ike a drum machine or something) it would feel more authentic and less amateurish.
This is awesome feedback, thank you so much!! Using non-analogue drums is a really great shout, I only ever choose analogue midi drums but you’re right that they’ll never sound as good. Would love any artist recommendations you’ve got - I’m thinking Car Seat Headrest, Alex G… (no worries if you cba though lol)
@ when i commented this i was specifically thinking about the first few albums carseatheadrest ever made that are only on bandcamp, they’re super lofi and sound awesome. another project with rlly cool bedroom production is your arms are my cocoon’s first ep, but that’s very much a different sound then what your going for
@@d0gbug I actually bought CSH's "1" on bandcamp recently and even though I've only listened to the first song I was really surprised by how good it was - I've been compiling people's first releases for an upcoming video, kinda hoping to find stuff that legit stinks to show that even the greats are terrible at the start, but he's definitely always had that CSH spark (tbf there's of course a difference between someone's first-ever published project vs the first stuff they ever slapped together on their laptop) Listening to your arms are my cocoon's first EP right now - the idk Liturgy-style screaming isn't my thing but it's a super interesting contrast to the sweet bedroom pop production, I like it 😎 thanks again!!!
Cool video idea, really think you could take the opener idea somewhere interesting. Something I like to do, which is similar to this is to make a full cover of a simpler song and add my own new vocal harmonies or instrumentation.
Love that idea!! I imagine even if the BPM and drum beat was the same, you could have it sound totally different if you switched up the vocal melody, instrumentation etc, gonna try this!
I’ve always thought that good artists copy great artists steal means that a great artists will turn anything they take into their own, Stealing it and making it theirs now borrowing someone else’s thing. It’s not advice really just the way it is
Relevant quote - "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn." - T. S. Eliot
I think if the prod you like is big-hearted, but your voice is "different," you could try and blend the two. Like, that BLEND could make up your voice, no?
this is incredibly inspiring & i’m a little embarrassed to admit i teared up a little from the hilarity of how simple it could be😭. i’ve taken the plunge on making a song for about a month now (just as like a personal project yk?), starting from basically zero with childhood piano practice as my only musical background. i’ve read a ton of books, listened to lectures, and thoroughly studied the music i want to make, but i get really frustrated sitting in front of a blank flp. i’ve been having to get to grips with the irrationally high standard i’ve set for myself and my stubbornness to not be derivative in any way with what i want to make, all while having literally 0hrs in the songwriting process, so it really hit me like a truck to hear how you were able to take elements from all these great songs and still maintain your own artistic integrity (especially with that riff you made on your own!). i guess i really should be more familiarized with the idea of stealing like an artist, considering i’ve been drawing/painting my whole life and i’ve also made it decently far in other creative avenues like video editing, but idontknow loll. so glad this got recommended randomly and i can’t thank you enough for this tbh
No need to be embarrassed, that's so so lovely to read!! In addition to stealing bits from songs I highly highly recommend just straight up trying to remake songs that you love - you come across loads of useful challenges (like "holy shit I don't know anything about drums" and "what are the effects you add to a vocal to make it sound like that" etc), super useful because you're a) learning by doing and b) learning exactly what needs to be learned in order, rather than the whole like "I can't make anything until I've watched every youtube tutorial in existence, maybe just 1 more video will give me the perfect tip that will make me good", etc, lol
Yeah the tricky thing here is that the earliest possible stuff you can find of a band are still stuff that they thought was good enough to record and publish (e.g. Kendrick Lamar's first mixtapes, or the Strokes demos) - man I'd love to be able to get the first ever things people actually made on their laptops, lol
We all try to make music that sounds good, and we are all influenced by music we've heard before that we liked. All music is derivative, even when we don't consciously TRY to steal, because the stuff we make will always be influenced by the stuff we've heard before. Whenever you hear someone say they are trying to create completely original art from scratch, know that that person is very likely still a bit of an amateur, or hasn't thought all that deeply about their work.
i am going to steal from you
well well well, how the turntables
This is a good video and seeing the song building process, autopsy and then finished product is a great format! Inspiring my friend. Keep doing this!
Also I might steal this format
Thank you ❤️ and send me the vid if you make it!!
I’m an illustrator and graphic designer who’s just beginning to learn how to do music, and I feel that I needed a video like this. I remember reading Steal Like an Artist many years ago and it made me try different art styles that I loved until I found one to call “mine”. But I forgot abt the book and I didn’t think for a second that it could be applied to music as well, this opens a lot of doors. So thank you for this!
As a musician who has played live for 12+ years and recorded several projects with bands, this video spoke to me in a moment that I needed to see it. I've been working on a solo project with myself writing, performing, and producing everything, but have been hitting serious creative roadblocks and frustrations with the quality of my output. I think I needed to hear this from someone else. Helped me take a step back from the project and look at it from a high level. Best of luck on your journey.
Thank you so much for writing this, it's so lovely 🥰 dare ya to do some stealin'
My favourite quote from the book is Mark Twain - "It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected"
This was so inspiring, the beats you made truly sounded so good !! Can’t wait to see more of your progress !
