Bands are cool, do them.
A friend asked for some feedback on music recently, and it got me thinking. So here’s my thoughts around playing in bands in my early twenties from a mediocre, totally unqualified rando.
Some of it is things that worked for us, some are things I wished we’d leaned into.
Have a plan for the audience
Imagine, as visually as you can, how you want the audience to interact with your music, and then ruthlessly optimize for that in your writing process.
Do you want people to stare into their drinks, dance, mosh, laugh, be impressed? Almost anything is valid except waiting and politely clapping.
Determine what kind of band you are
Reductively there are two types of bands, entertainment bands and art bands. Great bands find a way to be both.
If your goal is to provide an entertaining live or listening experience, build consensus on that as a group and throw any shame aside. Optimize your music, gear and stage presence to that goal.
If you want to focus on your own self expression or the self expression with a group, that's awesome. I really connect with that endeavor. In that case, focus on yourselves, your skills, your craft and try to ignore the outside. Of course you can still have fun with the live performance, but know that maybe you're not gonna exist in the same spaces that some of the more entertainment focused artists will.
Don't over index on social connections
Networking is very important and it creates a lot of opportunities for your band, people with best friend bands, sort of things, but don't let your status in some small community become too large in your mind.
Songwriting is the skill that matters
I personally wanted to believe in some of the egalitarian Queen-inspired vision of a band where every single member is an equal contributor, and we all share credit. But in reality, 75% of the song is the vocals and lyrics; the music is there to support it.
Similarly, if you have someone in your band that creates the lyrics or is the primary songwriter, support them. Unless you can create entire musical ideas including the lyrics on your own, then you're gonna play a support role, and that's fine!
I let my ego hold back the speed at which we could've created, but it's a complicated issue because that puts a lot of weight on the primary creative forces to be decisive and fast and all those other things.
Have fun
Pursuing creative expression with a team of like-minded individuals is maybe the most fun that you could have, so just enjoy it while you got it.
Quality comes from quantity
Create create create, don't ever sit and pick over one idea until it's "perfect". Finish the idea and move onto the next one. I believe that you get better by finishing many many times instead of polishing.
Do it yourself
Have technical skills so that you can record your own band and express your ideas in a consumable fashion. The quality probably won't be what a professional or dedicated engineering producer can do, but it's very satisfying both for you as a band to work together and record music regularly and it allows you to move onto the next idea.
Save your files
Back up the things you create and keep track of them. It is so much fun to look back at the things you've created with your friends and reminisce, but you would be surprised how many bands create music, release it, streaming platforms change, whatever, and that music gets lost. Save it somewhere and you'll enjoy it for a long time.
Anyways, bands are awesome, keep doing them.