From Chords to Chart-Toppers: Essential Musician-Focused YouTube Content

15 YouTube Video Ideas for Musicians

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

If you’re a musician who wants the world to hear your music, getting your music on YouTube is a must! By uploading your work onto the world’s most popular video platform, you talent has the potential to reach millions of listeners. Here are fifteen YouTube video ideas you can use to share your music.

Polish Your YouTube Music Videos with Filmora

Filmora features plentiful video and audio editing tools, which allows you to cut out unwanted clips, remove the background noise , change the video and audio speed. The tutorial below shows you how to create a split-screen video with fun with the split-screen presets in Filmora.

1. Live Performance

Raw talent that is unedited and uncut can make a huge impact on your audience. In the above video, William Singe and Alex Aiono perform a live mashup from beginning to end without stopping. This kind of all-in-one-take performance is even more impressive when it is flawless. If you’ve got what it takes to perform your music from beginning to end without stopping, try recording yourself doing a live performance.

2. Cover A Classic Song

Although you might gain a lot of views in the short-run by covering a popular song that is currently in the top charts, you may find that your views will drop significantly in a few years when the song loses its relevance in pop culture. On the other hand, classic songs are timeless and performing them may even pleasantly evoke nostalgia to many listeners. In the video above, Daniela Andrade and HanByul Kang beautifully cover the 1934 jazz classic “Stars Fell on Alabama.” Do you have any favorite old classics?

3. Cover a Popular Song With Your Own Lyrics

As mentioned above, covering a popular song that is currently in the top charts can bring in a lot of views. But since many people do just straight covers of songs, you’ll find yourself competing for views against many other musicians if you do the same. Creatively rewriting the lyrics of the song you choose to cover is one way you can set your cover apart from all the others out there. In the above video, the performer creatively sings a cover of MAGIC!’s “Rude” from the perspective of the father in the song.

4. Cover a Popular Song In a Different Genre

Another way to set your cover apart from all the other many covers out there is to change up the genre. Whether or not everyone likes the genre you choose, it’s still undoubtedly interesting to hear a familiar song in such a different way. Postmodern Jukebox transforms a lot of current songs into old genres of music. Check out their jazzy version of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass.”

5. Show Your Musical Adaptability Through Many Genres

Professional musicians mostly adhere to fewer genres of music so that they don’t leave their listeners confused about who they are as a musician. This, at times, can get quite predictable and boring. Switching between multiple genres can be refreshingly interesting, especially if it’s many genres in one video. Rapper Mac Lethal explores 27 styles of rap in the above video.

6. Cover a Popular Song With a Musical Instrument (Or With Several If You Know How To Play More Than One)

If you cover a popular song with a musical instrument, you not only have the potential to gain many views from people searching up your song, but you also have the potential to gain many views from people searching up your instrument. In the above video, Lily Liu performs “See You Again” on her Zither/Guzheng.

7. Play Your Musical Instrument In a Unique Way

In much of the same way that performing a familiar song in a different genre can be refreshingly interesting, playing a familiar musical instrument in a different way can have the same effect. The above video is a YouTube classic video featuring Greg Pattillo playing his flute while simultaneously beatboxing.

8. Cover a Popular Song Using Odd (Non-Musical) Objects

Since music is a combination of notes, you can practically create music out of anything that has a pitch, which is everything that makes a sound. With the power of editing and pitch manipulation, you can create fascinating instrumental covers like Andrew Huang’s 99 Red Balloons.

9. Transform Non-Melodic Speech Into Music

There’s a lot you can do with music creation when you have access to software pitch manipulation. One of those things you can do is transform non-melodic speech into music. In the above video, many different clips of Donald Trump have been edited together to recreate Camila Cabello’s hit song “Havana.”

