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I miss my band

J

jellejanssen

Oct 9, 2012
66
0
The Netherlands
#1
Hey there!

I left my band like 2 months ago because of various reasons.
Also I was planning to form a new (funk rock) band..

Too bad the new band plan isnt going so well and I kinda miss my old band. We played good music and recording some of our own songs. The band has a new bassist now, and the costs of the recording are just too high, also the recording man (i dont know how thats called) kinda ruined my basslines by changing them :(

Any advice?

Jelle
 
#5
OK there's two issues here...

Now-mourn for a bit and then plan your next move. Start up or join a band? Start writing or auditioning and keep on in there.

Future-don't leave a band until you have something lined up. Recognise the early warning signs that things are going wrong and plan your next move. IMHO waiting to see if things fix themselves never works.
 
#6
Bands are like romantic relationships. You leave them because staying's worse than leaving, sometimes only slightly so -- not necessarily because they majorly suck in the balance.

Second, the human brain has a regrettable habit of remembering only (or mostly) good things about past relationships, and forgetting those relationships' bad points. You left that band for valid reasons. Those reasons are no less valid today than they were then. But your logic is either minimizing their importance to you or, worse, discounting them altogether. Why? Because it's doing its analysis based on what you selectively remember, not based on hard, real-time input.

Put yourself back in that band as if nothing had happened, and I guarantee you you'd leave again within a week.
 
#7
craig.p said:
Put yourself back in that band as if nothing had happened, and I guarantee you you'd leave again within a week.
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. I've been in the same band for 12 years. About 5 years in, I got fed up with what to me unprofessional behaviour, even though I really liked the guys personally, and liked the gigs and cash. So I quit.

About 8 months later I was back. Their new bass player didn't work out and I couldn't find a band that played the right amount of gigs to fit my schedule. I made up my mind that the good things about the band outweighed the bad things. They were no different when I came back, I was the one who decided to have a different mindset. And I've been much happier with the band in the last 7 years.
 
#8
craig.p said:
Bands are like romantic relationships. You leave them because staying's worse than leaving, sometimes only slightly so -- not necessarily because they majorly suck in the balance.

Second, the human brain has a regrettable habit of remembering only (or mostly) good things about past relationships, and forgetting those relationships' bad points. You left that band for valid reasons. Those reasons are no less valid today than they were then. But your logic is either minimizing their importance to you or, worse, discounting them altogether. Why? Because it's doing its analysis based on what you selectively remember, not based on hard, real-time input.

Put yourself back in that band as if nothing had happened, and I guarantee you you'd leave again within a week.
Click to expand...

Nicely put, and very true in my experience. The two times I went back to a band after leaving, I regretted it very quickly indeed.
 
#10
CS said:
Future-don't leave a band until you have something lined up.
Click to expand...

This ^. Leaving an existing band because you want to start a new band is not unheard of. However, the distance between "wanting to start a new band" and "starting a new band" can be light years apart.

My suggestion is to really understand the reasons why you left the old band. What was the root cause and how can you use this experience to avoid the same pitfall(s) in the future? Sometimes discontent follows the disgruntled.
 

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