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instrumental rockbands?

B

Bassmanjan

May 9, 2004
12
0
46
Bielefeld, Germany
#1
hi there-

i play in a instrumental rockband (1 guitar, 1 bass and drums) and i was just wondering if there are some more people around here making instrumental rockmusic?
our band has been playing together for one year now and we've had about ten gigs since. when we started to rehearse we were actually thinking about looking for somebody to sing, but the output was so high and the songs got better and better that we finally decided to stick to that instrumental thing.
everywhere we play, people get confused and sceptical when we tell them that we don't have any vocals in your "songs". though after the gig most of them are convinced of what we do. however we still seem to be the only intrumental band in our city. many of the bands we have played with say that they simply wouldn't manage to arrange songs with just gt - b - dr without vocals that they would dare to publish or play live.
so do you play in an instrumental rockband? or do you know any great instrumental bands?

-jan-
 
#4
THE ADVANTAGE! Although they just cover NES songs.

Many bands are intrumental only, and tons of bands have a few instrumentals. I think instrumentals are very powerful songs because if you want to be successful without a vocalist, you need to have your stuff down tight and write some good stuff. It's easier to make instrumental songs because there's less of a barrier created by lyrics and more room to improv. However, to make it big often requires you to make outstanding music. It's rare to hear instrumentals on the radio, especially on top-40 stations. I guess that's all you have to keep in mind.
 
#5
invisiman said:
I play in an instrumental band. We don't gig much outside of schools of things, but we feel that's alright, as we're just starting to get some originals down. Um..not much else to say here, I guess. Sorry I wasn't exactly helpful or anything.
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that's ok. i was asking whether you play in an instrumental rockband and you told me that you actually do, so in the end you've been kinda helpful or anything :-)
 
#6
Squidfinger said:
It just seems like the first thing non-musicians judge your band on is your vocalist. I don't know if most non-musicians would have the attention span to really enjoy an instrumental band.
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that's right. in fact, some fellow bass players from other bands told me that they would enjoy to make music like we do because they wouldn't have to make compromises like assimilating the song structures to the singing skills and maybe the lyrics of their "frontman". that's what i like about this, being able to play equally loud and having enough room to make pieces of about 8 minutes that may contain several different parts. many songs turn out processes that do not end because you may find a bassline or a guitar riff that suites the sound even more. it often makes it hard to make a recording of a song and taking this one as a final result.
i guess that you have to stand behind the stuff you produce and show that to the people you play in front of. unless you present your songs as "pieces that lack vocals because we can't find a vocalist" you may even convince non-musicians of what you do.
 
#7
Our band isn't strictly instrumental but we don't have a dedicated lead siinger. Our songs regularly follow a structure of a couple of minutes with vocals and then go on a loosely scripted freeform jam for an undetermined amount of time. We have been known to jam on stage for about 20 minutes at times. Truth is we don't know exactly what is going to happen next. I love it!
 
#11
Yes - I do play in an instrumental band. Flute, Keys, Bass, Guitar, Drums. I play flute and keys (although I'm generally a bass player and flute player, the band already had a great bassist when I joined, so no bass for me this time around). It's strange to hear people say "so.....no vocals?" I tell them we're not interested, and so far it hasn't hurt our ability to get gigs. When we get asked about it, I ask them what kind of vocals would have improved Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. Usually shuts em up. There's actually a long history of instrumental music, but people in recent years have become accustomed to vocals because of the top-40-ism of the music scene.

If you're interested, you can hear one of our tunes on www.motosota.com.
 
#12
bimplizkit said:
Listen to Eric Johnson "Ah Via Musicom". Love that cd. Truly great, inspirational, tasteful music with just guitar / bass / drums (vocal on 1 or 2 tracks).

EJ fans -

Didn't one of his songs, maybe "Trademark", hit the top 40?

:confused:
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I don't know about the top forty, but I think it made the charts. Trademark and Cliffs of Dover could be considered "hits". I think Joe Satriani had more popular success with songs like Always with Me and Satch Boogie. Stev Vai had some wicked stuff back in the day.
 
#13
we are an instrumental rock band with vocals. ;)

Our soundtrack album has no lyrics, but on a few songs voice was featured as an 'instrument.' Does that count?

Link Removed

I know it's kind of cheating since our other CD isn't instrumental only, but I did think the soundtrack project kind of fit the topic.
 

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