Working with a band

[Grappadura]

Tomorrow I´ll be gathering with a band that makes pretty cool weird music. We´ll be discussing the songs and maybe go straight ahead to work on the projects. Anybody got experience on this? Any tips? I can see myself getting a bit annoyed when each of them throws quickly different ideas at me, I need some time to think things over. I guess they´ll want me to cluster everything with cool effects, and I´ll be telling them that simplicity is golden.

[giblespaul89]

hey, i remember when i started with my band. It was a situation where because we didn't really know each other as people and not wanting to offend someone you've just met...for the first few rehearsals we spent a lot of time in silence and just generally being a bit awkward (there all my best mates now.) If you prefer to take time over things i'd probably suggest trying to get some tracks on mp3 or something (even if there rubbish quality) having a listen then email the others over with some of your ideas for it. This should give you both time to take onboard each others ideas and then when you come to meeting and rehearsing in person, you'll have an aim of what to do.

If that's not possible, get them to firstly play their songs to you at practice, ask them what they would like adding to them and if you agree with any of their points or ideas just spend a while focusing on the one which you have an idea in common. Then hopefully you'll be pushing in the right direction.

Hope any of that helped!

[netchaiev]

I've been working/gigging with a band , electro-jazz vibe for sometimes now.

You're an instrumentist and have to find your voice/place in the band:
You're not the drummer so what can you do?
You're not the bass player so what can you do?.
etc...
Are you laying foundations? just fucking up with them?
Are you playing chords? Sounds?

lemme know if that helps..

best best

g

[Grappadura]

thx guys. Well I´m just the producer, and I´ll just be doing whatever they see fit. I will have my own ideas and lay them out too, but I´ll be focusing on what they want. But since they have no experience in producing, they might come up with some useless ideas. I´ll be telling them about frequency clashes, mud, etc.

[aisling]

The most challenging aspects I find working with a "band" is to get the "band" to separate the individual talent and desire for spotlight (guitar solo's, endless excessive licks, snare drum solo and tom fills every measure, cliff burton or jaco on bass) and focus on the "song". Simplicity......less is more....Space and vibe.
Coming from a long history of "bands".....the drums became my worst nightmare to the point of preferring drum loops or a drummer who uses nothing but a kick, snare and hi-hat, with a possible crash ( I have new found respect for the drummers of tom petty, rolling stones, ringo....guys who just lay down the beat and no other fluff)

All the best in your endevor.

[Grappadura]

thx aisling. fortunatly they do without a drummer, its gonna be drumloops all the way. I think what I´ll do is just write down every idea and try my best to accomplish them, but work it out alone, give it to them and ask for feedback. But there will also be some recordings that we´ll need to re-record. Hm this could be a lot of work, for no money. But surely a good experience.

[aisling]

thx aisling. fortunatly they do without a drummer, its gonna be drumloops all the way. I think what I´ll do is just write down every idea and try my best to accomplish them, but work it out alone, give it to them and ask for feedback. But there will also be some recordings that we´ll need to re-record. Hm this could be a lot of work, for no money. But surely a good experience.

Well if there is no drummer, and you're the master clock, then it could be lots of fun, creativity and inspiration. There will always be hard work, but the results can be very invigorating. I fall into the camp that believes that "drum machines have more soul".......

[dhilsabeck]

Let them do their thing (ie brainstorm) and edit the piss out of it later on.

"Show them" what you like after the fact rather than fighting them to do exactly what you want at the session, which can kill creativity. Since musicians can be sensitive you also have to be very assertive, which pretty much amounts to getting them to focus on their strengths. "I really like what you did from 2:30-3:10..." rather than "Everything up to 2:30 just wasn't working..." for example.

As producer, your job is to make decisions so they shouldn't have much of an issue taking some direction from you. If you do a good job editing and demonstrating the idea of what you're looking for, they should have no problem going with that and elaborating on what they started in previous sessions. Especially if it starts to sound cool after some edits.

Have fun.

[Grappadura]

Let them do their thing (ie brainstorm) and edit the piss out of it later on.

guess thats how its gonna be. I don´t want to dictate them how their song should be, but many of their ideas probably won´t work the way they think.

[Grappadura]

Well if there is no drummer, and you're the master clock, then it could be lots of fun, creativity and inspiration. There will always be hard work, but the results can be very invigorating. I fall into the camp that believes that "drum machines have more soul".......

Yes it´ll be fun!

[oblique strategies]

Well, it's easier if you set the ground rules up front than having to backtrack when you get frustrated. That's bad mojo. Know thyself.

[scott nathaniel]

Don't do it. Remember that post you wrote about your friend swiping your girl and the devastation it caused you? Well, in this case, the girl will be the music and everyone will want to have their hands on her, and they always want the juicy parts. Bands are a great ideal but an energy suck in reality.

[oblique strategies]

Don't do it. Remember that post you wrote about your friend swiping your girl and the devastation it caused you? Well, in this case, the girl will be the music and everyone will want to have their hands on her, and they always want the juicy parts. Bands are a great ideal but an energy suck in reality.

They do take time... lots of time.

[Grappadura]

hehe, I was wondering if someone would assotiate this post with the other one. But while the other girl was "mine", this music isn´t, and I´m well aware of that. On the whole, their music works quite well already, so I will just be polishing it a bit.