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So You Wanna Start a Band and/or Maybe You Need Band Aids?Feb 21 '02 (Updated Apr 28 '02) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Being in a band requires hard work, flexibility, determination and planning. Arrange set lists together and when things go wrong don't blame. Prepare band objectives and goals and HAVE FUN!
What mistakes have I learnt over the years that could help others? I’ve been playing music for 25 years and I have made all the mistakes imaginable along the way. Nobody can take that away from me! So with reverence I will share my experience and hope that this information will help those thinking about joining a band or putting a band together or who simply are frustrated with the way things are going with their own BAND. My Band aids, tips, rules, call them whatever you want, taken as a whole, they can help any band improve and get better...so here they are: 1. Practice. Before you can even think about joining a band or putting a band together you need to be able to play an instrument well enough to jam with others. Sometimes knowing how to play as little as 20 songs may be enough to get you started in a band. Practicing has never been made easier with all the information available on the internet, magazines, video instructionals, etc... Every music or guitar site on the internet has playing tips, music tabs of your favorite songs, music scales and tips on how to improve technique and speed. What more do you need? Cheap guitars today are excellent value and very playable, so that’s no excuse either. What? You can't find any guitar instruction sites! Try these: http://members.tripod.com/~johncomino/ ("Guitar Theory Resources") http://www.guitarists.net/ http://www.cyberfret.com/index.php http://www.power-chord.com/gaff/ http://www.guitartricks.com/ http://www.torvund.net/guitar/ Deciding to start with an acoustic or an electric is up to you. But proper picking technique is better learnt on an acoustic. You can learn about power chords later! If you practice at improving your technique and learning your chords and scales at least one hour every day, you will be playing in a band within a year or two. That means a minimum of 350 hours of serious practice. When you get to 1000 hours, you will be or should be a well refined guitar player. Professional players will practice one hour just to maintain and improve their technique and to warm up before playing their songs. I know players who practice 5 hours a day and go to band practice twice a week. When they get together, they will learn a Dream Theater song faster than I can learn Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s “Blue on Black” solo. But they practice more... So practice technique, practice scales, practice the songs and then practice some more. Then when you go to band practice, you will be properly prepared, you will have confidence, you will enjoy yourself more and others in the band will have fun as well. You should be prepared to play every song on the bands set list. This is also called having good work ethics. 2. Knowing the songs. Knowing the chords, solos and lyrics is obviously important. But do you know them well enough to perform, to make each song your own and add a little of yourself, to add your own unique style. Your set list should only include those songs you can perform. Knowing the chords, solos and lyrics is not enough. Can you start anywhere in the song, mix it up a little like jump to the chorus and back to the bridge then to the chorus again and then to verse 3 and back again to the chorus. Can you do it effortlessly? Can you do it backwards? I’m kidding... As a band, if you get sick of doing the same song over and over, then somebody is not properly prepared and the band is wasting a lot of energy trying to get it right. Band practice is not the time to teach someone a new song. This is better done BEFORE band practice. Everybody MUST know the songs on the set list for Band practice. If somebody does not know the song it must be taken off the list until everybody knows how to play it. Don’t waste everybody’s time by going to practice unprepared. This brings us to tip number 3. 3. Preparing the bands set list. This is perhaps the most important decision the band will have to make. Every band member should have a say in the bands final set list providing the lead singer can properly sell the song. If he or the alternate singer are uncomfortable with any song, scratch the song off the set list. The band is not ready to DO that song YET! Suck it up, move on to the next song! The music on the set list must be varied unless you are strictly a metal or punk rock band. By varied I mean that if you start with high energy music you must throw in a little variety to mix with your audience. Give them a break and slow the pace down once in a while unless high energy is what you want from beginning to end with no compromise whatsoever! Also, if your band is competing in a Battle of the Bands gig, this is no time to mix it up, since you may only have 3 to 5 songs to impress the judges and the audience. Every 10 songs is about 30 minutes of music (the average song is about 3 minutes long). A set list should include between 15 and 20 songs. You can only think about opening for another band if you can only play 20 songs. With 40 songs you are very limited in that you have no room to make music adjustments to your set list for any given show. If you have 40 songs on your set list, that is roughly about 2 hours of music that you could split up in 2 sets. Your best songs should be included in your first set but save a couple for the second set. When you get to 60 songs your band should be ready to front a show on its own. At 80 songs, your band will be ready for any show, anywhere, anytime. At 100, your band will be seriously ready for anything. You can start the show with the bands best song but never end the show with the very best the band has to offer. Keep the bands “signature song” for this spot. It may be one of your favorites but not the very BEST the band has to offer. 4. Working together as a team. Be a team player and work together. It can be a very satisfying experience to pull off a successful gig together. As a team, there should be space for band members to grow, to learn and to make mistakes as well. If you already have this mind set, you are already on a winning team. Have you ever considered how your playing is affecting other members of the band? Is your playing mixing well with the overall band sound? Is your stage volume making it hard for others to hear themselves play? Is everybody bouncing off each others cue? Is the band communicating musically? This is what playing in a band is all about. Working together as a team. Communicating with music! 