Musician’s Notebook

The exit clause is perhaps the most important clause in the band agreement. It stipulates the conditions under which a band member may leave the band, and outlines the actions that can be taken when a band member must be terminated, and for what reasons this may be done. It prevents long, drawn-out arguments over these particularly sensitive issues of band life and prevents one member’s departure from creating problems, or even a collapse, for the whole band.

The purposes of the exit clause are:

To facilitate the departure of band members in as clean and professional a manner as possible;

To ensure that the departure of a band member does not jeopardize the band financially, structurally, perceptually or with regard to intellectual property issues;

To ensure that the information the media and public receives from the band and the departing band member is uniform and consistent;

To ensure that a replacement can be brought in smoothly, trained in the songs that the former band member played on that instrument, and with no legal roadblocks to recruitment left in place by the departing band member.

A good band agreement will have a thorough exit clause that meets these goals and resolves any issues arising from them, and will typically contain the following stipulations:

1. Media Release on Exit

A media release must be developed on the exit of any band member. This is a joint public statement which can be sent to media, or on a smaller scale, placed on the band website so that loyal fans have a unified view, and not opposing views, of what occurred between the exiting band member and the rest of the band.

2. Payment Withholdings

Any payments/settlements owed to the departing band member will not be paid until they have worked with the band to craft and publish a media release, under the agreement that they will not make statements that contradict the release.

3. Completion of contracted performances

No band member intending to exit the band will put contracted performances in jeopardy. This one is a HUGELY IMPORTANT one. Imagine it: you’ve just scraped up the huge amount of cash it takes to put on your own tour, and one of the band members wants to leave. They’ve not only sent you broke with no means to recoup that money, but hung you and the band out to dry. The condition must be that the member will give sufficient notice to the band and complete any remaining contracted performances. If this is disregarded, there are grounds for legal action and the band will collect damages.

The band can also use their discretion to determine whether the exiting band member is reasonable in wishing to leave before the completion of contracted performances.

4. Transfer of professional relationships

If the exiting band member is the holder of professional relationships directly affecting the band, the exiting band member must transfer this relationship to the band before leaving, without damaging or defaming the relationship between the band and the professional.

5. “Negative position”

The exiting band member should not leave the band in a negative position that could allow the band to sue the exiting band member.

6. One month’s notice

The exiting band member must officially notify the band at a meeting one month before exiting. This condition is superseded by (3) Completion of contracted performances, so if there are contracted performances a month and a half from the official notification, the exiting band member must attend them. Again, the band can use their discretion to determine whether the exiting band member is reasonable in wishing to leave before the official exit date set in the meeting.

7. Successor recruitment

Depending on the way in which the band member leaves, they may be expected to assist in recruiting a replacement and teaching the band’s repertoire to them. The exiting band member must do as best they can within their skills to document any musical notation or tablature for their instrument, or obtain help to do so.

The second clause, regarding the withholding of payments, can be modified to stipulate that all exit conditions must be met before payments are issued, but otherwise, the consequence is often legal action.

Having a band agreement with a strong exit clauses is one of the best things you can do for the longevity and success of your band. Get to it!

Read more about the Band Agreement in the Establishing Your Band series.

Too many artists are playing stale music; cliched lyrics, cliched licks and riffs, and cliched outfits. Ok, so the outfits don’t make a band, but it’s a hard question some of us have to ask: does my music provide something new? Years ago, I played in a band with some friends that sounded like rip-offs from cheesy 80s hair metal, minus the hair (except one of the guitarists, who had one heck of a fluffball). Had I liked playing in the band a bit more, it would have been much harder to admit: we were playing stale, cliched crap.

It’s hard to ask, and it’s harder to answer, but it’s something you’ve got to do, and do honestly. Take a tough look at your music and if you feel compelled to defend something, then your question is answered. If it’s fresh and exciting material, there will be no doubt. You’ll know it, because you wouldn’t have heard it before.

Your first instinct will be to brush past the question with a “of course it’s not stale!” but avoiding the hard truth is the worst thing you can do. What have you got to lose if you ask? Nothing - you will gain when you start thinking about the kind of music you want to be making. And if you don’t ask? You’ll lose a lot more, such as the prospect of an audience.

So, are you providing something new? Is your music fresh, exciting, and a relief from the barrage of cloned marketing rubbish that hit the airwaves on a daily basis. Go on - ask yourself.

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.

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.

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.

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.