Getting into/forming a band and staying with/in it!

[Christophe]

So I have a problem. The problem is that I have never been in a band that either didn't break up from boredom within a month's time or had time conflicts that prevented us from meeting regularly. And even when I am in a band with other people I feel extremely weird about telling people how to play songs I've written. The prospect of it seems incredibly unappealing to me, having to dictate part by part how a song goes when nowadays I have been playing drums for about a year, so all I do is just record everything myself. (yeah yeah, part of being in a band is coming up with things together but sometimes a man just has fully formed songs in his head.)

So while there's something nice about being an Elliott Smith or a Simon and Garfunkel and being able to play songs with just a voice and an acoustic guitar, most of the music I want to make would be reliant on other people playing along with me in a band setting.

So there are people on this forum for which things like this are not a problem, at least to the point of being farther along than me in making music with other people. How do you do it? I'm pretty lost at that myself and could use a few pointers.

[sean]

maybe one thing that might help would be to write songs with the band that yr in! i mean, its cool that if you have yr own songs but you can't ignore the creative input of the rest of the band. i guess if yr the main composer thats pretty cool but i feel like that even if you have songs fully formed in yr head, you can't ignore the creative influence of everyone else. just sit back and let the music flow out of everyone, i guess? thats really what we did in good night, sweet prince. but there we also basically wrote our music out of jam sessions, except for one little part.

i dunno, different techniques work for different groups of people. it's a complicated thing, i think.

[Ptommydski]

1. Write some music.
2. Record said music on your own to the best of your ability.
3.
4. Profit?

[Joseph]

I enjoy that you gave him a real response on the PRF and not here, Tommy.

[Ptommydski]

Kenny Loggins is the best advice, I just didn't want those crafty Chicago types stealing him first.

[Joseph]

Do you have any of his contact information so I can see if he's interested in joining my band?

[Ptommydski]

I hope it's smooth.

[StaedlerMars]

See sig.

[ViolentDove]

You need to sit down with your band and set one time a week that everyone keeps free no matter what for rehearsing, or if you can't rehearse, then organising gigs, promo, whatever.

Once you have a set time every week that you can plan around it makes the whole thing much easier. If the people you're playing in a band with can't committ to a regular rehearsal then probably you should not be in a band with them if you are at all serious about it.

As far as collaborative writing goes, I'm a fan of someone writing a tune on their own time, then bringing it to rehearsal to workshop with the rest of the band. Rather than saying "This is how the song is going to go and that's final" it's more like "here are the chords and can we try it like this and see how it sounds" and they will probably go with some stuff, and write new stuff as well. If after a while you find you completely disagree with everything they do to your songs, then maybe consider not being in a band with them also.

Bands are like being married to multiple people. You need to compromise on stuff if you're going to keep it all together.

[Bastardous Bassist]

You need to sit down with your band and set one time a week that everyone keeps free no matter what for rehearsing, or if you can't rehearse, then organising gigs, promo, whatever.

Totally the best idea if you're doing something with a group of people.  With bands it's great, but even other things can benefit from this attitude.  Say band practice is Wednesday evening.  You no longer have to wonder if you should accept an invitation from someone to do something on Wednesday because maybe it might conflict with a possible band practice.  It actually conflicts with a real band practice that will always happen on Wednesday, no matter when it is (I have always made an exception for band practice for gigs, but I usually try to schedule for a night where that's a rare occurrence).

Also, about writing songs together, I also agree with the above.  People need to bring forth a chord change or melody or whatever, and an idea of what the song should be.  The beauty of a band is that they will interpret what you're playing based on what they've played/listened to in the past.  If you don't like the way they're interpreting what you're playing, then you either need to think about why you want your song interpreted a certain way (i.e. why is your concept of the song better than their's), or why they're interpreting yours song that way (i.e. why aren't they playing it right).  If it turns out that the way you hear it in your head is the only way it could possibly exist for you, and there is no reason for the other guys to be playing it differently from what you hear in youre head, then you either need to reign in your ego or find new guys.  Which one is entirely clear cut.

[BlakeJustBlake]

The most important thing is being able to mesh together. If the drummer and the guitarist can jam on anything like they're telekinetic, but the bassist just can't get into their groove, then it might be fucked. To figure out who works out well, play with EVERYONE. do you know someone who plays an instrument? invite them over to play.

If you are just having a band to play songs you've written, then you're going to have to get used to explaining songs to people, and you need to find people who are receptive to just playing your songs and aren't too dissatisfied losing some creative control then it should work out fine.

Writing songs is unique to every band. The way I like writing songs is just getting together and jamming around until we find something everyone thinks is real fun then we just refine it and refine it until it works. Some people can't really jam, so they have to do a more sit down songwriting with the band or play around on their own and bring something in to practice.

All of this you can figure out, but one thing is for sure. You have meet up fairly regularly for anything to work.

[imapiratearg]

I wish I could find some people who would say to me: "We should form a band," or "Let's jam sometime!" and actually mean it.

That would be pretty cool.

[Patrick]

Matt you don't know how many times I've had that same damn problem. I've only ever wound up starting bands that way TWICE, and I've been playing 6 and a half years. And only one of those bands yielded more than one gig.

[glyphic]

I have had to resort to craigslist for my last two bands. Bah.

Keeping them together is tough. Everyone needs to be dedicated. But not obsessive-dedicated. People who are 150% about the band ALL THE TIME make it seem like you can't have fun with it. So you really want to have eight hour practices three times a week even though we all have jobs? That's cool. If we don't make enough progress in a practice session, you're going to rant and rave about how we aren't serious about the band? Makes sense.

 Of course, people who aren't very invested can make the songwriting process almost as fun as oral surgery. What's that, drummer? You just want to speed the whole song up and do a punk beat throughout? Sounds fantastic! It's not like the other members and I have spent the last two weeks writing technical parts that you just haven't bothered to practice or anything.

But seriously, a set practice schedule serves several purposes. My favorite is to see if your bandmates are responsible enough. If they don't show up or are constantly calling off, then you probably need new guys. Then there's always the guy with the job whose schedule changes every week. You may hear that he has to work a week in advance or the day of the practice.

If you've got songs you've written yourself, be prepared to change them. Generally I find it best practice to come up with a few parts that you love and go together and then ask what else to add to the song to make it cohesive. That way you don't feel like people are ruining your masterwork. I'm not saying that you have to dumb down your music to placate your friends, just that you should leave some room for additional input.