Fun Stuff > BAND

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

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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:

--- Quote from: ViolentDove on 26 Oct 2009, 18:19 ---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.

--- End quote ---

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.

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