5. Knowing the songs is one thing, KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE is another. The average audience will notice more than your music alone. People will first notice your presence on stage. Then they will notice what you look like and first appearances are very important. Finally, people will notice your music and what you sound like. Knowing your audience is a very important concept to understand and easier to explain with an example. Our band played 2 separate shows on the same weekend. The first night was at a University night club filled with students in their twenties. The second night was Band night at our local night club. Now the “students” wanted alternative rock, classic rock, a little metal and hard rock, music that you may think brings a band much credibility. Now, back at the local night club, our audience wanted fun, fun, fun! Never mind anything alternative or remotely heavy because it did not “fly.” So we adjusted our set list and included nothing but standard rock and roll and classic rock that everybody knew and remembered and could sing along with us. We did not loose credibility, we gained respect from our audience. My point is, the audience loved the band on both nights, whether we played credible music or not. So as a band do you choose to have a great night every night and get to play more often by knowing your audience a little better or are you limiting yourself and your band otherwise? Now, on the other hand, you don’t take your top 40 set list to a punk rock show. It simply won’t “fly!” And If we were strictly a metal band would there have been any doubt about the kind of music we were going to play? Would we have been invited at both gigs? Think about it, your band is only limited by your knowledge of the audience: presence on stage, appearances and music. 6. Blaming is like a cancer, it will hurt a band, emotionally drain a band and can eventually kill the band. When things go wrong, don’t blame! If you do, the band WILL hurt and may fall apart. Everybody feels bad when things go wrong, blaming only makes it worse. So what if the audience did not applaud, so what if the band screwed up royally, so what if the singer forgot the lyrics to the same song he sang 100 times, so what if the sound engineer is having a bad day, so what if your equipment fails, so what if you had a tough gig and your worried about not getting booked again. Some things are out of your control while others you can do something about. Concentrate on those things you can do better. Life is full of disappointments, so why don’t you learn to deal with every disappointment like an opportunity to learn and avoid the same mistakes on the next show. If the same mistakes repeat, the band can decide to do many things, such as: get a new sound man, replace the lead singer or anybody else, the band could always decide to stop gigging altogether, call it quits or the band could go back to the garage and work things out. Not with your fists but with beer! Laugh it off! Just stop hurting the band, stop the emotional drainage of the band, stop the cancer, STOP BLAMING. 7. Are we having fun yet? Are the members of the band musically compatible? Are there any personality conflicts? What about Ego maniacs? Is the chemistry good? Is everybody having fun? Is everybody motivated and looking forward to the next practice and/or the next gig? If not, you should be! Furthermore, If you haven’t been having any fun after a couple of months, it is possible that you never will with this band. You can analyze the situation and make suggestions to help better the band, but at the end of the day if nothing changes, you will have an important decision to make. And maybe you need to change your own attitude? Since we can’t control or change anybody else, we can though effectively change and control our own feelings. So perhaps it is your own unhappiness that is the source of the problem? So if you are not willing to change your attitude, it is perhaps time to move on and join another band. Remember, blaming is like a cancer, so if an attitude adjustment is in order, do it over beer! 8. Set Band objectives and goals. Everybody should be on the same wavelength, pushing forward towards the same expectations! Where do you see the band in 6 months, 1 year or 2 years down the road? Why are you in a band? Is it just to have fun, for self-esteem, for artistic expression? What about composing your own music? Is this band serious about anything or not? Maybe jamming in your garage is all you want to do and that’s OK for you! But what about everybody else? For those wanting to take the band a step further, set band objectives and goals to attain. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail! No objectives & no goals = no guidance & no expectations = no gigs & no fun = NO BAND! 9. Where's your loyalty? Unless you are a professional musician, playing in multiple bands can be a problem. Is one of the bands prepared to rehearse and gig without you if you have commitments elsewhere with another band? Networking with other musicians is fine, in fact I encourage people to jam with as many musicians as they can find. But I need to know about the persons loyalty to the band? 10. One last comment regarding drugs, negative attitudes and rock and roll? How can anyone say they play their best when they are wasted? Does that mean that when they are not wasted, they are mediocre musicians at best? If you are serious about your band and music then you should know that you need to be physically, mentally and emotionally fit. Taking care of yourself is paramount to your health and the future of the band. Negative attitudes and blaming are poisonous to a band. Be optimistic, think about good things and discuss things objectively and with a positive attitude and believe in yourself and the band and with this mind set good things will happen. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Being in a band requires hard work, some amount of sacrifice and flexibility, but the rewards can be more personally satisfying and more indescribable and inexpressible than you might think possible.  |
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