Musician’s Notebook

‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday,’ said Entertainment Retailers Association spokesman Paul Quirk.

Prince is giving away his ten-track album in an upcoming issue of the UK’s Sunday Mail, but record retailers all over the world are upset about the deal, exercising their opinion that the record retailers should, of course, hold a monopoly over music distribution and, according to the quote above, bully artists in mobster fashion as to where they must sell their records.

In other words, using their economic clout, retailers are blackmailing artists and essentially nullifying copyright law in general. An artist has copyrights in order to grant themselves full control over what they have put their time, money and effort into creating, and thus it’s their choice where and how the music is distributed. Because retailers only care about the bottom-line, unwilling to respect the fact that the music belongs to the creators and not the retailers, they are all too willing to corrode the strength of law that exists for good reasons.

The best thing that songwriters and musicians can do is give their music away, the exact opposite of what retailers want. Big-time musicians and garage bands, it doesn’t matter–in the end, they won’t exist and we can make a living.

From Boing Boing, quote from The Guardian.

Writing a song that requires that dissonant, haunting feel? Best popularized by songs such as Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath, the intro to Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze and even the Dilbert TV show’s theme song, this interval is often condemned to stay forever in the genre of metal.

With a little experimentation, though, it can be used to create a haunting sound in any genre. Of course, classical musicians were using the interval in their compositions hundreds of years before metal’s arrival, and it can be applied to any song that calls for it.

The tritone is a musical interval that spans three whole tones and is also known as the augmented fourth or diminished fifth. For instance, the augmented fourth between C and F# forms a tritone.

Now I know you rockers probably don’t care about the theoretical implications (to be honest, neither do I, but don’t tell that to the people who hired me!) so I’ll give you the rough and dirty guitar tab that demonstrates the interval:

A—2–1–
E-0——-

And an example from Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath to put it into context:

G——————
D–0—5———–
A———–4——-
E–3—————-

Now get that tritone to use in your own songs about haunted houses!

When you’re writing a song, do you consider who you are writing for?

There are two ‘communication models’ in songwriting that are determined by the receptors of your communication:

Broad communication - you write your songs with a broad audience in mind, typically broaching important issues. You use songwriting skills to make these issues emotive and relevant to the listener, perhaps to affect a change in their opinion.

Narrow communication - this occurs when you write with a specific audience in your mind, generally something like a friend, love interest, family member, neighbour - you get the point. Usually, these songs are of a personal nature. Love songs fall under this category.

Though I prefer broad communication in my songs, tackling issues of importance and bringing a relevant, emotional touch to sometimes all-to-dry subjects, both have their place. It’s still important to consider who you’re communicating to, and which model of songwriting you’re using, to craft the most effective piece. Songwriting is essentially a form of communication (all art is - art comes from the Latin ars, or to communicate) and thus, to make it effective, a certain amount of planning is required.

How much planning? Essentially you have to be aware of your audience and your message.

Writing with your audience in mind allows you to write a communication that they can understand. Mind you, this is not selling out. This does not dictate what you write about, but merely guides you as to how you should structure it. It’s called professional songwriting, and if you want to whine about it, stick to hobby writing ;)

Writing with your message in mind is a no-brainer. You need to stay on-topic. You can’t cram a million different things with no structure into the one piece, not if you intend to craft a powerful, listenable, understandable song. But if you know your message, and know why you are writing and why it is important, you’ve got it covered.

Consider these concepts and how you can use them to write stronger songs, and you might surprise yourself next time you pick up the pen.

Do you like to take a nap in the afternoon before a performance? Most vocalists do, but what they often think is that napping resets the vocal muscles. This leads many a vocalist to avoid warming up during the day because they think it’ll be useless if they sleep.

Fortunately for singers, warming up is more about the connection between your mind and your throat - reminding your mind where certain pitches are. Only a very small fraction of it is warming up the muscles themselves. Essentially, warming up is for reminding your mind where the ‘keys’ on your voice are.

This means you can do you full warm up earlier in the day, and then recap with a ten or fifteen minute warm up after your nap. Now you can save a good hour of time before your show!

You’ve got a band! You’ve got songs! You’ve got a direction and goals! You have boundaries! You’ve got it all. Together we’ve built your band from nothing, to something that will remain on its foundations and not be shaken by any storm. Of course, the essential part of that foundation is you, and that’s by design. You might have control, but if you’re shaken by a storm, then everything’s blown. But no outside factors can knock it down.

