I’ve been thinking about my experience getting back into a band lately and what makes up a good bandmate. Subjective, I realize, but there are definite traits which make someone harder to get along with in a group setting. Rather than focus on the negatives, let’s review and hopefully discuss in the comments below some positive tips.
When I was originally invited to jam with three other guys I wasn’t expecting to be invited back but it was a good feeling when that happened. The initial jam session was one of those less than formal things, awkward for the first five minutes perhaps, but as I’ve returned to jam over the last couple months I’ve collected a list of things our band needed that we didn’t have and slowly filled in those gaps.
Hey wait, what if I can’t find a band to play with?
Finding other musicians that enjoy the same types of music isn’t easy. While I wasn’t really looking to being in a band before being invited to play with this band, I have been looking for others to play with since and that process needs its own how-to. There are sites like Bandmix.com which might help out, but the following tips assume that you have already found a band to be in and that you enjoying playing the same basic types of music. A death metal guitarist is probably not going to be a good fit for a jazz band.
The band organizer role
I wouldn’t call myself the leader of our band, and truth be told I’m not sure a band leader is absolutely required, but I’ve definitely taken an organizational role. I think it’s critical that at least one person — it can be by committee if multiple people want to fill this role — be an organizer. There are a bare minimum number of things a band needs to, well, be a band.
Before getting into tips showing how to be a better bandmate, let’s look at what is required to call the group of musicians you’re playing with a band.
Band requirements
1. Musicians with equipment. You aren’t a guitarist without a guitar, no more than a drummer is without drums. First phase: buy or rent the equipment. Phase two: learn how to play. It is possible to learn how to play in a band setting, but most bands aren’t going to tolerate a new member who doesn’t have the basics down before looking to play with others.
Guitars: you should learn a few songs all the way through, including guitar solos and be able to tune and keep in tune your guitar. Learning tab is handy too. Learn common chords like E, A, D, G, C, B, F and be able to fret them cleanly as both open chords and barred. I’d check the internet for one of a zillion different websites that covers scales and learn a few scales too. I’m not hardcore like some are about scales, but if you plan to play lead guitar and solo, scales will help your playing immensely. Rhythm guitar? Not so much. Also make sure to change your strings after 15-30 hours of playing or when the sound starts to sound dull.
Drummers: Be able to play, keep a beat and perform periodic and creative fills. Keep the drum heads tuned. Have plenty of extra sticks handy. If the drummer can’t keep time, everybody can get messed up. Timing is everything.
Bassists: the one and perhaps only part of a band that can be average or fairly new and still get by. This is a good place for people brand new to play. Playing badly is still playing badly, but you really only need to know how to play in key and keep the rhythm. Not trying to diminish importance of a skilled professional bassist, but I think even seasoned bass players would admit of all the parts of a band, a bass is a logical, safe starting place for someone brand new to a band.
A great bass player will help a band immensely while an average bass player can sink into the background and not be annoying. An average drummer, guitar player and/or vocalist are a lot more noticeable than an average bass player — and not in a good way.
Vocalist: take care of your pipes and memorize the lyrics. Obvious: make sure you don’t come to practice with no voice and sans lyrics. You can read off a lyrics sheet for awhile, but if you plan to gig out lyric sheets are not very cool to carry around. Get the lyrics down.
Keyboards: know how to program and play your keys. Helps being able to read sheet music because the band can give you the sheet music for songs and you can get up to speed. Same as guitar, know a few songs all the way through and being able to play without making (many) mistakes.
2. Place to practice. This could be a basement or garage or pretty much any place that is ok sound-wise. Should be relatively dry as electrical equipment and moisture don’t get along. Also need to have the temperature be tolerable. It can get pretty hot. You also need to be able to practice where the noise level doesn’t adversely impact neighbors. The later at night your practice the bigger an issue the noise becomes. If you’re playing in the middle of the day you can probably get away with being a little noisier, but if you crank up the Marshall stack after 9pm, don’t be surprised if the police come knocking.