Ahh thank you so much!! I've got another video in the pipeline 🤩
Your instrumentals sound great but your voice still sounds very nervous. I think once you find that confidence you’ll start progressing a lot faster
Well done! Keep going hopefully in a year, like you said, you can look back at all this and be thankful for it
Hell yes we’re both gonna be in cool places in a year - excited to have watched your film!
Great video! as someone going on the same journey id love
to see more.👍
Thank you! Got another one in the oven right now 😎
I don't make music myself, but I found this fascinating and I'm probably gonna apply it to the art that I make. Lovely video!
Yay thank you!! Yeah it seems like such a legit approach. This week I'm checking out the first songs of artists I love, and a bunch are clearly just ripping off their heroes (e.g. David Bowie sounds exactly like John Lennon). There's a Mark Twain quote from the "Steal like an artist" book - "It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected" that I really like 😎
@@alexiscreatingthings that's such a cool quote, love it
Dude I’m also just starting to make music and I love this idea/format for showing your journey, and steps taken while learning, I’ve never been one for recording videos of the process, but I think it’s a great insight, and I might have to give it a go! Very inspiring
Do it do it do! Where are you at in your journey, have you picked a DAW yet? I highly recommend remaking some songs as the first thing - I saw someone say that like "when you're learning the guitar, it's second nature to learn it by learning songs you love, but for some reason with production everyone thinks they have to start by making songs from scratch, and then their songs suck and they get disheartened"
Find an instrument your genuinely interested in, guitar or piano would be best, and learn them over the course of a couple years, learn music theory that advances ur playing for the specific instrument and then implement that ability into ur songwriting, once I had 3 solid years of guitar playing under my belt, the desire to create songs came. And with that desire, the songs came as well, effortlessly. I’ve now got songs planned for 3 albums and enough throwaways songs for 2 more, all within one year. I might have a natural incline towards making music but ik that learning guitar is the only reason I’m here today. I don’t have to sit down and force anything, it all comes to me naturally, no effort needed.
@@TheDollarKing yeah this definitely seems like the way, it's abundantly clear to me that there's no overnight success, you can only learn so much in a day/week/month, you need solid fundamentals which then unlock further things, etc etc. Very grateful to teenage me for learning the guitar!
Another STEM dude looking for creative outlet here!
Love to see you putting out early work, most people only ever show such high level production and it's demoralising. Ive wanted to make some content like this about learning stuff but never found the time.
Love the song at 17:00, thats a bop.
I have some mates who do music seriously and they absolutely do this to at least start new songs, its a great idea.
One thing ive tried and enjoyed is taking from like 5 songs on one album and making a song that would fit the original album, its cool to nail an existing style!
Ayyy amazing, thank you for the comment!!
If you haven't seen it yet, this video rulessss for showing how everyone sucks at the beginning ruclips.net/video/QsAu21ako30/видео.html
I'm also working on a vid at the moment where I listen to the earliest published stuff by artists (like Tyler the Creator, Chappell Roan, Kendrick Lamar etc) 😎
I love the idea of trying to make a song that fits on a beloved album!! Might do this for the Strokes
Love this style of content, keep em comin brother❤
Big ups mate, great video
Really enjoyed this video. The honesty is what kept me engaged ❤
Ayyyy thank you! Can't make good music yet but I can be honest about the journey for sure
I love this man, keep it up!
Ayyy thank you 🤩
Eu me sinto como você, amigo! Também sou extremamente crítico com o que crio, mas sei exatamente o que gosto e o que admiro em outros artistas. Let's create and be happy!
Você é muito gentil! 🥰
Congrats on pushing through and making some great progress!
hehe thank you 🤩
I use this type of method a lot. Usually it’s a bit hard for me to come up with anything original when I do it with music I listen to regularly though. I like to take songs that I enjoy but don’t listen to a lot, make a bass line or something over it, then build from there with elements from stuff I do listen to. I’ve been working on a spooky project recently so I decided to take inspiration from classical music. I added elements of the punk and emo stuff I typically listen to and it turned out really cool and unique
Yeah 100%, I found if it's something that sounds too iconic then all I can hear is the original thing, whereas a more background element totally works. Hell yeah that sounds sick, did you publish it?
@@alexiscreatingthings It’s not published quite yet. So far I have 5 songs but I’m aiming for 10 or 11. Hopefully I’ll be able to release it sometime soon though
Interesting way to write songs. I believe that nearly all songwriting is interpolating to a degree, some songs more than others. But I believe musicians should all embrace this instinct because it only adds to the aforementioned inspiration, creating more dialogue in the conversation of music.
Cool video dude, keep it up!