What are your next steps? It’s time that you got your new group together, pulled out those chord charts and started teaching the repertoire to your band-mates. You must also remember that you’re learning too, because you’re learning to play with these other people and how to make your sounds gel. You might have to change some of the songs you’ve written—big deal. It’s to make them stronger.

Remember that when you wrote those songs, no matter how complex or simple they are, you wrote them with a band in mind. So you should have the mindset that nothing is ‘too precious’ and collaboration is welcome in the forms of suggestions and input, and each member should be allowed to contribute their sound to their individual parts. This is the stage where the song goes from being yours to being the bands, and before you perform it live, the band has to not only know it, but own it.

The first band practices will not be rehearsals. They will involve getting to know each other—and I’m not talking so much about personalities, as I’m talking about playing styles. It will be many sessions before you begin to play well together, so don’t expect much, just put the effort in.

Remember this two step process: teach, and learn, the songs, and then arrange them. This means that the songwriter gets the info to each band member and works with them to ensure they’ve learned the part.

The band then runs through the piece a few times, until everyone is certain they’ve got their part down, and the song is coming together as a cohesive whole. Then band members can look at their parts and see what they might like to see modified, what might suit their playing style better, and so on.

Through experimentation and open-mindedness, the band can forge a song that suits everyone and begins the crafting of the all-important signature sound. Remember that phrase throughout your coming band rehearsals, because if you can’t forge your own, unique sound, your band may never truly gain a substantial level of success.

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

This article concludes the Establishing Your Band series. Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive great information on all things to do with forging a successful musical career.

There is something that listeners are beginning to crave in massive quantities, because they’ve been so far deprived of it by major record companies: substance in music!

There are those who do not care, and never will, that everything they listen to has no worthwhile meaning. Music is meant to be art, and the word art comes from the Latin word for communication. It’s not a fluke or a case of evolutionary etymology; it’s the purpose of all art, all music. And when nobody’s fulfilling the purpose of their art, people begin to sense the emptiness.

You might say, why is it that so many artists linger at the top of our charts when they are devoid of substance, when you say that people are craving it so much? Notice the trends; a superficial artist, who is always “market-driven” by the record companies, manufactured from the ground up, is pushed into the forefront of public attention and cultural media channels using marketing and public relations dollars. But even though you can pay for attention, to stay at that forefront you need to have something valuable to offer.

That is exactly why so many flake artists hit the top, and then drop away so quickly it seems instantaneous. The gossip magazines tend to remember them a little longer, but by and large, society has forgotten them.

Here’s the thing: substance alone might not get you a bunch of attention. It won’t prevent it either. But once you get the attention using hard work and do-it-yourself marketing, you’ll keep it. You’ll keep it because people see that there’s more than meets the eye and want to stick around and see what that is. They stick around because, as one fan of my music recently told me:

Your music makes me think about things I don’t really think about—when I feel down and I play it, for some reason it picks me up.

Substance might not get your music heard, but it will make sure you keep your listeners.

I had a friend and reader ask me recently, why is it so important that you build repertoire before building a membership? I thought I had covered this in my original article, but I just wanted to give a few more thoughts on why this is the best strategy.  I won’t focus on what it means to the recruits so much, because we covered in-depth how not having material to demonstrate upfront can cause conflicts in taste and style later, and crack a band up again–more work for you.

Assuming that a songwriter wants to form a band to make original music, then first you need the songs. You need to know why this is important. It helps you select the band members. It means you have material ready to go. You don’t have to take months to develop it, or learn how to write together—that can come later. When you have repertoire already written it means it’s a shorter road to performing and earning from playing.

Bands want to play. Bands need to play, and if you have songs, it’s a demonstration of commitment to a career. It says, “We’re gonna make a record.” If you don’t have the songs, then you have nothing that puts a future in front of you. You have nothing that will drive you on.

You also must remember that a building a band isn’t just about you selecting them, but also them selecting you. That means you’ve got to market yourself in a genuine, honest way, and demonstrate that you’re a real human who is worth working with. A repertoire of songs, already written, makes that a hell of a lot easier.

BloggingMuses.com has a great article on preparing for your first time performing live. Check out one of the tips:

Practice song intros out loud.
Do you like to share a little background on your songs? If so practice speaking into a microphone in front of an imaginary audience. You’ll find the stories come out sounding much more natural when you actually play in front of people.

