Ableton Forum

Hi all,

I have been releasing tracks for a couple of years and am just finishing off my first album. I keep getting asked on Facebook whether I am going to be performing these tunes live.

I quite like the idea, but would want to do it properly with a 5-piece band (me on keys + Ableton live, a singer, guitar, drums, and a string player)

My question is how to assemble these people. So I am intrigued to learn if anyone has done this before.

There are loads of places to advertise for musicians, but how does the business side work? Do I expect that a musician will be enthusiastic enough to be happy to learn their parts for free, rehearse for free, and more than likely perform the first gigs for free, just because they feel they are working towards something that has potential (I would assume not). Or is it my job to pay them, kinda like session musicians at first...cover their travel to rehearsals, pay for their time, until we start to get real paying gigs, whereby I would recoup my losses first before working out a split of out takings?

Currently the tracks would all be written by me, each musician just given their part to learn (which I will have mocked up using midi first). But I like the idea of getting in a room with them all and improvising/jamming to come up with new material, so there's more complications there as well regarding writing credits/royalty rights etc

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks all, sorry for the mega post

I've been working in bands for over 30 years.

The easiest way to get players is to pay them, period. I have worked with bandleaders who took no money at all so they could afford to pay their musicians.

Getting musicians to jump in "on spec" hoping to make money in the future is much more difficult, esp. if you want to retain creative control. They would have to be completely in love with your music to do it. Or else you have to give up some creative input/control. Even then, it's hard to retain players if paying gigs are not on the books. Money talks and bullshit walks is the old saying.

The singer will be the most difficult. Good singers can write their own ticket and often get more attention than the person who writes the music and runs the band. You will need to find someone who loves your tunes and is willing to sing your lyrics, or you have to love the lyrics that they come up with.

As funken wrote, word of mouth tends to make for better bands than want ads in my experience. The catch is if you don't already have connections with other musicians, word of mouth won't get you very far

Think about starting small, find one or two of the people you need, start gigging and add more pieces as you can afford it.

Oh yeah, royalties: if the band manages to get to the point where that is a concern, splitting royalties with the non-writing members helps keep things running more smoothly than if one or two people get all the money which can cause resentments. Publishing can be much more lucrative because it accrues from airplay as well as CD/download sales and is paid immediately to the writer.

Some people like nothing more than to play and have fun and even love being handed their parts - less pressure to deliver when they just want to play and have fun. That said, before insisting that on completely writing everything, don't be afraid to see what others could contribute. The best music is often the product of collaboration, and helps you to avoid sounding one dimensional.

A five piece sounds too big to me.
Transportation and lodging costs start to spiral ( you also tend to have a manager and a crew member/driver) . Plus the chances that one of them will flake out increases. Somebody will have a drug issue/ annoying pushy partner / road rage / whatever

Personally I like a three piece as a good size, the inter- personal dynamics are easier to manage.

If you want people to just play your music exactly as you wrote it then decent musicians will want paying. If you pay peanuts you'll get monkeys.