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Music or Personal-space ??

#21
Blue said:
Curious (and maybe the correct thread):

How do folks *diffferentiate between "Being in a band with common musical goals", and "Being in a band with *expectations of personal life *exchanges".

One Band has an expectation that spouses should all join the band at, say, a Sunday Bowling Alley for - OK, maybe Team Building, but really a "we all need to integrate our lives around each other", as witnessed by, "Can we do this every Sunday?".

This is complicated by Two band mates being married for 30 years, and third who has know then (and played with them) for 25 years, and then there's me ... an outsider and frankly a private recluse.

I don't think it's gonna work ... any similar experiences and - lessons to share?
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Back when I played out in bands regularly I had a very very VERY similar situation to what you are describing.

Long story short, it didn't work out and I was happier when it was over. But I am, admittedly, also a recluse. So if you're like me and you find that the best plans are cancelled plans, just be honest about who you are and how you feel and where your boundaries lie.

Nothing indicates they're being nefarious, and if the playing is fun and you want to stay with it, give them the chance to know that you prefer a little more buffer and a lot less hang. Either they're with it or they're not.

But I'd rather adjust my life to the absence of a group than adjust my boundaries to their standards of who I should be.
 
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#23
I think that folks who chose music as their career have a different take on this question than those of us who are hobbyists or weekend warriors.

I chose a career as a paramedic. I work with a small group of people in close quarters for 12 hour shifts four days a week. These are good people whom I have developed good friendships with over the years. However, we don't hang on the weekends. We just don't. Weddings, christenings, retirement parties, life events... absolutely. Occasional meet up for a beer to celebrate a promotion- of course. Otherwise, we live our own lives.

My bandmates are good friends. We tend to go to shows together, maybe make a run to the guitar shop together, go and see a band together. Our wives are all friendly. It is as much a social thing as it is musical. That's the life I chose. You have to choose your own happiness.
 
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#25
You can’t force that level of camaraderie. This sounds like someone who has an idealistic view of what a band is based on one too many episodes of the Partridge Family or the Monkees. If my bandmates and I become friends who want to hang out together outside of the band, that's awesome. But making it a band expectation is not awesome and would make it less likely to work, at least for me. I hugely dislike being expected to spend my free time in a certain way. Band time is gigs, personal practice, and band rehearsals. Everything else is optional for me.

I have friends who I have been in bands with who I see socially regularly. Heck, the drummer in one of my band is renting a room in my house right now. But those things came about because we all discovered we liked each other and wanted to be friends, not because someone decided we should spend more time together.
 
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#27
Blue said:
Curious (and maybe the correct thread):

How do folks *diffferentiate between "Being in a band with common musical goals", and "Being in a band with *expectations of personal life *exchanges".

One Band has an expectation that spouses should all join the band at, say, a Sunday Bowling Alley for - OK, maybe Team Building, but really a "we all need to integrate our lives around each other", as witnessed by, "Can we do this every Sunday?".

This is complicated by Two band mates being married for 30 years, and third who has know then (and played with them) for 25 years, and then there's me ... an outsider and frankly a private recluse.

I don't think it's gonna work ... any similar experiences and - lessons to share?
Click to expand...


If they were 18-20 somethings I'd see this...

But grown adults? no..just no..thats just a little weird and demanding on the limited personal time adults have.

the people I play in bands with I like playing music with, but that's it. I would not want to spend copious amounts of non-musical time with them,
 
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#28
My bandmates are really close friends, but we did not start out that way. It just developed over the years. That being said, we do get together at one's house a couple of times a year, usually for a meal, but we don't really hang out - we all have separate lives. But, arrest me and give me one phone call, and one of them will get me out of jail.
 
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#30
I have always kept my personal and professional lives separate. Even when I worked a "real" job, my wife never went to company events or parties. She has attended about 10 gigs in 32 years we've been married. I have never been in a band where the band members and their significant others got together just to hang out. The closest we came was a party at the keyboard player's house several years ago.
 
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#31
Blue said:
Curious (and maybe the correct thread):

How do folks *diffferentiate between "Being in a band with common musical goals", and "Being in a band with *expectations of personal life *exchanges".

One Band has an expectation that spouses should all join the band at, say, a Sunday Bowling Alley for - OK, maybe Team Building, but really a "we all need to integrate our lives around each other", as witnessed by, "Can we do this every Sunday?".

This is complicated by Two band mates being married for 30 years, and third who has know then (and played with them) for 25 years, and then there's me ... an outsider and frankly a private recluse.

I don't think it's gonna work ... any similar experiences and - lessons to share?
Click to expand...
I like to get together with the spouses and families of the band. Once or twice a year is great! Pool party/bbq, that kind of thing.

More often than that is luckily not doable since we all have full schedules and live many miles apart.

I'm the one that's always available for rehearsals and band meetings, but I'm also the one who packs up his gear and jets as soon as our set is over. It has caused some friction, but it's a combination of worrying about my expensive gear, sometimes being in a bad mood due to how the performance went, not caring to see the band playing after us and having to get up early and go to work the next day.

But we all still get along, so there's that.
 
#32
bholder said:
Ewww. Yeah, that'd be way too much "togetherness" for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that is way too creepy. Sounds like these people are very needy and don't have a life.
The OP said these are people who have been married for 30 years? Yikes!
What they are suggesting is like something you might do when you are 19 or 20 years old.
This doesn't sound like adult behavior. I would be scared, very scared.
 
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#33
LBS-bass said:
Heck, the drummer in one of my bands is renting a room in my house right now.
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"That Bossa Nova... It's coming from within the house!"
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#34
Sorry, i’m very into being a good band member but I’m not at all interested in some bonding experience with people i see occasionally to play other people’s music. Plenty of lore from the old daze involving communal living being the creative catalyst for bands like the Allman Brothers and the Doobie Brothers. I tend to believe such arrangements may contribute somewhat to the whole, but absent some serious creative talent in the mix, no amount of off hours bonding will foster that level of legend.
 
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#38
If I want “church” I’ll join a church.

A band doesn’t gave to operate like a cult or 80s tech startup company to play good music. To me, the more you focus (as a group) on the music and the logistics of delivering it as a cohesive band, and the less you allow yourselves to be distracted by drama and overthinking, the better your chances of actually accomplishing something.

YMMV.

BTW, my SO is also a musician and I seriously doubt she’d be into what these guys are proposing as far as signing up for the rest of your band’s apparent high need for affiliation.
 

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