General Music Chat

I've had good and bad experiences with playing in bands. I played drums for a band with my dad (bass) and his friend (rhythm, vocals) and his son (lead, vocals), and it was honestly the worst music experience of my life.

First off, the practices were waaaay toooo loooong. We literally played our entire music library at every practice, and even played the new ones twice!

It very quickly got old. We played 2 gigs in about 8 months. We were too good of a band to play so seldom.

My main problem was our lead player. He was selfish and jobless. He basically had no life outside of our band and world of warcraft, while the rest of us worked, and I worked and went to school.

I remember my dad getting fed up with it too and calling me one day and telling me that he told them we quit the band and that was one of the best calls I've ever recieved.

I know exactly what NOT to get out of a band and practice now.

The band I'm in now practices what we NEED to practice, and freshen up on old one's as well. We're an original band that does no covers, which I absolutely love.

So, my bad band experience got resolved when we quit pretty much lol

I haven't talked to them since!

I'm in my first band right now so I've only experienced a little of what you've gone through, but we did have one irritation that made waves ~ a singer who wouldn't close her mouth. Between songs during practice she would spark up a conversation with one of the others and like a child with ADD, we had to get her attention by just starting up so she couldn't be heard over the music - huge hint there. We got rid of her pretty quick not because she couldn't sing, but because she was irritating to be around ~ so personality is a huge part of the package in our band.

Other than that, what has really kept the fire burning in our own little world has been to constantly add new material to rehearse. That has kept us all focused on learning a song instead of focusing on each others performance of a particular song we already have nailed ~ it has kept things fresh every Tuesday.

We also go to an open mic as a band after practice just to set it into a performance context so we've been able to avoid any real conflict by keeping ourselves busy, always working on new material and socializing afterwords over a drink and fun time in front of an audience.

Fortunately, we're all pretty laid back ~ no one is domineering in our group and quite agreeable, so naturally that helps immensely.

^.^