In a few bands and nobody really has a place at home where we can rehearse, so i’ve been weighing options like self storage facilities and paying for studio time or renting a shared space. Where does your band rehearse? Are there any cheap ways to get a place to jam?
Been a part of my band for over five years. We played countless festivals, big venues, shitty dive bars, etc. Even dropped an LP and four singles along with multiple music videos throughout the years. With all the achievements, I just never really felt satisfied with the music we played, and more importantly, I never really felt like I meshed well with the other's personalities (they are all 10+ years older than me). After a long time of rolling with the punches, I've decided to announce my exit closer to the end of the year when gigs slow down. I can't tell you how relieving it feels knowing I won't be bound to a project I've grown to dislike.
Has anyone else felt a great sense of relief after ditching a project? How did you do it, and was it the best decision you made for your music career, or do you regret it?
I’m kinda getting desperate to find a good situation to get creative in, going up to people in person is always the same for me:
Yes initially then ghost not long after
Have flyers worked for you? Or am I better off going on band mix or something
Hey. I will really appreciate any input anyone has towards this subject. Please let me explain.
I am forming a band just to make songs, we don’t want to tour or anything, just stay local and focus more on making music than touring. We all like metal/hardcore but we all have different tastes when it comes to how we want our music to sound. We can’t find common ground on how we want our music to come out as. Our drummer likes more metalcore, our vocalist likes emo violence type shit. I like new school hardcore and beatdown, our other guitarist likes post hardcore.
Its hard to find a sound that everyone is happy with and it sounds wack when we try to put all of our influences together.
How do you balance your influences going into your songwriting processes? How do you get everyone happy with the sound/image of your band?
Thanks
I'm not saying this applies to everyone but I've spoken to so many potential band mates who just seem to have a bad mentally. It's like people join expecting the band to be exactly as they want from day one. Fitting exactly around a very tight schedule, zero upfront costs, maybe a nice payment for each gig. I've been reading Miki Beriyani's book and even successful bands are full of issues I don't think people would even entertain now. Dictatorial song writers and low pay etc, very hard recording sessions that take days to finish. Imagine if everyone left Smashing pumpkins because they hated Billy Corgan before they even finished any albums.
I kind of see a band as a project where everyone is working to create something awesome but I've met people who just split the moment they don't get their way 100%. Or people who expect to pay nothing towards the band.
And it's sad because I think if people stuck with a band and put in more effort together there might be way more amazing bands playing that there is. I've seen people locally who constantly seem to be searching for a new band even while being in a really good giging band. Maybe the Internet gives people too many options to just join a new band the moment they get bored? I wasn't really around in the 90s or 80s, maybe things were a lot different?
So currently I'm forming a band and while I'm struggling to find members at the moment, I figured what I could do in the meantime is try to figure out how to build a stage presence while I wouldn't be the vocalist (although I do enjoy singing and would like to do it at some point) I would mainly be the guitarist and I was wondering what are things that I could work on that would help me have a decent stage presence. Some ideas I was thinking were maybe doing like funny parodies before the show starts and I've just come up with funny ideas of stuff that could be done on stage however. Any advice or criticism would greatly be appreciated!
So I have my first gig in 12 years any tips for calming the nerves etc?
Forming my first gig band. I totally have no clue how to get performance opportunities for my newly formed band. We would like to do covers for a start.
As for the members, not sure if we are getting the right people. Keyboardist say currently vox can't sing and she has in mind another who has gig experience. Next guitarist last minute informed us he can't join us when we agreed to scout for an open mic venue.
Suddenly I feel the chaos here. Not sure am I just over anxious.
Anyone has any frustrating experience managing your own new band ?
hey guys, i’m a teen from a smallish town. (eh, not rlly that small actually) anyways im wondering how to find other teens who play the bass or drums? there’s many people i found who play electric guitar, and i reached out in my towns reddit sub. but how else do i find band memebers? thanks
This all started back in May after we played our first show. The promoter had gotten a video of one of our songs, and the audio quality sucked. Anyway my bassist was adamant that its not to be posted anywhere. I kinda get it but if it were up to me, I'd post it.
Anyhow this morning a friend of ours hit me up and said he was looking to record us playing at an open mic to post on YouTube. It's some kinda series he's doing to highlight local bands. I'm like he'll yeah let me just check if that's cool. My bassist still opposed us having any live audio out there. He wouldn't do it unless we could splice some studio music over it (we haven't even been in the studio yet). I explained to him that this isn't a cheap android video this time, it's a nice camera and he wouldn't budge.
I know this is something we'll have to discuss, but this might be irreconcilable for me. Only having our studio music out there just feels lame to me. Plus I'm sure venues we'll try to book at would want to see what our live sound is like. This is literally free videography and publicity but he won't take it. What's the deal with this?
So for context, I'm forming a band and I haven't found members yet. However, I'm currently working on a list of songs that I want to learn, so then I can practice on my own time and get better. I'm thinking on adding additional resources for tutorials on how to sing and play the song in drums and bass since given that I'm still in high school (rising senior) there aren't a lot of pro musicians in my grade. So should I add these tutorials?
I’ve been playing in a band for almost two years now. It’s going well, I’m the lead guitarist (30. F). But there’s an issue, or at least it’s starting to feel like one for me.
I’m not very expressive. I’m so focused on what I’m doing and so serious that I’ve started getting comments about it.
At first, it was just the other band members saying things like, “We’re not sure you’re really enjoying it because you look so concentrated, you don’t smile.”
And that’s true. Because I’m in my head. I don’t even really use sheet music. I have it, but I don’t use it during rehearsals or gigs because I want everything to be memorized.
Anyway, I tried to change that. I tried looking at them more, trying to smile while playing.
Then we started doing concerts. And the same thing came up again, but this time also from someone in the audience: “Hey the guitarist, it was cool, but why don’t you ever smile?”
My boyfriend also told me I give the impression of not enjoying myself, that I should loosen up, feel more comfortable, and get over my shyness (he’s very kind about it).
More recently, other people have said the same thing: “She plays well, but wow, she’s really focused.”
The problem is, I don’t feel like it’s shyness.
I just can’t be expressive or jump around, roll on the floor… The bassist and guitarist in my band do that, though.
Actually, they’re always doing it, and honestly sometimes I even find it too much.
I’m starting to think I might be better off just staying home and composing.
Makes me sad, I feel like I don't belong here.
Since November, myself and my partner have been working so hard on a band we fell into purely by chance: I approached a fellow music teacher at a Saturday academy and we all agreed to jam together. We quickly got super excited because we sounded amazing together and his songs were absolutely awesome. I'm a singer and have been singing his songs for months now and enjoying myself so much, plus I know I make the songs sound even better. This project has had my whole heart (and his too!) and never in a million years would I have expected what happened yesterday. Everyone in the band was SO excited. He literally wrote a song about how much he loved hearing me sing his songs!
But yesterday, he called me up and told me he wanted to discuss the band. I had no inkling that anything was wrong because less than a week ago we were discussing our single release which we'd all been working towards for a couple months now. We've also got a string of gigs this month leading up to the release of the track. I've invited everyone I know because I was so invested. Anyway, he tells me "so I've been thinking and... I really want to be singing my own songs." My entire world went flat.
And I was like, "Wait what? So where would that leave me?"
"I don't know." What do you mean you don't know???!! Am I fired or not?
Anyway, he acknowledged that my partner would probably also quit as bassist in solidarity (which he did) and he was extremely quick to point out that he loves my voice and has loved working with me. He said his feelings on this had only crystallised within the last week or so and that he wanted to pursue a more intimate, confessional sound. I am obviously extremely upset because this band literally felt like my entire future, like I was following my dreams. I've always been a great vocalist but songwriting/mixing/putting the tracks together has always felt like the one thing stopping me from making my own music properly. I felt like this band was a path to success where I could focus on the thing I'm really good at.
Right now my partner and I are both heavily grieving this loss and I just don't really know how to move forward. I've written some good songs but none of them are honestly as good as his. I want this so so badly and I feel utterly heartbroken and lost. However, I had been wanting to make and release my own music for a while now, I just didn't want to have to rely entirely on myself to make that happen you know? And what if I'm not good enough? I just feel completely gutted and so hurt by the whole thing. My heart hurts and I can't sleep. I need to believe I'll be OK again but right now I don't. :(
I’ve been in multiple bands since I was 14 or 13, but unfortunately, i never managed to play a live gig. Our constant clashes and fights prevented us from achieving this, and it’s incredibly frustrating and exhausting. The only live performance I had was at a camp, and it was limited to just two songs.
I’m growing increasingly disillusioned with this situation. As AI continues to take over, we’re on a path towards a dystopian future. At 22 years old, I’m concerned about the prospects of a music career. What should I do to navigate this challenging environment?
I don't want to restrict my choice of songs just to accommodate keys or gender vox eg. Choose songs that have keys or choose songs only for male or female
I’ve been in multiple bands since I was 14 or 13, but unfortunately, i never managed to play a live gig. Our constant clashes and fights prevented us from achieving this, and it’s incredibly frustrating and exhausting. The only live performance I had was at a camp, and it was limited to just two songs.
I’m growing increasingly disillusioned with this situation. As AI continues to take over, we’re on a path towards a dystopian future. At 22 years old, I’m concerned about the prospects of a music career. What should I do to navigate this challenging environment?
My crush is in a band and they performed a while back , that was the also the night i introduced myself to him it was cool , he got me a drink and the night ended with a kiss (light texting not v good at it lol) anyway two months later they are performing again at a different place and i just gotta see him 😭😂 it’s far but should i go out to the show ? If so do i give him heads up ? Or surprise (i don’t wanna seem like a stalker)
thanks !
E.g this one band i used to manage - just wanted to record some 'demos' because they believes the industry was still all about recording demos from thr singer 'almost made it big back in 2005' and then a label would do the rest once they had been discovered.
So I’ve been bothered by a few things that happened recently with my band and wondering if I should talk to my band members about this. First, my band co-founder has been asking people to play with or join or band without consulting me. The instance that really bothered me was that they asked someone to collaborate with us on keyboard when I’m usually the keyboardist but had to step in on drumkit for a gig. And this person also didn’t have the right style or skills to even cover keyboard.
Secondly, for that gig, another band member used AI to create the flyer and also spelled our band’s name wrong on that flyer but did not make changes when I asked to update the flyer. Another member wanted to repost the flyer on our account but since I have access to instagram, I removed the post since I found it problematic that the flyer was AI generated and our band’s name was spelled wrong. Another issue is one of our band members plays the harp. Our guitarist had to step back and said the harpist should cover some guitar parts but the harpist didn’t step up and do that and I’m also left wondering why we have a harp player in the band when we need certain parts covered and sometimes are short of a guitarist. It frustrated me that rather than put effort into making sure we had guitar, drums, bass and covered which I have done the most work to ensure for our band, the other members recruited an unqualified keyboardist without consulting me when that is usually my part.
Would appreciated advice on how yo bring this up tactfully or whether I should bring up these issues at all…