Check out the full piece at BloggingMuses.com. I remember that when I used to play guitar and bass I could’ve played in front of millions without caring, but after switching to vocals I met for the first time, and had to learn to deal with, the good old nauseous butterflies.

You’re finally up to the step you thought came first: getting out of the armchair and finding, and recruiting, a bunch of band members.

There are two major categories of recruitment methods: fast-paced recruitment and slow-paced relationship building.

Fast-paced recruitment involves putting up ads in music stores and local street press, and using the audition process to filter and select your band members. This can take as little as one or two weeks.

Slow-paced relationship building involves meeting musicians through natural means (it helps to frequent some kind of establishment or event filled with local musicians), forging friendships first and looking for the right person. Instead of auditioning them, you invite them over for a jam a couple of weeks after you meet and make the decision as to whether you invite them to join the band or not. This can take weeks too, but it’s more likely to take months. It can even take more than a year.

Personally, I favor slow-paced relationship building. Both methods work, but I find that recruiting the slow way means you weed out the flakes, and forge strong songwriting partnerships from the start, instead of hitting and missing for months or years as you constantly fire and audition members. Auditioning does not weed out the flakes very reliably, it just weeds out those who can’t play their instruments.

In Part Three we looked at member selection strategies and developed a group of SWOT charts to help you analyze potential new members. You’ll need to keep that stuff handy throughout this process, keeping notes the whole time. Be honest, and don’t let desperation to complete your band cause you to shake off bad feelings or signs. You’ll actually cause your band to destruct, as much as you don’t want to see that in your excitement.

So get out the SWOT charts, place some ads, or go hang out a musician’s workshop or university studio for a while.

songwriting, music, musicians, bands, recruitment, band

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

It’s time to discuss repertoire production. This has to come before you actually go out and recruit members. 99% of bands skip this step and begin writing songs once they’ve put their band members together, but developing at least a decent amount of repertoire while you’re still on your own is a great idea.

For starters, it’s going to help you with auditions. You will not only be able to tell if members are capable of playing your style of music well, but they’ll be able to tell if they like playing it upfront. A common problem is that a band gathers up its members, the members hate the style of music being produced or just can’t agree on how to write it, and the band falls apart within a week.

You also maintain your control over the band this way. If you’ve developed the bulk of the material, then most of the band’s intellectual property belongs to you. The sound is also yours and you become indispensable. This makes it almost impossible for a ‘mutiny’ of some kind to occur, especially if you’ve followed my advice in previous posts and set up the proper agreements, checks and balances.

Make sure you have a fair stash of songs ready. I’d say no less than twenty, but this number is up to you. This shows leadership and commitment to your band members, gives you enough material to plan ahead pretty far in the future, and twenty songs—more than the amount of songs on most albums—really reinforces the maintenance of the leader’s control discussed above.

So, in short: always develop a stash of material before you invite others to join your band.

For some more thoughts on why it’s important to build repertoire before putting together band membership, read this article.

songwriting, music, musicians, bands, repertoire, band

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

To musicians and music appreciators,

I urge you to go take a look at Tuneback.net. The Tuneback is a concept that is free for all to use, but has come under attack from those who would bastardize such things for commercial purposes.

If you’re wondering what a Tuneback is, here’s an excerpt from the site:

The Tuneback was a concept created by Joel Falconer in January of 2007, when he resolved to do something new with his music that year; it was only February when the first in the series appeared online. What’s a Tuneback? Essentially, it’s a song that must be conceived, written, and recorded in less than an hour, and then put online. The song’s topic should be inspired by some kind of online, linkable source, (Tuneback comes from the word trackback in the blogosphere, and it was Joel who coined the term tuneback), but it’s not necessary, as the primary purpose is to create and produce a song inspired by something of substance, character and integrity.

Click through to Tuneback.net to find out more.

Every band requires a basic agreement that sets the standard for working conditions and practices. The way this document will be written really depends on which governing model you’ve chosen, as discussed in yesterday’s Establishing Your Band post.

Aristocratic - if you’ve used the aristocratic model, the band leader should sit down and knock out a draft, then take it to the band and discuss each element, how it can be improved, and any ideas for additions your band members may have.

Democratic - if you’ve chosen this model, then the planning and writing process should be group-driven; get together and do the draft as a band, with no individual taking the first steps in the process alone.

Anarchistic - if you’ve chosen this model, you obviously won’t be having a band agreement!

