Band Communication

[Garret Graves]

I don’t check email often, but you can set certain contacts as VIP, at least in Yahoo. My work and band contacts are VIP, and my settings have the VIP emails hit my phone with a banner alert. That way, when they email, I get to it right away, and, it’s only their emails, not all emails.

 

[wellshuxley]

My band had similar issue with iPhone/Android messages getting dropped. We’ve been on Slack for about a year now and it has been seamless to use and even a lot of fun. We also have a band Google account with email, calendar, etc.

Pros of Slack:
- cross-platform, including via desktop browser
- ability to organize chats by topics
- support for individually customized notification preferences
- integration of workflows, plug-ins, external apps, etc. to extend functionality
- genuinely fun to use (IMO)

Cons:
- everyone needs to install the app if they want to use it on their phone (mobile browser experience is perhaps possible, but not well supported compared to the apps)
- free service tier has some limit of stored/saved messages; after limit is reached, older messages are no longer available

 

[mb94952]

I'm in the same situation. We were JUST talking about this yesterday.

I'm in three bands and we all do group texts. I have an Android, and some of the other guys have iPhones. It's no issue at all. It works.

I have NO interest in Facebook being the middleman for our private conversations, or any other app for that matter.

 

[dkelley]

I'll be 50 in July. There's no way I would allow my email to ping me real time. It's a total time waster in my view. You must have nothing but time on your hands. If I whipped my phone out every single time I got an email (especially with two personal and one work account) I would never get ANYTHING done. Freaking Amazon, Musicians Friend Sweetwater, TalkBass, several companies dealing with another hobby, church, etc. are all hitting me up every few minutes (literally).

The same goes for texts and calls. My father and my wife have custom ring tones. Everyone else gets checked when they get checked.

I'm a time management freak. It would make my head explode to even consider taking the time to whip out my phone every single time somebody tried to reach out to me vie email, text, or call.

I literally got approval from my boss to not answer my phone every time I get a call. (Turns out, he's a huge time management guy too. He gets it.) I return calls twice a day at work. I return personal communications (and my band falls into that category) whenever I get a sec. It's usually within an hour or so. But, occasionally it isn't.

Sometimes when I do get into a group text with my band, we get all goofy. It can go on for a while. My keys player and I both participate until we have other stuff to do. Then we simply tap out and turn our ringers off. At first the rest were a little put off. But, after we explained that we simply don't have that kind of time for goof chatting, they got over it.

No, I'm a parent of 3 and full time employed with music business on the side. I have no time on my hands.

Like most people, when it pings, or vibrates for most of us, we are aware, and that goes into my notifications which I see when I check my phone next time.

 

[dkelley]

Not for me. I've switched off notifications and check my emails at better 1 time a day, but more often every two of three days.. I'm only following SMS and whatsapp

in fact: exactly like two fingers. i check my phone when i'm check it, and it's in silent mode the major part of the day.

I personally get imporant emails and chats dozens of times through the day for my work and for my non-work life, so once a day would be the end of a job for me.

Maybe it's because I work in technology that I set it up like this, and most people I know do that too possibly for similar reasons?

 

[dkelley]

I took the data plan off my phone to save money.

check and mate

Wow. I'd have no career if everyone did that LoL.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I'm in a bit of a quandary. My LS has an android and my drummer isn't on FB and I'm finding it hard to communicate with them all at once. For some reason group texts from my iPhone don't go out consistently when there is a non-iPhone number in the group list. I can't reach my drummer on FB Messenger because he doesn't have an account.

Has anyone else been in this particular boat? I find it hard to believe I'm the first. How did you fix it? My wife suggested WhatsApp, but I've read some bad press about security with that. Any other suggestions?

Zoom. Works for my family. We use Apple products. Just about everybody I know use androids. One other point,

Idea # 2: A group meeting to up a dedicated band Gmail account, including google calendar. Make sure that everybody knows they required to respond that they received you messages. Emails for information Calendar to note gigs times rehearsal times and locations and other band functions. It works great.

 

[Unmost]

Group text has the least objectionable baggage attached to it so I don't see why that can't be agreed upon.

That was part of my point.

My job as bandleader isn't to go the extra mile to accommodate unreasonable stubbornness on the part of the band members. We need to meet each other halfway.

Band members shouldn’t be forced to use a commercial service that’s against their morale. Requiring everyone to make a step in that way doesn’t make sense. Let everyone sidestep instead and find alternatives.
Facebook is making the world a worst place. The majority doesn’t care as long as they don’t get charged for the service but that doesn’t mean they are right.

 

[BassGuyFL]

Whatsapp is your friend. We had the same problem half the band is on iPhone and half is on Android. Now everyone gets all the messages. Just takes a few minutes to set up.

 

[DrMole]

Whatsapp is your friend. We had the same problem half the band is on iPhone and half is on Android. Now everyone gets all the messages. Just takes a few minutes to set up.

A reasonable choice- or a simple group text where the sender knows how to use their iphone.

 

[gln1955]

A reasonable choice- or a simple group text where the sender knows how to use their iphone.

I go with the simple group text. Don't know why people can't figure it out. I have group text threads going in about a dozen interdenominational phone groups with no problems. No need to go to yet another proprietary app.

 

[BassGuyFL]

I go with the simple group text. Don't know why people can't figure it out. I have group text threads going in about a dozen interdenominational phone groups with no problems. No need to go to yet another proprietary app.

A couple of them are technology-challenged and it became an issue when a couple of important messages got missed or misdirected. Frustrating but it was the easier solution.

 

[DrMole]

E="BassGuyFL, post: 25325661, member: 140834"]A couple of them are technology-challenged and it became an issue when a couple of important messages got missed or misdirected. Frustrating but it was the easier solution.[/QUOTE]
So an additional layer of technology was the answer for the tech challenged? The only issue with iphones and texts to ( the majority of the mobile phone world) are on whomever is sending the text not knowing one setting.

Glad it worked well

 

[BassGuyFL]

E="BassGuyFL, post: 25325661, member: 140834"]A couple of them are technology-challenged and it became an issue when a couple of important messages got missed or misdirected. Frustrating but it was the easier solution.

So an additional layer of technology was the answer for the tech challenged? The only issue with iphones and texts to ( the majority of the mobile phone world) are on whomever is sending the text not knowing one setting.

Glad it worked well[/QUOTE]
It was 2 of the Androids that had issues. They both have a long history of not understanding the easiest of things. One I had to set up up for him. Same guy struggles to put batteries in his wireless. Good times...

 

[lfmn16]

I go with the simple group text. Don't know why people can't figure it out. I have group text threads going in about a dozen interdenominational phone groups with no problems. No need to go to yet another proprietary app.

+1

Some of the technophobes don't get (or care) that they are costing themselves work by not taking a few minutes to learn a very simple way to communicate. I've got no patience for people that are OK making it hard for everybody else because they are lazy.

 

[LBS-bass]

I don’t check email often, but you can set certain contacts as VIP, at least in Yahoo. My work and band contacts are VIP, and my settings have the VIP emails hit my phone with a banner alert. That way, when they email, I get to it right away, and, it’s only their emails, not all emails.

I don't generally read email more than once or twice a day unless I happen to see a notification that something I'm interested in has come up. I only get notifications on my laptop, not my phone, because there are too many of them. 98% of what comes in through email is spam.

I do get phone notifications about all my text messages, either through SMS or Messenger. One band uses SMS, one uses Messenger, and the other uses email so the email band might have some lag time from me if I'm not on the computer.

 

[tshapiro]

WhatsApp