Thank you!! Yeah there's a Bowie quote from the Steal Like an Artist book - "The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from", and then another quote from William Ralph Inge - "What is originality? Undetected plagiarism", so I'm super excited to have flipped this switch in my brain ✨
Amazing video, sometimes a bit long for my internet fried brain, but love the Frankensteining vibes and i think it just makes everything sound so much more grounded and real, love it
Hehe thank you very much!! I watch everything on 1.5x or 2x (internet fried brain!), can't imagine watching this at 1x, I'd die
This video is really cool and interesting and I quite like some of the music you've made here, I know your not asking for constructive criticism but i do have a few thoughts about your songs. I think the main issue in your production is you don't lean enough into the inherent lofi nature of the way your recording. It felt like in some of these songs you were striving for a professional sound that you admire in the artists you look up to but you never quite achieve it, but there are many great albums made just in a bedroom with a guitar. And if you lean more into it kinda sounding bad I think you'll find a sound that is more fitting to the environment in which you are making music, instead of trying to sound like something your not. Keep it up though, I'm excited to see where you end up.
A specific example of this is your midi drums, obviously you don't need real drums to make good songs but when the fake drums your using are trying to mimic real drums it ends up in a sort of uncanny valley, where if the drums were just obviously fake l(ike a drum machine or something) it would feel more authentic and less amateurish.
This is awesome feedback, thank you so much!! Using non-analogue drums is a really great shout, I only ever choose analogue midi drums but you’re right that they’ll never sound as good. Would love any artist recommendations you’ve got - I’m thinking Car Seat Headrest, Alex G… (no worries if you cba though lol)
@ when i commented this i was specifically thinking about the first few albums carseatheadrest ever made that are only on bandcamp, they’re super lofi and sound awesome. another project with rlly cool bedroom production is your arms are my cocoon’s first ep, but that’s very much a different sound then what your going for
@@d0gbug I actually bought CSH's "1" on bandcamp recently and even though I've only listened to the first song I was really surprised by how good it was - I've been compiling people's first releases for an upcoming video, kinda hoping to find stuff that legit stinks to show that even the greats are terrible at the start, but he's definitely always had that CSH spark (tbf there's of course a difference between someone's first-ever published project vs the first stuff they ever slapped together on their laptop)
Listening to your arms are my cocoon's first EP right now - the idk Liturgy-style screaming isn't my thing but it's a super interesting contrast to the sweet bedroom pop production, I like it 😎 thanks again!!!
Cool video idea, really think you could take the opener idea somewhere interesting.
Something I like to do, which is similar to this is to make a full cover of a simpler song and add my own new vocal harmonies or instrumentation.
Love that idea!! I imagine even if the BPM and drum beat was the same, you could have it sound totally different if you switched up the vocal melody, instrumentation etc, gonna try this!
I’ve always thought that good artists copy great artists steal means that a great artists will turn anything they take into their own, Stealing it and making it theirs now borrowing someone else’s thing. It’s not advice really just the way it is
Relevant quote - "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn." - T. S. Eliot
I think if the prod you like is big-hearted, but your voice is "different," you could try and blend the two. Like, that BLEND could make up your voice, no?
Don't know anything about music really but as a fellow creative, keep it up mate!🤘
Thank you! 🤩
you’re inspiring bro
this is incredibly inspiring & i’m a little embarrassed to admit i teared up a little from the hilarity of how simple it could be😭. i’ve taken the plunge on making a song for about a month now (just as like a personal project yk?), starting from basically zero with childhood piano practice as my only musical background.
i’ve read a ton of books, listened to lectures, and thoroughly studied the music i want to make, but i get really frustrated sitting in front of a blank flp. i’ve been having to get to grips with the irrationally high standard i’ve set for myself and my stubbornness to not be derivative in any way with what i want to make, all while having literally 0hrs in the songwriting process, so it really hit me like a truck to hear how you were able to take elements from all these great songs and still maintain your own artistic integrity (especially with that riff you made on your own!).
i guess i really should be more familiarized with the idea of stealing like an artist, considering i’ve been drawing/painting my whole life and i’ve also made it decently far in other creative avenues like video editing, but idontknow loll. so glad this got recommended randomly and i can’t thank you enough for this tbh
No need to be embarrassed, that's so so lovely to read!!
In addition to stealing bits from songs I highly highly recommend just straight up trying to remake songs that you love - you come across loads of useful challenges (like "holy shit I don't know anything about drums" and "what are the effects you add to a vocal to make it sound like that" etc), super useful because you're a) learning by doing and b) learning exactly what needs to be learned in order, rather than the whole like "I can't make anything until I've watched every youtube tutorial in existence, maybe just 1 more video will give me the perfect tip that will make me good", etc, lol
😅 I listened to Ginger Root's old music, and it was always good.
Yeah the tricky thing here is that the earliest possible stuff you can find of a band are still stuff that they thought was good enough to record and publish (e.g. Kendrick Lamar's first mixtapes, or the Strokes demos) - man I'd love to be able to get the first ever things people actually made on their laptops, lol
We all try to make music that sounds good, and we are all influenced by music we've heard before that we liked. All music is derivative, even when we don't consciously TRY to steal, because the stuff we make will always be influenced by the stuff we've heard before. Whenever you hear someone say they are trying to create completely original art from scratch, know that that person is very likely still a bit of an amateur, or hasn't thought all that deeply about their work.