If you have a business-savvy or intellectual property law-savvy friend (or band member) you might want to get them in on the process too. Don’t even attempt to start the Band Agreement without a good footing in IP law of your own. That said, don’t even get into the creative industries without knowing that stuff. Go to the WIPO site and get a grip on it all.

Once you’ve decided who is involved in the writing process you can get started. You’ll need to set up a document that follows a structure somewhat similar to the one included in the Band Agreement Outline, with any additions or deletions as necessary, and then filling out that structure to cover, exhaustively, each topic.

Download the Band Agreement Outline as a PDF.

This basic list will get you well and truly started on the way to producing a Band Agreement that will keep the operations of the band civil and provide mechanisms for the removal of a band member who causes too much trouble.

Midnight.Haulkerton (then called Orpheus) actually had a Band Agreement formed after one band member’s consistent poor behavior called for it. You can save yourself plenty of time and trouble (and lost hair) by getting it out of the way in the early stages.

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

Before you start working on your repertoire and recruiting band members, it’s important to make a decision on the governing model of your band from the get-go. It’s also important to bear in mind that the band’s governing model is different to the songwriting relationships in the band, and you need to know what route you’ll take before you choose band members so that the songwriting relationships don’t affect the leadership model.

It’s common fault for a band leader to think “I really click and can write songs well with member B. Maybe I should make him the deputy band leader, instead of member C.” But what the band leader failed to consider was that member C once ran his own business and has some marketing training. While member B is a valuable part of the band’s creative output, member C would fit that role better: the deputy leader takes over when the band leader is away, and helps out with roles in business and management, so it would probably be wiser to put member C in that role and assign B as a creative director.

I made this fault with Midnight.Haulkerton’s first incarnation. Actually, I made it a hell of a lot worse: the member I selected as deputy leader couldn’t write music and hadn’t the faintest clue of business practice. So there’s the other pitfall—choosing the member with whom you have a good friendship.

Now that I’ve reminded you to think in terms of the role and the member’s skills (when it comes time to select members for roles) we should consider the various models of band governance.

The Aristocracy—this is the model I came to use in Midnight.Haulkerton. The Aristocracy is where the band is lead by one person, who makes the major decisions and produces most of the creative output. There is still a voting system, but more weight is given to the band leader, so usually the only time when his decisions are vetoed is when every other member of the band is against it. Other members can still contribute to the songwriting process and get credit for their work, and keep copyright in that work, but the band is lead primarily by the leader. It’s usually the founder who becomes the leader, so it’s his baby anyway—and many musicians don’t have the presence of personality and knowledge of leadership to contend for the role.

This might sound a tad tyrannical to many small bands who use a Democracy or Anarchy model, but it’s the most effective way to get things done so long as the leader isn’t a complete moron. Bands progress more quickly this way, and usually members come onboard knowing that this is how the band is run—so long as the founder has made this decision from the get-go.

The Democracy—the Democracy is the second most common governing model used in bands. Everyone has a vote, and decisions are made in a fair way (though not without heated debate), with everyone chipping in and having equal weight. This can work, so long as you’re working with a bunch of people who are slow to anger, intellectual, rational, willing to compromise, to respect the system. They also need to respect that others may have skills and knowledge in some areas they don’t, and therefore be open to their suggestions and ideas over their own.

Unfortunately, most people don’t fit this description and a bulk of Democratic model bands fall apart. Usually it’s after the second practice, though a few notorious bands have sold one or two popular albums before their catastrophic explosion. When Midnight.Haulkerton was still called Orpheus in 2004 and 2005, we ran using this model and often came head to head on various issues. You don’t make fast progress, and never-ending cycles of arguments where nobody can agree is what tears the majority of starting bands apart. This is where having a leader to break those cycles is important.

The Anarchy—this model never works. Members attack each other with various weapons and everyone goes home unsatisfied with the day’s productivity. This occurs when there is no organized system, no voting mechanism, no clear leader, no regard for other’s opinions and each member is just out to push their own agenda and get what they want. I don’t recommend it at all. If you want to do this, by all means go ahead, but don’t expect to get much creative output out the door.

The Roles of a Working Band

In the next article of this series, we’ll go into more detail about the roles of a working band, which should apply no matter how you govern the band. You’ll need someone willing to head up marketing, finding venues, and getting a mailing list together; someone willing to be the creative director and ensure everyone has up-to-date lyrics and notation, someone willing to be the media spokesperson of the band, and so on. Without this system, one member ends up shouldering all the work while the rest sit on couches and fiddle with plectrums.