10. Produce a Remix

Most of the ideas we mention in this list have to do with taking something already existing and transforming it into something new. Similarly, a remix is a transformative musical piece. But rather than performing your music in a different and interesting way, remixing involves producing digital music using music production software. In the above video, C2C remixes Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”

11. Produce a Mashup

Unlike a medley where you perform one song and then move onto the next in a sequential manner, in a mashup you blend parts and fragments of songs together in a non-sequential manner, oftentimes overlapping parts that belong to different songs (vocals from one song over the instrumental of another song). In order to do this in a way that ends up not sounding like a jumbled mess, you need to make sure all the parts you’re mixing together are not only in the same tempo, but also in the same key. My mashups have been shared all over the world.

12. Make An Acapella Arrangement

Most songs on the radio have all kinds of different sounds going on that it can be difficult to just appreciate and enjoy the sound of the human voice. Acapella arrangements, on the other hand, attempt to recreate music with just the voice. Your own voice is a musical instrument that you can use in so many different ways to make all kinds of unique sounds. Mike Tompkins is someone who has made his mark on YouTube as an acapella musician.

13. Impersonate Celebrities

If you’re a musician who also happens to be good at doing impersonations of celebrities, recording yourself performing a song in different voices that others are familiar with can be a huge hit. In the above video, Yanina Chiesa performs a medley of songs featuring 15 different celebrity singers.

14. Music Tutorial

YouTube is the go-to place for many people who want to learn how to do something, including music. In the above video, Anna-Maria Hefele explains how polyphonic overtone singing works.

15. Make A Song So Bad, It Just Might Go Viral

Making music that’s so bad that it goes viral is not as easy as you might think. When it comes to bad quality material, there’s probably more of those on YouTube than there is good quality material. Your music will have to be extra bad in order to stand out among the competition. Rebecca Black’s “Friday” is a notable example of this last YouTube video idea.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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The Ultimate Checklist of Key Elements in Tagging a Video

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Tagging your content online greatly impacts how viewers will react to your post. However, it doesn’t end at adding tags; you need to know more. Be savvy to put the tags strategically depending on your topic’s trending. So, why add a tag to YouTube videos? You want to gain enough clicks, yes, right? And that’s what hashtags do. They are online content features that will push the number of clicks to an unimaginable level.

Your content will gain more views and go viral within a short time. After all, that’s what we purpose for when posting videos. No one wants to put effort into editing videos and posting then don’t get a considerable number of views or clicks. But also, know that the ball is at your court. There are no go-zone areas when it comes to dealing with YouTube tags. Check this article on what to do for more views.

What is a YouTube tag?

A tag is a word used to describe a video or image. It is generally added to video titles and descriptions or used independently. They make YouTubers easily discover other posts with similar tags. YouTube tags are vital as they help the YouTube algorithm fully understand the videos you post. It’s by this that those who are interested in your video get hooked to them.

For tags to work ideally, you need to include your brand-specific tags before adding similar tags. YouTube auto-suggest is another gem in this scenario. Just see what YouTube suggests when you type while searching other similar topics. For great results, place the most important keywords and tags first, as these will act as the face of your video.

How will YouTube tag affect your video performance?

It is YouTube tags that help viewers to find videos they are searching for on YouTube. Besides, this is how it works: An audience will type keywords into YouTube’s search bar. Then videos with the same tag and keywords will appear in the search results. If not correctly done, the YouTube tag could affect your video performance and lead to such outcomes.

1. No adequate audience engagement

Your main focus should be audience engagement. You are trying to drive the attention of many YouTube users as possible. A small mistake, and you lose track. It is wise to know the best approach to use your tags. Improper YouTube tagging will not drive enough audience to your channel. You, therefore, won’t get adequate audience engagement.

2. Your video won’t go viral

Anything selling should strive to reach thousands and probably millions of viewers. Perhaps you have put in several days and months of work on a single video, only for it to be viewed by a few fellows. You will feel like a waste of time when you put so much effort, yet your videos don’t go viral. It means there will be fewer people looking out for your content.

