fisherman bob wrote:First the amount of time working a bassline is irrelevant, it's the results. I've spent as little as a few minutes and as long as years tweaking them to fruition. There's a band in KC area that performs live and creates original songs ON THE SPOT. Good musicians can usually create something redeeming almost immediately. Advanced jazz performers do it all the time. I've had many different people sit in with us at gigs, no rehearsal needed. Second, ultimately the only person(s) whose opinion counts is the members of the audience. The audience could be at a gig or people here on Bandmix listening to your posted tunes (BTW I like your tunes posted). If the rest of your band feels a song sounds good go with that and play it for others. As far as censorship I'm not talking about individual basslines. I'm talking about your other band members wanting to bring in their own tunes. I'm willing to work out ANY of your tunes REGARDLESS of my opinion of them IF you are willing to work out my tunes REGARDLESS of your opinion of them. As soon as I hear "We're not playing that tune" I'm heading out the door, no whining needed. I understand your thinking about building a song from a bassline, perhaps you've NEVER done it before. It can work very well if you APPLY yourself just as I would apply myself to fit a superior bassline to your tune. We can argue until we're blue in the face but the bottom line is whether a song works for the AUDIENCE. You can think a song sucks and if the audience eats it up then how bad does it suck?
Ok I think I better understand what you mean...
There's a couple of things:
Scenario 1:
If you work for a manager, who books you in a room with a specific audience, he/ she might have to ask the band to NOT play certain songs... (Its happened). This is especially true in some overseas venues. In any case, if the band agrees to observe that caution...somebody's songs are gonna get ditched in that tour.
Scenario 2:
In the studio, using the argument that you presented about what the audience wants... The A&R guy and/or the label that finances your project might tell ya ...'sorry but this song has gotta go... if yo wanna sell this beast before Christmas...yadda yadda and yadda... . Again... the song gets ditched.
Scenario 3"
You do a 1 hour show and your set list has 2 hours... A) you gotta size up your audience pretty fast, B) you pick the songs that best appeas that audience and you toss the ones that don't.
Scenario 4:
Your at your last rehearsal before the big night... and wham, the drummer pipes up and says "Hey guys I just wrote this song on the way in, can we do it for the show tonight?" In which case you say to him... Yep, but only if its fast , a standard 16 bars of this and that ,etc...cause anything else is just not gonna gel till we sit down with it.
In all 4 scenarios... what if... the same songs keep getting tossed...
Listen, I think I'm with you on the general idea that if you are my bandmate, you get the same privilage and rights that I do, and so on... I have never said i would ever deny other members the right to get their songs in... But I have said, they better not suck...
. I am fairly conscientious at what I attempt.. I'm only asking that the other mates act the same... If they can't oblige..then I guess its a stale mate...and ..so everybody moves on...