Once you know what governing model you’re going to use, you’re ready for the next step: the Band Agreement, a document of which the development relies on the context of hierarchy.

music, bands, leadership, aristocracy, democracy, anarchy, roles, musicians

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

After you’ve established the planning for your band, you need to plan for your recruits–who do you want playing what and how many of them? When you start evaluating band members, it’s not just about the music: it’s about who they are. What they like, dislike, what they stand for and what they are against. All these elements make up the brand of the band and will be used and exploited by the public, and the media. This third article in the Establishing Your Band series discusses the band member selection process, but it’s not about recruiting—so don’t jump the gun and start looking for members. First you need to know what you’re looking for. The article on recruiting band members will come later.

I’m sure you’ve put some thought into determining which instrumentalists you need and how many of each you want, but at this point you’re going to need to set that in stone. Make the decision. This is vital to not only recruiting band members, but to the next step of the process—repertoire development. You can’t write music unless you know which instruments you’re writing for.

You’ll also want to know if these instrumentalists can write music, sing backing vocals, play other instruments, or have recording experience. These are all qualities you’ll need to decide for or against far in advance—but remember, the more prerequisites you decide on, the longer it’ll take to build a band. On the other hand, it’ll be a damn good band.

Big tip: beware of looking for the ‘instant click’. Often, a musician is chosen at auditions because the band instantly clicked with them. This isn’t always a bad thing, in fact, it’s great when it happens. But you have to remember that it’s not the most important thing. The creative connection can be developed with some practice, and it’s just luck when it happens instantly. Don’t shortchange your band on talent for an instant creative connection. It also takes time to build the kind of relationship that can survive the internal and external stresses of running a band—stresses that will work to tear it apart. Remember the concept of band as brotherhood. If you can’t see these musical relationships developing into strong friendships, brotherhoods even, you’ll have a heck a lot of trouble down the track.

Getting back to the opening paragraph: your band members are elements that factor into the brand of the band. You need to consider perception management when looking for band members, and you also need to consider how each band member wants to be perceived and known. This is in part about creating a character and living in that character—much like Marilyn Manson—and it’s also about evaluating your choices carefully. How?

Marketers and public relations officers will be familiar with the SWOT. The SWOT is a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis. For this exercise, you’ll need to develop a set of SWOTs: a projected SWOT, which you create in advance to determine what kind of musicians you’re looking for, and a real SWOT you’ll fill in when you’re auditioning a prospect.

How to do it: draw up a table of four boxes for each band member you wish to recruit—one for the guitarist, the drummer, etc. Insert Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats into each of the boxes respectively. From there, you can list the values you’re looking for in your prospects and the potential weaknesses and threats that come with them.

When you’re auditioning, keep the projected SWOTs handy while filling in an identical table, this time trying to match the values listed in the projected SWOT with the values the prospect is displaying. Find ways to test them on each value without them realizing quite what you’re doing.

Now you know whether your prospect really is what you’re after—a great way to avoid the scumbags who will steal your riffs and get stoned before band practice.

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

In part one of Establishing Your Band, we discussed the themes and concepts in your music and the impact you want that music to have on the world. The second part of this series will look at these aspects of the planning process a little more clearly. If you don’t have these things cemented in mind before you get started then all your efforts will be in vain.

Turn on the radio and listen to the songs. 9/10 of them are about nothing. They have no substance. The reason these artists receive constant radio airplay and TV appearances and seem to be so popular comes down to the marketing dollars that large companies pour into them. They’re marketing vehicles in themselves. Since they lack the substance and personality that a truly popular, lasting artist has, they fade away once media consumers have seen their face once to often.

What is required to not only gain true loyalty and popularity but last for a long period of time in the music business is substance and personality. The band, its members and its music should each possess these qualities. The type of substance and personality can be as varied as the stars, but they have to be there.

Substance: clearly discernible intellect and responsibility in stances taken on various issues in songs, copy, media relations, and all related band content.

Personality: likeable qualities found in the band’s branding and its members through the use of either manufactured characters* or member’s natural personalities.

* Some may take exception to the concept of manufacturing a character. This is about keeping a private life as well as a public life. It might not seem necessary before you have hordes of fans in the street, but if you don’t start from the beginning with privacy in mind you’ll never get it.

