Infamous Musician Caught Red-Handed

Or, three blameless paths to a sustainable career in music, in any era

You may have heard the news about a 28-year-old Italian “influencer” musician named Giacomo Turra (approx. 1M followers on YouTube and Instagram).

Recently, Giacomo ((pron. jack-a-mo) has been publicly called out for "stealing" the guitar solos and music/productions of multiple (lesser-followed) guitarists/musicians who post readily on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media. The musician had been successfully passing off his tasty guitar solos and bass parts as his own and selling transcriptions (tablature). A YouTuber named Danny Sapko released a video using split-screen examples, making Giacomo’s tech-aided illusions clear.

This tragic mess is spreading on the internet faster than quantum entanglement. It’s even made my Google news feed. The YouTube music community is ablaze with everything from vitriol and snark to suggestions for legal restitution and public restoration.

I don’t know if Giacomo is a credible working musician. I only know that his tightly edited videos do not represent the musician he positions himself as. I’ve watched him play live at the NAMM show via an unaltered video. If this video is representative of his abilities, then he seems skilled enough to pursue a career as a working guitarist. But I would not hire him to play on a recording I was producing (not today—his unaided janky timing and unoriginality are just two issues that need remedy).

What I make up about his videos (solo and collabs) is that he seems to be playing with editing in mind. As a record producer I get it. I’ve been guilty of “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it in editing” often. The difference being, is that I developed at a time (analog tape—1970s) when fixing it meant playing it again until it was right. There was no way to fake it—no digital editing to lock every note of a performance to a tempo and grid.

This is just one problem with today’s digital audio/video streaming model of public musicianship. It begs the question: Are the "influencer" musicians showing us their musicianship or their audio/video editing, set-design, lighting, pigeon-head moves, and mimicry skills?

Note: Gaining skill by learning other musicians' solos, even quoting bits of solos in your own solos, has a long tradition in everything from jazz to rock to bluegrass. Musicians do not consider this a crime. Passing off someone else's work as your own? Yes. That's a (insert worst description you think a road-crusty musician might say).

Since the COVID-19 break and what became an onslaught of seemingly virtuoso teenage musicians, I've been in a puzzle of wonderment. If this many highly skilled female bass players are genuinely on the scene, then that makes me very happy! But I’ve been skeptical too. Does the ability to play a complex guitar rhythm for 30 seconds (one lifted from a 70s funk record) make a young musician funky? Like zoo-dirt funky?

I confess I’m doubtful. I learned to play funk by playing with other musicians 3-5 hours a night, 3-5 nights a week for years.

Yes, the world has changed.

These younger musicians feel the pressure to succeed on social media. They think it’s their generation’s gateway to fame and fortune. This is the musician’s version of Insta’s perfectly decorated rooms, gorgeously plated food, and lean, beautiful faces and bodies. It’s not healthy, though. What would my tough-love musician father say if he were alive today? Better to feel pressure to succeed as a musician by standards set by musicians, than elusive algorithms.

Sadly, by stealing and misrepresenting his own abilities, with over 700K followers and millions of views, Giacomo was winning by Instagram’s standards.

Here’s my unsolicited counsel to Giacomo and all the musicians watching this sad and unnecessary public scandal.

If young musicians want sustainable careers in 2025 and beyond, they have the same options I had 50 years ago in 1975. The paradox remains the same: Nothing and everything have changed. Here are the tried and true paths regardless of the era or technology:

1. Develop world-class expertise on one or more instruments and learn music theory. Become fluent in the vocabulary of the music of your time, plus multiple genres or styles of music (e.g., Folk/Americana, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Blues, Rock, Gospel, Bluegrass, etc.). Immerse yourself in music. Perform instrumental and vocal music from childhood on. Play with other musicians often and develop musical relationships with peers. There is no substitute for an in-person musical community. Seek opportunities to play with musicians older and better than you. Have heroes way beyond your present abilities (that’s right, it’s not egalitarian and we are not all equally talented). Learn the recording/archival systems of your generation. Practice a humble, single-minded commitment to greatness, which always begins with imaginative, creative integrity when no one is watching. Put the time in and then put more in. Know where the bar of excellence is. Quitting is not an option. Commit to being a lifelong student of music. If you have solo artistry skills, including composition and songwriting abilities, cultivate them with the level of commitment you give to gaining expertise on an instrument or your voice (pretend you’re a surgeon or an airline pilot—our lives are in your hands). The same goes for music production. Know the history, the inventors and innovators, learn the forms and language, and seek out mentors. Avoid all shortcuts. Failure (missing the mark) teaches a wise student more than success. That is, if the student develops honest analytical skills alongside musical skills, such as learning to distinguish 1.5 from 1.567 of anything musical (think, hearing a gnat whistling out of tune). Be grateful for everything you learn. Say thank you, often. This is a brief beginning.

2. Follow any or all of the directions from #1 (at your discretion—though recommended) while piecing together your unique education, trajectory, and musical maturity to function/serve and be rewarded within the musical ecosystem of people and planet. This will require being a self-disciplined, self-directed autodidact (estimated to be less than 10% of people). This is a journey where you carve your own unique musical path. It does not have to look like your neighbor's. In fact, elements of who you are becoming must stand out from your neighbor's gifts and talents. This path is usually made of dramatic uniqueness via invention or innovation. A simple way to distinguish the two is this: Invention is creating something new that didn't exist before—i.e., creativity original to the creator. Innovation is taking something already existing and imaginatively transforming it in a new way. Invention: creating the wheel. Innovation: using a hollow wheel as a water container to roll home from the well. This #2 type of musician also works to grow existing music styles and genres by making unique contributions as instrumentalists, beatmakers, vocalists, songwriters, recording artists, and more.

