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How do you connect with your band?

tb-player

tb-player

Why so serious?
Mar 6, 2019
6,706
29,954
East Coast, USA
#1
Curious how those of you in bands communicate with your fellow bandmates. I feel like I always have about 10 group messages going at once with a few group Messenger chats going on as well. Throw in the occasional dep who gets included on a chat and I have no idea who they are... it's a lot to juggle.

Granted, in one of my bands, a couple of the guys are a little older. One, in particular, is technologically challenged. I think the group chat is probably already more than he can handle... lol. In my church gig, they use Planning Center, which is really a perfect tool for what we do. I wish there was something like that for bands... or is there?

Anyone have an efficient solution for band communication? WhatsApp? Slack?
 
#2
I have a group text going with one band. That was a.long time coming because one guy had a flip phone. Even still people miss things or ask the same question that was addressed 4 messages prior. One guy is always late to respond despite literally holding his phone through rehearsal. He's shopping for a better offer I'm sure.

I have a new project brewing still trying to sort put all the players. It's all email. Sometimes 3 concurrent chains with the BL sending emails from his two accounts. It's nutty.
 
#3
3Liter said:
I have a group text going with one band. That was a.long time coming because one guy had a flip phone. Even still people miss things or ask the same question that was addressed 4 messages prior. One guy is always late to respond despite literally holding his phone through rehearsal. He's shopping for a better offer I'm sure.

I have a new project brewing still trying to sort put all the players. It's all email. Sometimes 3 concurrent chains with the BL sending emails from his two accounts. It's nutty.
Click to expand...
That sounds very familiar. There’s got to be a better way but with a variety of ages and technological savvy, I’m probably out of luck.
 
#8
fdeck said:
I work with multiple bands, and am not going to set up a different chat app for every band. The gold standards are still e-mail, text, phone.
Click to expand...
I don’t want that either. I already have stuff all over the place with different messages in emails and group texts. I’m looking for one app that will help manage all the bands in one place.

If it’s not out there, maybe I should learn to code and build my own app. I could be a hundredaire! :laugh:
 
#9
tb-player said:
Curious how those of you in bands communicate with your fellow bandmates. I feel like I always have about 10 group messages going at once with a few group Messenger chats going on as well. Throw in the occasional dep who gets included on a chat and I have no idea who they are... it's a lot to juggle.

Granted, in one of my bands, a couple of the guys are a little older. One, in particular, is technologically challenged. I think the group chat is probably already more than he can handle... lol. In my church gig, they use Planning Center, which is really a perfect tool for what we do. I wish there was something like that for bands... or is there?

Anyone have an efficient solution for band communication? WhatsApp? Slack?
Click to expand...
I used slack with a couple of bands who both had very clear marketing and recording goals and that tool made organizing things a whole lot easier, because we could put things in separate channels for quick and easy recall: One channel for song charts, another for potential shows, another for song demos, one for marketing material, etc. But I think for the average band, it might be overkill.

Another band I’m in just uses iMessage, as we mostly just chat and share relevant information as it comes up, like “what time is rehearsal tonight,” or “here’s the flyer for the upcoming show.” Pretty simple stuff that doesn’t need to be categorized and stored for future use.

Otherwise, folks tend to just contact me by whatever means they prefer to use themselves. I’ll get calls for gigs over WhatsApp, by email, phone calls, Facebook messenger, Instagram… for the role that I play in my local music area, I’ve just gotta be accessible so I can stay paid. There’s no main method that I use and stick to.
 
#12
I’ve been in a band now 2+ years. They are mad group texters. Same text chain, everyone included, and they go on and on about every little thing. It’s annoying at times if I’m busy and they go off on tangents. For the important stuff like bookings etc we’re all quick to respond so it works well. For long term scheduling, rehearsal notes etc we use Band Mule, but I honestly only go on there once or twice a month just to double check stuff if I’m unclear.
 
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#15
Our BL is technically challenged. So he writes out things like set lists. Then takes a picture and shares that picture with band members. The problem with that is that sometimes the picture has a pink tinge and other times it's blue. For set lists he writes out three or four pages. My printer uses a lot of ink trying to match the blue of pink tinted paper.

So me being a nice guy have resorted to typing it all out on a single page Excel spreadsheet. Which I email to the others. Except the band leader because he doesn't know how to open attachments or print.
 
#16
I'm theory, we use Slack so we can have conversations and multiple topics at once. In practice, we have a group text thread where most of the conversation actually occurs and people end up confused because they didn't see the message that explained all the details.
 
#19
It IS a pain. Our thread in "messages" gets messy, and I'm sure there's a fair amount of messaging outside of the group. We use BAND – The App For Groups for scheduling gigs and availability. "Planning Center" for song lists and songs we are supposed to be learning (it works great for normal bands, but we don't communicate with it). It all mostly works.
 

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