A Musician’s Guide to Middle Management, or Leading a Band
Brooklyn, NY
Performing with your own band is an exhilarating experience. But before you can have your moment on stage, you need to get a group of musicians into the same room to learn some music. And musicians have a knack at being slightly unorganized, slightly tardy, slightly hungover from last night’s gig, and numerous other habits that made it difficult for girls to introduce me to their dads in high school. Here are some strategies for running a successful band, and have a good time doing it.
The advice I offer comes from my experiences leading my own groups as well as playing in other musician’s bands. Many of the lessons I learned came from looking through the rubble of projects that just fell apart. Had a few things been handled differently, had there been a strong voice of leadership, the band could have been successful. But all too often things aren’t organized from the beginning, the inter-band relationships start to clash, and a lack of honest communication and accountability lead to the band’s demise. On the other hand, successful projects of any genre always have several things in common, and it all starts with the leadership.
Have a Plan
There’s always some underlying reason for starting a band. In my case, I started bands because I wasn’t getting enough calls for other gigs. If I wanted to perform more often, I needed to make it happen myself. I was also writing a lot of my own music, and it’s not always appropriate to bring your own charts to somebody else’s gig. Naturally, starting my own band was the logical next step. All I needed was a plan to put things together.
Before calling up some friends for a jam session, I had to know what I hoped to accomplish. Most bands that go nowhere simply lack vision. If you have a good idea of how you want the band to sound from the beginning, you’ll exude professionalism and earn the confidence of the musicians you’ll need in the band.
My approach was to give a couple CDs of music to the guys I wanted in my band. I said, “Here are some of the artists I like playing the type of music I want to play. Any interest in doing this?” And of course I had charts ready to go as soon as we could get together and play.
Even if you plan on playing all original music, a mix CD of some songs you might cover or that just represent the direction you want to go is an excellent way of creating that initial roadmap. In fact, playing some of the music on those CDs is a great way to initiate the early jam sessions.
Organize Your Material
There are (at least) two reasons to have your music well organized, presentable, and easily distributed:
1) This is how you communicate your craft with your peers.
2) The music will ultimately sound better come show time.
For my band, I have binders with page covers and neatly printed music (from Sibelius or Finale) which I put in the order of my set list for every show. I also have PDFs of each chart and MP3s of everything but my newest material. If I need to call in a sub, I can get them everything they need by email. I don’t expect them to memorize the music, but I do expect them to show up prepared.
Not every type of band will have written music. There are many gigs where you will be given recordings and asked to learn your part, so if that’s how you’d like to give distribute your music to bandmates, make sure you use high quality recordings and clearly explain what parts are to be learned. Just as an example, I’ve received recordings with multiple guitar players, and needed to know which part I should learn, or if I was the only guitarist on the gig and should turn two parts into one.
Put yourself in the shoes of the person learning your music, and decide how you’d like to receive it. The easier it is for them to learn, the better your music will sound. I love, love getting a call for a gig from certain people that have a reputation for being well organized. Learning the material is hassle free, and the gig always goes down smoothly and is fun to play. As a result, I try to model my bands after those experiences.
Communication Breakdown
Chances are, every musician in your band has other gigs. This will, without fail, make booking gigs and organizing rehearsals a communication nightmare. So before you miss your chance to play your dream gig because the oboist was M.I.A., consider these tips:
Find out how each person prefers to be contacted. For some musicians, text messages are the fastest, easiest way to be reached. For others it will be email or an old fashion phone call. As long as they have a reasonable preference (no messenger pigeons, please), it’ll be easier for you to adapt to their habits than ask them to change their ways.
Discuss each musician’s priorities and commitment to the band. Your band might not be the top priority for every member, and that is perfectly fine. Commitments work in two directions, so if one musician can only play half the gigs, she should understand that you will be filling her spot with subs. Most bands make very little money at the beginning, so be understanding of your bandmate’s needs to make a living. At the same time, be open with your goals for the group and honest about how much money they can expect in the near future.
