Step 1. Choose an Instrument

Do you already play an instrument? Great! Is it guitar? If not, throw it in the trash and go buy a guitar. All the VGM greats play guitar, so don’t even waste your time on fake instruments like the glockenspiel, the accordion, or the holophonor.

Step 2. Practice

Instead of practicing an hour a day for two to three years, simply quit your job and practice 24/7 for a month. There are plenty of great tutorials out there, but you should ignore them all and focus only on playing “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath. If you can play that song, you can play anything.

Step 3. Pick a Game

You might be thinking that there are thousands of games with greats soundtracks to arrange, but you would be wrong. There are three games that you should arrange, and once you choose a game, you stick with your game. The three acceptable choices are: Undertale, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Final Fantasy VII.

Step 4. Start Arranging

Now that you’ve chosen your game, it’s time to start arranging! You might be tempted to do an Indian prog metal remix, but control your urges to do anything out of the ordinary. Simply transcribe the original soundtrack (or better yet, find a MIDI file), then replace the melodies with lead guitars and rhythm guitars. Don’t worry about bass or drums as nobody will notice if they’re missing.

Step 5. Upload

Do I really need to explain how to upload to YouTube? C’mon.

Step 6. Branding

If you’ve done your job right, you won’t sound any different from the hundreds of other VGM guitarists out there, but that’s where branding comes in. Find something vain or artificial (like a hairstyle) or invent a personality (an anime fan who loves to cosplay) and stick to your brand. That’s very important.

Step 7. Start Tweeting

Don’t bother with Facebook, tumblr, or any other platform for social media engagement. Everyone uses Twitter because it’s the easiest way to put your opinions out there. Speaking of opinions, don’t bother sharing your music on Twitter at all. Spend about 50% of your time complaining about how no one watches your videos and the other 50% of the time aggressively subtweeting people you disagree with.

Step 8. Collaborate

All the VGM greats collaborate, and you should too! If you don’t have any real-life friends, you can always ask people on Twitter if they want to collab. It doesn’t matter if you know them or not. Simply say “Collab?”, and they’ll understand.

Step 9. Build a Fanbase

If you’ve followed every one of these steps carefully, you’re ready to start building a fanbase. Some people might tell you that there many ways to build a fanbase, but they would be wrong. There’s only one way, and that’s by uploading a video every single day. Impossible? Not if you’re doing it right. It should only take you about an hour to arrange, record, and upload, otherwise you’re doing it wrong.

Step 10. Start Making Money

Did you know that you can legally sell your VGM covers? Well, now you do, and it’s very simple. Simply upload your music to Bandcamp with the statement, “No copyright infringement intended” in the description, and you’re all clear! You might have heard about companies like Distrokid and Soundrop that claim they can help you sell your music, but these companies are scam artists looking to steal YOUR money!