3. Limited chances of your video ranking high

If you don’t do YouTube tagging the right way, then the chances are that your video won’t rank high. Everyone feels better when they get a pat on the back for a well-done job. But what happens if there is no traffic to your video? You probably lose the urge to continue doing more videos. Just play right, so you are not demoralized whenever you post your videos.

Things to consider before you start adding a tag

If used properly, YouTube tags are a great way for your video and business to perform well. You’ll attract the audience and probably get a flux of customers. And the tricks are just at your fingertips. You only need to give the best approach possible to all the steps of your YouTube tagging. Here are some tips to help you out.

1) Use keyword variations

Try to use variations of keywords to increase the chances of your video ranking high. The audience will use several phrases to lead them to the right YouTube video. More so, they’ll even change the order of keywords for best results. It would be best to strive to appear in as many searches as possible. The best option is to use the “YouTube” tag generator to gather as many relevant tags as possible. It will pop you more ideas and let you identify the most important core terms that you can build on.

2) Research competitors

This trick works well for you before you add a tag to a YouTube video. Check out what your competitors are up to and what tags they use. While you check at what competitors do, also mind the trending tags. You don’t want to be left behind in the quick-paced technological advances. But ensure your searches are related to your content. Any misleading tags will plunge you into more drawbacks. Checking out on the latest trends will help you generate more ideas for useful keywords that make your videos rank better.

3) Conduct keyword research

Research is a vital point to start from. By this, you’ll find other keyword possibilities for your video. Don’t just think of keywords out of the blue but ensure that the audience searches what you use. It is better to check out the generic relationship between YouTube tags and your video content. Find keywords that will directly link to what your video is all about. You can also find out what has worked for those in your industry to know the best approach to give.

4) Write a keyword-optimized title and description

Ensure that the texts associated with your video are keyword-optimized. Your audience will majorly rely on the video title and description. The description should emphasize more on what the title is. Consider that first, and then find the kinds of tags that would correlate with both your title and description. Besides, it is the best way for your audience to quickly find your videos as the keywords will directly link them.

5) Don’t go overboard

Even though there are no limits on words for YouTube tags, don’t use so many words; it may turn away your audience. Instead, focus on adding relevant tags but don’t stuff in keywords. Going overboard may automatically take you off the topic and mislead your audience.

How to add a tag to a YouTube video

Adding the right YouTube tag will increase the chances of YouTubers finding and watching your video. Here are the steps how to add a tag to a YouTube video.

Step 1. First, log in to your YouTube account and hit the “Camera” icon. It is located at the top-right corner of your screen.

Step 2. Check the drop-down menu and choose the “Upload Video” option.

Step 3. Select from your videos which one to upload. Then click on the “Edit” tab to add relevant information like keywords, descriptions, etc.

Step 4. Give your video a name and description. Ensure the description correlates to the title of your video.

Step 5. Add relevant tags, separating them with commas. You can use from five to fifteen tags. YouTube may ignore your tags if they are more than 15.

Step 6. Click on the “Save” tab to complete the upload.

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You may know how to add a tag to a YouTube video, but you might not know how to come up with a compelling piece of video. Filmora works in simple steps to produce a quality video that makes heads turn around. Its powerful editing tools enable you to add several effects for better viewing. It has over 800 stunning effects to enhance your videos with. The export feature also lets you upload your videos to YouTube in any format just with a click of a button.

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Conclusion

● YouTube tags play a vital role for you and your potential customers. YouTube’s algorithm uses your tags to match them to similar search queries. When properly utilized, tags can bring an over flux of customers to your video. You have to know how to add a tag to a YouTube video for better results. Remember that YouTube tags can also drive away customers if not properly utilized. We have covered the effects and the best approach when settling on YouTube tags.

● Nonetheless, ensure your videos are top-notch before you tag them around. The best video editor – Filmora – works to produce high-end videos. Try it and gain additional traffic to your video.

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What is a YouTube tag?