3. Regular practice schedule. A band that never practices isn’t a band, it’s a bunch of guys that play music together once in awhile. Whatever schedule and time works for the band as a whole, stick to it so it becomes habit. I know we practice on Sunday nights at 6pm unless it’s a holiday weekend. Easy to remember and not something that has to be written down. Pick a schedule, stick to it, show up and play.
That’s it.
Notice I didn’t get into picking a band name or logo or website or slick myspace page. The band I’m in currently doesn’t have any of these things. We have played one original song only one time and haven’t recorded a lick of video or audio yet. I suspect we’ll be playing more originals as time goes on, but first we are figuring out what kinds of music we sound best playing and tightening various cover songs. That process can take some time when you’re only playing once a week. Once we have the music down because hey, it’s all about the music, it’s easy to worry about promotional activities and gigging out.
I think coming up with a name for your band happens after you have actually written and performed original music and make plans to record and/or play that music at a gig. Who gives a crap if your band has a cool name if you don’t have #1-3 above locked down first? So, no, we don’t have a band name or some catchy myspace page, but we’re still a legitimate band. You will be part of a band too if you are doing #1-3 above.
At home we have a drum set, PA, bass, guitars, amps and mixer. We have a place to play, but we don’t have a regular practice schedule. Therefore I’d say we’re not a band, just a family that practices playing music together once in awhile. If we setup a regular schedule, we could become a band.
Enough descriptions, now that you know how a band is defined let’s get to the good stuff.
Tips how to be a better bandmate
1. Be willing to learn, practice and play music you don’t like. A major frustration I’ve read about is not having compatible music tastes. If you don’t like playing song X or band Y, suck it up and compromise. This doesn’t mean playing in a band with an entire genre of music you can’t stand like playing country or rap if you only like rock, but it does mean being flexible with different types of country artists if you are in a country band or being willing to cover pop songs when you are in a rock band. That kind of thing.
I remember a situation when I shared a Whitesnake song with the group and the artist was universally panned. Oh well, no Whitesnake then. Move on. Personally, I think Whitesnake has some killer songs, but there are thousands of bands to choose music from that you don’t need to be hung up on covering one artist that the rest of the band doesn’t like. A good band mate shouldn’t get hung up on having to play any one artist.
2. Leave the drugs and alcohol out. I enjoy playing with other band members who are not stoned or drunk and treat my band mates with the courtesy of not showing up — ever — messed up. If you want to get high, do it on your own time, not during practice or performances. The band I played with in high school this was a huge problem. So much that after a few songs, we sounded much worse. It always bothered me because I felt like we weren’t respecting the music and our progress was being hampered. Playing music and having fun doesn’t require drugs or alcohol.
We’ve all heard the stories about rockers who seem to be “better” when they are high or drunk, but I’ve yet to meet even one real musician in a real world practice and/or performance scenario that was a better player high than straight/sober. I’m sure there people who are awesome musicians straight and are better than average players when they are high, but it’s a shame not to see musicians at their absolute best. Not trying to be preachy but drugs and alcohol impair, not improve.
3. Bring at least one new complete (or almost complete) song to each practice session. Let’s face it, if you play the same music over and over again without trying/learning/playing any new songs, yes you will get better at those songs, but eventually things will get boring. I make it a goal to come to each new practice session with at least one new song the group hasn’t played together before. I think a good band mate tries to grow in their craft and bring in new songs that the group might be able to play together. Some songs work out of the gate and others will require multiple plays to stick.
There is a limit to how many new songs make sense. People that get together to play don’t want to waste too much of that time learning new songs, so just mix in at least one new song every practice session. I actually shoot for 3-5 new songs, but no less than one new song. This way if the first song doesn’t go well, there are a couple other new ones to try.
