After years of struggling to get a band together one tip from a seasoned pro turned it all around. I couldn't believe how simple his advice was and why it had never dawned on me.
At the time I was writing songs full time every day and had an inexhaustible supply of energy and felt plugged into the universe.
Musicians wanted to get in the studio with me but to get them to rehearse as a band so we could do some gigs seemed like a struggle. They would seldom show up to practice.
I started feeling like they didn't really want to be in a band with me so I just continued writing songs.
Then one night I was hanging out with a friend of mine named Garth Beckington who played in a band named MoFoCo. Garth is a seasoned pro who has played on many records on songs you would recognize.
I was as green as they come but could write songs so I got to hang with some pretty cool musicians. He kind of took me under his wing for a spell and got me in a studio.
One night during a break from a recording session I told him about my difficulty getting musicians to rehearse and he kind of chuckled and said, "If they need to rehearse they're not really musicians."
"What do you mean?", I asked.
"Go get the gig first. Once you have the gig, get the musicians to play it.", he said.
I thought about that for a while and asked him how we could play a gig without rehearsing. "What if we sound like shit?"
"If you sound like shit you got the wrong musicians"
He went on to add that real musicians don't need to rehearse for a rock gig. It's all 4/4 timing pretty much and you just pick a bunch of easy cover tunes or play some blues.
Rehearsals are a drag. Musicians just want a paying gig and to get laid. Give them that and they will be happy"
"What if you get the gig and they don't show up?", I asked.
"They will.They're pros.", he said.
I took him up on that advice and started a band by getting the gigs first.
Walking up to a club owner and getting a gig when you don't even have a band, let alone a set list, is an act of confidence I'll admit, but I have to say it worked.
Not only that but the musicians that will fill that gig will be confident as well and usually damn good at playing music.
This tip worked fine for finding musicians on the fly to play gigs but only when we played cover songs or standard songs.
Eventually, I started a band that played only original music and we did get signed and toured a lot. We also practiced a lot.
These were not standard cover songs. These were songs we were inventing and there was some showmanship and timing involved that had to be rehearsed.
Here are a couple tips that really helped us.
In the beginning, we didn't have gigs full time. Maybe 1 or 2 per week, but we wanted to sound like a band that played every night.
There was only one way to do that and that is to play every night so we did. We did our show every day whether we had a gig or not. Before long we were tight as can be and a fine tuned working machine. We lived and breathed those songs and you could hear it when we played.
We were so tight that there was no hesitation at any moment of the performance and we all knew exactly what to do next. It was a show.
That show eventually had us touring nationally almost all year. To learn more about that read, How I Booked 300 Shows Per Year For My Rock Band - Growing Your Music Into A Business --- by
The other tip is during rehearsal we would always try any idea any one of us had and if it didn't work we would not take it personally.
We could be honest if some piece of music didn't move us at the moment and not get all hung up about it. This is very important that everyone playing in the room is inspired by what they are playing right now.
Now here is a funny thing about that. Musicians have been known to have egos and no one like being rejected, right? Especially having your band mates not digging your new, brilliant, music idea.
What we learned is to never take it personally because music is so subjective. How someone reacts at any particular moment to a piece of music is dependent on so many factors that we do not control.
Their mood at the moment, they're hungry, or stoned, or just got in a fight with their girlfriend; all these things can affect someone's initial reaction to hearing a song.
Taking a negative reaction to your music personally is not helpful to the creative process and their reaction is not about your music.
How do I know that for sure?
I cannot count the times that I have presented a song to my band and received less than enthusiastic interest in developing it only to present the exact same song a month or two later and get high fives and excitement.
Sometimes I would change it around a little but many times I played it exactly the same way as before. They didn't even realize they had heard the song before.
What changed? They did.
Whenever an idea wasn't inspiring the band I just dropped it and picked another idea that did get their motors running. That way creativity could flourish and we walked away feeling like we accomplished something that day.
As a songwriter, I was always writing songs so had plenty of material to choose from.
Writing songs is kind of like raising a baby. You watch it grow from a melody to a lyric to a full fledged song and in the process, you can grow quite attached to it.
That's why some bands have ego struggles when the others in the band start to change the author's idea far from the original intent. It's easy to take it personally when they have other ideas for it.
Don't.
What I found is it's more conducive to the group creative process to think of your songs as a wardrobe you have hanging in your closet. Shirts and pants. Music and lyrics.
You can put together different combinations of a wardrobe to suit the occasion. Nothing to get personal about, they're just clothes.
So when the band played something that needed lyrics I could pull out some lyrics that were written for a completely different tune and try it on for size on this piece of music.
Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. If it didn't I'd try something else until I found a good fit. Bingo, we have a new song.
The added benefit is the group thought I was making this shit up on the fly like some kind of lyrical genius.
One other benefit to always trying every idea out that any one in the band had is they were never hesitant to bring an idea to the group for fear of rejection or ridicule so the ideas we plentiful.'
Keeping the ideas flowing is what the creative process is all about so creating an environment that welcomed ideas made ideas come to life.
Here are some of the tracks we recorded. See if you like it.
If you're in a band or trying to start one, try some of these ideas and see how they work for you. If you have other tips to help the creative process for musicians please share them in the comments below.
Related Posts
How I Booked 300 Shows Per Year For My Rock Band Growing Your Music Into A Business --- by
Learn more about Basic Universal Income here