You’ve probably heard the line, “good artists borrow, great artists steal”. One of my favorite authors on the topic, is the one that inspired this post’s title - Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like An Artist”. Today I'm riffing on Austin's ideas a bit, but in the realm of credibility.
When you’re starting out, you might not have a whole lot of personal credibility, but there’s another type that can help you build that up, and it’s called borrowed credibility. This works when you’re referencing other people’s ideas, and saying, hey look at this great resource I found! I do this all the time in my newsletter - which includes links of my own, and also links out to other great guitar lessons.
Today I wanted to talk about increasing your reach on social video platforms as a musician. It’s all about covers. Performing covers and posting them to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, can greatly help you get eyes on your own songs. Especially when you post things like Shorts or Reels.
An example was when Metallica was re-releasing their self titled album for its anniversary, I decided to post some covers of their riffs. One of them, for “Wherever I May Roam”, got 31,000 views, nearly 2 thousand likes, and netted me 40+ new subscribers. That’s 40 sets of eyes that might not have ever seen my guitar playing. A lot of these viewers will subscribe and go through your back catalog as well.
Another benefit is that while you’re working on other people’s songs, you’re also developing your own playing, and learning how other musicians make decisions. This is the entire spirit of Steal Like An Artist - which allows you to take influence from other musicians and make something entirely new of your own.
Try uploading some covers and let me know how it goes!
Note: The link to Austin’s book above is an Amazon affiliate link. Chasing Sound takes part in the Amazon affiliate program. You can check out all the details here.