4. Keep track of what songs gel right away. The best songs you perform are worth playing again and again and added to a regular playlist. They should be practiced and refined so that every band member feels good enough to be able to go in and out of them in any order.
In order to know what songs we’ve played (and played well), I keep track of every song alphabetically sorted by artist in a text file. I use an asterisk for songs we have not played in front of the song and the + for a partial song performed. I keep two three ring binders. The bigger binder contains lyrics for all the songs we’ve ever played. The smaller binder contains the lyrics and list of the songs we’ve played that sound the best.
To make it from the big to small book a song has to sound pretty good. This way, we have a list of songs that the group could choose from to play at live gigs someday and/or practice regularly if there are no plans to gig out.
5. When it comes to covers, listen to the originals as group and individual. I keep several special playlists on my Zune with the original and/or live recordings of each song we are playing. If I don’t have the song — a new song perhaps another band mate has shared with the group — then I’ll go buy it from AmazonMP3 or one of the other online stores over the next week.
At band practice I plug the Zune into the mixing board and the group can listen to the original to get certain parts of the song down. This would be good for sharing original song ideas too.
A bit of music philosophy here: I don’t think covers should be exact copies of songs unless we’re talking about games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I know some bands try to cover things exactly. I think it’s more important to give a respectful treatment to the song. This means that a) you get all the vocal parts down and b) you include the main musical parts of the song. By listening to the original you will learn what is important in a song and can improvise and enhance from there. Frankly, I find exact covers — or close to exact — boring and uninspired.
If the others in your band disagree and want to create exact copies of songs, then you have an important choice: practice to get the songs down as close to the original as possible or search for a different band that has a more liberal approach to covers.
Our band enjoys guitar solos so we take songs like Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker’s “Breakdown” which the original song is less than three minutes and make it a 5-7 minute song with some creative changes and nice solo breaks. We also don’t play it with keyboards which I think adds a slightly different dimension. Not going to say anything bold or crazy like our version is better than Petty’s, but I think if you heard it at an event or in a bar, you’d not only recognize the song but think the treatment was good.
6. Be flexible, willing to switch instruments and/or from lead to rhythm. Three of the four people in our band, including me are flexible and willing to change from lead guitar to rhythm as well as play bass. Our drummer is the only set player in the group. When it comes to singing, two of the four in our band take turns with the lead vocals, although I could see us getting a dedicated vocalist for all the songs and the current vocalists becoming backup singers.
I put this tip last because it won’t apply to bands who have set members, but it is handy for bands who are trying to work through what combination of players works best with each song. It is also good when one of the group can’t make practice. We have two very capable drummers, so if our regular drummer doesn’t show, the other member can step in competently.
Respect, patience and having fun
I could have made the bolded title above the only tip because a lot of being in a band is about respecting other members. It’s also about having patience to work through new songs and troubled spots in existing songs. Above all others, it should be fun playing music. If you don’t enjoy playing music, or get super stressed in expectation of a playing with others, a band is the last place to be.
I’m looking forward to when we start creating some original music and recording. And perhaps beyond that if all continues to go well someday if/when an opportunity arises to play a gig and realize that we have to pare down a list of songs to the ones we enjoy playing best. It would be awesome if that list of songs was well over 100. Then again, if we never gig out, it’s just fun as heck playing and learning new songs. Money? Fame? Not part of any of our band’s agenda at the present time. No idea what the future holds but in the meantime we all seem to be having fun.
Should you ever decide to be in a band or are already in one, I hope this helps you become a better bandmate. You’re welcome to and encouraged to add additional tips below or trackback from your blog. I stopped at six tips, but I’m sure there are plenty more.
Don’t have much sympathy for counterfeiters, but I see a few problems with Laser Printers having special dots that reveal the serial number of the printer to the Secret Service. Why wouldn’t counterfeiters simply not register the printers? Or buy the printers second hand through a party that paid cash? Knowing the serial number and time/date sold doesn’t completely finger the buyer as the counterfeiter, does it?