3. Follow any direction from #1 and #2 (at your discretion—though recommended) while joining some form of a musical team. This could be a duo, a band, a production team, a symphony, a beatmakers collective, or musicians building a production library for film, television, and media. Everything about the development of skill and ability, plus some element(s) of uniqueness, applies here. The difference is you are not alone. Here, the magic of outsider art theory is applicable. Outsider art is typically made by self-taught creators who are not part of the mainstream art world and work outside conventional training norms. In the case of young bands (such as U2 in 1976), the musicians are teaching one another by creating songs. A band is often a closed system. The band (composed of members) operates independently, with little to no influence from outside forces (except the members' explicit and tacit musical influences). Everything needed for operation (at least initially) is contained within the system. A band is never any better, more mature, or commercially viable than the sum of its members. Yet, this is why a band, a collective, or a production team can become unique and have a long, sustainable career. They may fulfill the inventor role, even to the point where their inexperience or lack of formal education is the very thing that provides their uniqueness and makes them stand apart from their neighbors. And yes, producers also play a role here by adding familiarity, arrangement, sonics, and musical execution to a one-in-a-million band.

This is it. Only three ways, and any combination, to have a sustainable music career—one that helps the musician weather life when everything changes (and it always does).

Take care of the music, and it will take care of you.

Musicians who are the best at the above will continually be developing new music, advancing what can be played on musical instruments, fulfilling society's basic musical needs and wants (from the theater to the classroom to the club), reinvigorating new forms, creating the songs the whole world sings (and neighborhoods too), and changing the course of musical history through invention and innovation. These musicians are a threat to AI, not the other way around.

I have not mentioned the importance of social media and making videos for Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. Neither have I mentioned creating a bass method book, how to find a stylist or publicist, what size T-Shirt sells best, what you should charge for an overnight road gig, or how to get more streams on Spotify.

These are not first things.

Suppose a young musician is not concentrating on one or all of the three paths. Keeping first things first. In that case, they have the proverbial cart before the horse, the gig before the rehearsal.

Ultimately, this failure to stick to first things aided and abetted Giacomo Turra's public failure (while still acknowledging his complicity).

As I’ve been saying in books and posts, winning at Insta (or secondary things) might mean losing at life and music altogether (see Chap. 12: “Sometimes It’s the Winning” from Roots & Rhythm).

Musical creativity, fueled by first things and love, for the use and enjoyment of people and the planet, is a recipe for a fruitful musical life. Bear good fruit—the only success worth having.

Musical development cannot be rushed. It should be attended to seriously, but time cannot restrict the process. It takes what it takes. I'm glad the internet isn't filled with videos of me as a teenage musician or even in my early twenties!

The musician's toolbox and access to pedagogy have never been greater. DAW music editing and production is incredible. I don't want to live without it. But I also don't want to live in a world where teenagers or 28-year-olds learn to play an instrument or sing with quantizing, editing, and Autotune in mind. In short, they anticipate perfecting their performances with technology before they've gained the bare minimum entry to exemplary musicianship. You shouldn't want this either. It's a communal, cosmic concern.

AI music and deep fakes (musical/visual) will become the norm for some music use in society. It's already here, whether you can detect it or not. AI music will replace a variety of musicians/composers/producers (think the 30-second background music playing in a car while two lovers talk in the Netflix series of your choice).

What AI cannot do is produce a lifetime career the likes of Tony Bennett, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, U2, Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé, Johnny Cash, Paul Simon, or Wu-Tang Clan. It will not give you Jon Foreman, John Coltrane, or John Patitucci. Or, Bjork, Barbra, or Billie (Holiday, that is). I imagine we want to keep making more of this type.

All these musicians, including me, with lifetime careers, represent one or more of the paths I've outlined above.

There are no shortcuts. First things first. Always. Then it's all adaptation and reinvention from there on. Which could include a 30-second video on Instagram of a funk jam in Central Park while wearing a trucker cap backwards.

Or, you could just improvise a song for Substack and video it with your iPhone 7. Don’t mock me. I intentionally downgraded. Mistakes, arthritis, and tremor forefinger, all mine. Happy 80th Birthday, Keith Jarrett.

Rick Beato Speaks Out

A wildly influential YouTuber, Rick Beato, part savvy interviewer, part educator, and full-time well-versed musician weighed in on the Giacomo Turra story. Rick revealed this and more about his interaction with Giacomo: “He couldn’t play well enough to be on my channel.” Check out his comment video below, but more importantly, watch some of his amazing videos with truly great musicians, for example, Michael Omartian. You may remember Omar from the Music & Meaning episode I did with him, Brown Bannister, & Keith Thomas, about the four of us working on Amy Grant’s 5x Platinum-album, Heart In Motion.

News for You

Nashvillians, here’s an item for your calendars. Join me Saturday mid-morning on June 14th at the Tennessee State Museum as part of their TN Writers/Stories Series. I’ll be in conversation with the fabulous Jason Wilkins, a longtime writer/manager fixture on the Nashville music scene. Sponsored by Humanities Tennessee and Vanderbilt University Press.

Art House Dallas has many exciting, helpful events coming up in June. Here’s just a few:

Not to be outdone, Art House North in St. Paul, MN is just as busy providing beautiful content and opportunities. Here are few coming as early as next week: