Need advice about band

scottrick49 · #1 08-27-2009, 08:29 AM

Hey all! First time poster here hoping to get some advice from people wiser and more experienced than myself.

Back in the beginning of February I joined a band - the first band I've ever been in. With me, we have a drummer, two guitars and a keyboardist, but no vocalist. I originally auditioned to be a vocalist but my voice doesn't work well with the music we were playing so they suggested I just play keyboard and maybe do some back-up vocals if they were needed at some point. I didn't have any experience playing in a band and they seemed like good guys and a good opportunity to learn so I said yes.

Fast forward to today, and we still don't have a vocalist. We played one short live show with no vocals back in May (6 pieces) which went well. At the moment, we have four songs with lyrics and melodies. I'm trying to decide if it is worth it for me to keep investing my time in this band.

The song writing "process" we have is... well... I'm not a huge fan but I have never been in a band before so I don't know if this is normal or not. Basically, the lead guitar player (who formed the band) comes up with a "riff" which is usually not much more than a chain of chords. He brings them to practice and loops the riff while the bassist and I try to figure out a part to it. He doesn't have alot of music training so I don't have any chord sheet to work from and it can be pretty frustrating just trying to figure out *** he's playing, let alone a part for myself.

The process of writing the melodies for our completed songs was nearly as convoluted - the three of us spent weeks and weeks listening to our parts and constructing melodies. It seemed to take forever because often someone would come up with a melody that one other person liked, and then the third person (never me though, I said yes to everything) wouldn't care for it. We would continuously tweak it until everybody was happy. Yes, this would be great in a perfect world but in reality it makes for a really slow way to write songs.

Is this normal? I always thought a band would (should?) have one person who does the majority of the music writing, brings the music (or just an outline so the other musicians have something to work from), and has a general idea of what kind of sound they are going for. Or if not just one main song writer, one person who does the majority of the writing for each song.

so I've been in the band for half a year now and I know about 7 different songs. Of those songs, only 4 have lyrics and melodies. We don't have a singer (although we may have finally found one).

Is this band going anywhere? Is this something to keep investing my time in or is it a lost cause? Its difficult, because we practice twice a week and its not as if the members of the band aren't committed and don't work at it.

Suggestions? Advice?

A sidenote: when auditioning a singer, do you think its reasonable to have them come in and improvise on-the-spot melodies to songs they have never heard and have no music for? I say no, that there's no way we will find a singer that way, but again, I am new to this whole band thing so I'm not sure.

ggunn · #2 08-27-2009, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottrick49

Hey all! First time poster here hoping to get some advice from people wiser and more experienced than myself.

Back in the beginning of February I joined a band - the first band I've ever been in. With me, we have a drummer, two guitars and a keyboardist, but no vocalist. I originally auditioned to be a vocalist but my voice doesn't work well with the music we were playing so they suggested I just play keyboard and maybe do some back-up vocals if they were needed at some point. I didn't have any experience playing in a band and they seemed like good guys and a good opportunity to learn so I said yes.

Fast forward to today, and we still don't have a vocalist. We played one short live show with no vocals back in May (6 pieces) which went well. At the moment, we have four songs with lyrics and melodies. I'm trying to decide if it is worth it for me to keep investing my time in this band.

The song writing "process" we have is... well... I'm not a huge fan but I have never been in a band before so I don't know if this is normal or not. Basically, the lead guitar player (who formed the band) comes up with a "riff" which is usually not much more than a chain of chords. He brings them to practice and loops the riff while the bassist and I try to figure out a part to it. He doesn't have alot of music training so I don't have any chord sheet to work from and it can be pretty frustrating just trying to figure out w-t-f he's playing, let alone a part for myself.

The process of writing the melodies for our completed songs was nearly as convoluted - the three of us spent weeks and weeks listening to our parts and constructing melodies. It seemed to take forever because often someone would come up with a melody that one other person liked, and then the third person (never me though, I said yes to everything) wouldn't care for it. We would continuously tweak it until everybody was happy. Yes, this would be great in a perfect world but in reality it makes for a really slow way to write songs.

Is this normal? I always thought a band would (should?) have one person who does the majority of the music writing, brings the music (or just an outline so the other musicians have something to work from), and has a general idea of what kind of sound they are going for. Or if not just one main song writer, one person who does the majority of the writing for each song.

so I've been in the band for half a year now and I know about 7 different songs. Of those songs, only 4 have lyrics and melodies. We don't have a singer (although we may have finally found one).

Is this band going anywhere? Is this something to keep investing my time in or is it a lost cause? Its difficult, because we practice twice a week and its not as if the members of the band aren't committed and don't work at it.

Suggestions? Advice?

A sidenote: when auditioning a singer, do you think its reasonable to have them come in and improvise on-the-spot melodies to songs they have never heard and have no music for? I say no, that there's no way we will find a singer that way, but again, I am new to this whole band thing so I'm not sure.

The songwriting process is a very individual thing; there is no right or wrong way to go about it. There are also many opinions on what it means for a band to be "going anywhere". It does sound like you guys aren't very efficient at building a repertoire, though; I'd consider picking up a few covers to flesh out a set. Another reason to do that is that it can be hard to get an audience to sit and listen to an exclusively original set from an unknown band. Pick up a few covers, but make them your own interpretation instead of trying to play them just like the record.

I agree that your method for auditioning singers isn't ideal. What I would do is to give your prospects recordings and lyric sheets a couple of weeks before the audition and let them show you what they can come up with.

Here's an out of the box idea: Why not audition songwriters? If you can find someone who has some good originals that he/she would like to flesh out with a band and who can also work into the tunes that you already have, then that would get you off and running.

There's no right or wrong way to do any of this, but there are ways that work better than others. Good luck!

scottrick49 · #3 08-27-2009, 02:23 PM

Yeah maybe I should suggest some of those ideas. I have already mentioned how ridiculous I thought the singer audition process was but haven't really mentioned about the song writing as much. Thanks!