These two factors will be strongly influenced and even decided by the values you adopt as a band. Are you going to be wild or mellow? That may depend on your stances on say, the Iraq war or global warming, if you’re a ‘situational political’ artist. Or maybe your stances on the state of the world and society if you just want to write meaningful songs without tacking any stereotypical roles onto the band.

Whack out the pen and paper (or word processor) and make a qualitative list of what you (and your band) stand for. What are the loves and hates of your band? What values? When you have a good, substantial list of values, you’ve got a start.

If you want your band to last the distance, decide your values now and stick to them in songs of great substance.

music, bans, songwriting, marketing, market research, personality

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

Establishing your band is one of the first important things you have to do on the road to getting your music exposed and heard, so it only makes sense to cover the topic with a series of articles that’ll guide you through doing this right. It’s a topic that most musicians just don’t get, as correct practices in this field draw on knowledge from areas as varied as marketing, public relations, and management.

So you’ve made the decision: you’re starting a band. But what’s the first step? I’m almost sure that you were going to say ‘find a few other musicians to rock out with’ but you’d be wrong. That’s not first, and it’s not second either. The first thing you have to do is determine what direction you want your band to go in.

1. What are your goals in terms of audience? Are you interested in the club circuit or the stadiums?
2. What kind of musicians do you want to play with?
3. What kind of people do you want to play with? You might know how many guitarists you want, but unless you have an idea of the personalities and level of commitment and honesty you’re after, the only thing you’ll have to guage new members by is their technique. It’s recipe for getting burned.
4. What kind of boundaries will you put in place with the other musicians? If you’re aiming for some level of success rather than just having fun, you’ll need a Band Agreement, written and prepared before you recruit the first member.
5. What themes and concepts will run through your music? This is incredibly important. Don’t skip this question. You need to know whether you’re going to write forgettable love songs or tackle real and meaningful issues.
6. How long do you want this band to last for? Don’t just say “forever”—determine how many albums you expect to release if you’re successful, how many years before you want to try something new. “Forever” can be a good answer, but it shouldn’t be your first inclination—you’ve got to think it through.
7. What genres and styles of music do you wish to play?
8. Will you write the songs and hold the intellectual property while the band plays around your vision, or will it be a cooperative effort between members?
9. Ultimately, what do you want to achieve with your music? How do you want to affect the world?

These questions are absolutely essential in laying the groundwork for your band. If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re on a one-way trip to failure, unless you get lucky and make a massive fluke along the way. Here’s why:

Most people see the music industry as hard to get into because it’s hit-and-miss. The fact: a band is a business, and if you run it properly with a good sense and knowledge of business, it can succeed just as any other endeavor.

Bands may appear anarchistic and cool, but if you don’t treat it like a business, you won’t get anywhere. If you treat it like one, and know what you’re doing, the possibilities go as far as you’re willing to work for them. Determine the direction of your band, plan for your success and know what your purpose is—these are steps that all businesses take before doing anything else. The information you gain from this process are important to keeping you focused on your goals, and the starting point for all the market research you’ll need along the way.

music, bands, starting a band, songwriting, marketing, management, planning, research

The Establishing Your Band Series
Part One: What Direction Are You Going In?
Part Two: What’s This Band About?
Part Three: What You Need in Band Members
Part Four: Governing Models
Part Five: The Band Agreement
Part Six: Building Repertoire
Part Seven: Recruiting New Members
Part Eight: Learning & Arranging Repertoire

Subscribe to the Musician’s Notebook RSS feed to receive the next installment of Establishing Your Band.

I’ve met many singers who have trouble maintaining a clear voice. A major problem is that a lot of amateur singers like to study technique and practice scales but only a few really learn to take care of their instrument. If you leave the same set of strings on a guitar for a few years (if you can manage not to snap them in that space of time), the tone is going to be lifeless. Likewise, if you don’t care for your voice, it’s going to sound bad. Really bad.

The most important thing you can do is drink water, and plenty of it. It lubricates the vocal folds and gives that clear sound. It doesn’t take much water to do this, but if you don’t drink enough your body is going to allocate all that water to other areas that need it more (you know, the digestive system and boring stuff like that). If you’re drinking enough, your vocal cords will be happy and your voice will be clear.

How do you know you’re drinking enough? Doctors like to say we need 8 glasses a day, but each body is unique in its water management. One talented vocal teacher once told me that if your pee is clear, you’ve drunk enough water to make sure your voice is clear too.

It’s crude, but it sure works.

Singing, vocals, singing tips, singers, vocalists