Get confirmations. Never assume somebody got your email about the gig getting bumped up an hour earlier or that the gig got canceled. Make sure you get a response from everybody understanding the changes, otherwise the responsibility for the communication breakdown is yours.
Use a shared calendar. I use Google Calendar to keep track of my schedule, and have given access to the two people that call me regularly for gigs. There are other options available as well, so find out if anyone in your band uses something like this and see if you can have access. It will make scheduling much, much easier. But to reiterate one of my earlier points, don’t expect everyone to start using a shared calendar just for your band. Chances are they’ll forget to update it, and then it will misrepresent their schedule making it useless to you.
Share some Responsibilities
Sometimes the best way to get things done is to work with a like-minded person. For example, if you have your hands full writing and organizing the music, maybe somebody else in the band can update the performance calendar on your website and social networking sites. Or perhaps you’re a singer/songwriter that writes great songs but doesn’t have much experience working with ensembles. Find a bandmate that can also act as your Music Director–somebody that can put together charts, help the other musicians learn the music, and direct the band onstage.
Set the Example
If you’re going to ask your bandmates to show up on time, dress appropriately, and haul their gear around town, make sure you’re the exemplar. This is essentially the definition of leader, but some musician’s interpret that word to mean “person with the microphone.”
I think some musicians start bands casually and want to behave like rock stars on the night of the gig. But that attitude lacks the professionalism needed to have a successful band. At the very least, if you set a good example for your band the venues you play and the people you work with will want to hire you more often, regardless of how the rest of the band behaves (within reason).
Make the Tough Decisions
Perhaps the hardest part of leading a band is firing a friend. Sometimes the musicians you hire at the onset of the band aren’t necessarily the best person for the job. Maybe their commitment is lacking, or maybe they just can’t handle the part. If you believe the right move is replacing that person, be prepared to do it. Just try not to be a jerk about it. Be professional, and handle all your relationships with care. You never know when the guy you fired might find their niche and have the perfect gig for you.
Good luck!
About the author
Sound advice! It’s all good… I would say setting the example is one of the more important ones you outline.
1/22/2009
Wow Cameron – You might very well be the most organized person on the planet! These organization and planning tips are very helpful. Thanks for sharing.
Direct, clear communications and setting / meeting desired expectations are some of the most important keys to success in any endeavor.
I have to wonder where some of my favorite bands might be today if they had been following this advice…
1/22/2009
Got this from a tweet. Read it in a breath. Very good stuff.
A personal addition to this would be:
Buy an mp3 recorder – i have the Zoom H4, it’s very cheap, very good and very easy to use. Really, buy one!
Record _everything_ – i record all gigs and rehearsals, sometimes i record a rough outline of a song/idea at home. (I also record my singing lessons, which boosts the efficiency from very expensive to very doable!)
Mail little pieces to everyone – if you rehearse a song 10 times only to get it right the tenth time, take your recording, cut out that one take (or cut together 2 parts of semi-right takes), mail them to everybody. Really, technology is no barrier here. Getting an mp3 off of the SD card and mailing 10 MB around to everybody is a piece of cake. Also, having an old computer configured as webserver is easy. Band members can always download the whole shebang.
For an upcoming gig, i sometimes look through the old gigs for a moment where we really were on fire. I cut it out and mail it to everybody with a few nice words. My gut says this is a good thing to do. ;->
1/23/2009
Cameron, not only is this a great article, but thanks for showing me this website! OK now back to writing songs :)
1/23/2009
will you be my responsiblity sharer??? ;) great article cam, couldn’t have said it better.
1/23/2009
Thank for the article C- I echo the recording the rehersals, then I give everyone a burnt cd to hear what is happening.. it REALLY helps tighten things up..
additionally, being very upfront with how the $$ is being split… for shows…. AND for licensing and songwriting shares… EVERYTHING is documented and legal things the attorney handles..nothing will piss people off more than to not be clear about how the money is being handled.
I recommend all these things to artists I coach on growing their BUSINESS.
Look forward to other posts.
4/27/2009
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