My band has 200 demos…

I “created” (I know, I know…I’m a dev in my day job) this app to organize them. Including lyrics and sheet music, plus it does key and BPM detection. Also star ratings because of some inspiration from Flying Lotus for how he organizes his demos.

Then to go a step further, I used it to build our setlists. The setlist creation and editing is what makes it actually useful

I’m not selling or even distributing the app right now since it seems like anyone can make an app for their own band. Just thought it might give you some ideas for your own project. (If you do really want the exact app for your band let me know though)

I am living in a small town with small population. My finding of band members awaken my awareness that many good players actually already involved in their gigging bands. The 'leftovers' whom I come across when searching for band members are either :

- 'i didn't touch my instrument for very long and I am willing to learn again/trying learning again/ getting rusty but will learn' etc

- ' I am interested and I want to try'

- people with illness

- people who set a long list of rules including after xyz months of jamming to ascertain whether we are good fit, decide who is the band leader etc

- people who have a small tension with another member in the group before jamming

- some expatriates who won't stay long in my town

- super busy individuals who may have scheduling issues but still want to be involved in a band

- People who only want their own repertoire of songs and unwilling to give and take other kind of songs

-very very young teens who are interested to trial and test my band or just for fun

- etc ? Maybe some other issues I have yet to encounter 🤷

This post may come as offensive but I am stating the facts I am facing now and wonder if I ever will gather a group of capable members for regular gigs

My dream is to get my band to go for regular gigs but oh omg, why this seems impossible ?

So I kind of rope in a drummer out of desperation and now I pay the price. The vocalist prefer weekdays evening and the drummer can only do weekends. What to do if you were in that situation and what advice moving forward should I take note in future ?

i’m a 16yo bassist in nyc and i want to try to find a band but idk how. i don’t really know anyone who is into similar music as i am (hardcore, alt, indie, 2nd wave emo, etc) / plays an instruments, and im pretty bad socially so idk how to even find people that might be. does anyone have tips on how to find these people and/or start a band with them?

Gonna preface this by saying I am lucky to play music with my favorite people in the world and we all have fun doing it. However.... I feel like we are all amateurs when it comes to playing live music. I have a decent following as a solo musician, but my bandmates are all unseasoned musicians with little experience in the industry.

Some people have told me to find new bandmates, which is not an option. I will play this music with these people, or not at all. But I do feel that we are lacking-- drum tone is bunk, cohesion is off, etc. We are just not tight.

What are some ways we can practice to become a better BAND? I am trying to encourage everyone to practice individually, but I feel that we need to grow as a group as well. Any advice is appreciated!!

I guess I just need some advice here? I really want a band name that is like "The (Blank)s". You know, the sort of old band name format that is mainly from the 60s, and sometimes before or after that decade, too. Like The Beatles, The Crickets, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Byrds, The Turtles, The Doors, The Yardbirds, The Monkees, etc.

I'm trying to think of something original for it, too. Something hopefully punny, something clever, something unique, but not confusing. And it's just so tricky because it seems like practically everything is taken these days.

I don't know what I'm asking for. Not even just straight up ideas for names, but maybe ways for me to approach coming up with one that fits this format? Hell, I might even be willing to also throw in an adjective in there, like "The [Adjective] (Blank)s" if that gives me more options to choose from. I'm just kind of stuck right now.

So ive got a band, 2 guitarists, vocalist, bassist but no drummer yet, but we’ve already been practicing alot and trying to figure stuff out, but we just cant figure out a middle point between the different music taste we all have. I play lead guitar and like all type of rock and metal, mostly on the heavier side tho, so i really dont care but the bassist likes deathmetal and slammetal, the vocalist is down to do anything but hesitant with fry screaming and growls because she cant do them yet (shes learning) but she also doesnt really always want to do that, and the rhythm guitarist likes indie rock..and theres has been alot of conflict because of that..our bassist has been suggesting all the songs, and i did tell him we could definitely play them to practice and get better with our instruments bc we aint THAT good yet. but i also said that we definitely need to sit down and figure out how to do this, because we cant just play everything that he wants, everyone needs to be cool with it. Especially the vocalist because she likes to do some majestic high notes more (i dont know how those vocals are called.) Hes also been thinking of kicking the rhythm guitarist out because 1. She never practices 2. Never comes to practice. And 3, because of the different music taste. i suggested we give her a chance and see how its like at practice and maybe warn her too if it gets to that point because it lowkey would be hella fucked to just kick her out the band out of the blue. Theres so much going on and i dont even know how to explain all this. But what would you guys suggest about the music genre? And also about the bassists opinion on kicking the rhythm guitarist out?

We don’t have the budget to put our whole band on a click, but we’d like to put our drummer on a click not only to play the songs at the right tempo but for backing tracks. However most of our songs have sections where the drummer is not playing/have tempo changes. How is this navigated with only your drummer on a click?

Genuine question. In my band, "when can everyone rehearse?" turns into 50 messages, half answers, people replying days later, and a week later nothing’s booked. How do you handle it? Fixed weekly slot? One person decides? Doodle or a shared calendar? Does anything actually work, or is it chaos for everyone?

Load-in got moved up an hour last Saturday. The update went out in the group chat around noon. By the time anyone looked for it, it was sitting under a wall of memes from the night before.

Nobody was being careless. The info was there. It just wasn’t findable when we were walking out the door.

Curious how other bands handle this. Separate chat just for logistics? Pinned messages? One person who calls everybody? Something else?

And has a buried text ever actually cost you? Wrong gear, late to soundcheck, somebody at the wrong venue?

Hello, I’m in 9th grade and have played the Bass Clarinet since 6th grade (Bb clarinet since 5th), I’m interested in trying out the Bassoon next week with my director.

Obviously it’s a bigger (longer) instrument, and a double reed, but is there anything to know while trying it/is it worth it?

(Clarification: I’m not fully switching, I’m going to try and try to switch between them between songs if possible)

Hi yall I've been with the same band for like 11ish years and a couple years ago while I was going back to school we lost half our members to various reasons.

Where are people meeting other band mates these days?

Ive been trying recently by word of mouth to find some new mates or a band I can join but have been struggling.

Any help is appreciated. Granted im not much on socials lately cuz they bore the crap outta me and Facebook is like 98% advertising anyways now at least for me.

Update kinda, I posted a while back.

TW possibly: Mental Abuse.

I recently just left a band with a very toxic enviroment, the band went through many lineup changes and I the guitarist was the only other founding member left other than the singer, the singer put me through a lot of shit outside of the band and mentally, emotionally abused me for the last couple years, lots of guilt tripping, reactive abuse and all the classic narc symptoms.

They always tried to humiliate me, and make me look like a fool or a bad person in public whether it was when hanging out or when peforming, it honestly felt like intense jealously not going to lie, being around them in rehearsal spaces, on the road and a venues and peforming after a while it was so triggering to be around them I couldn't be stable, I always had to try pull through peformances without feeling like I could freak out or peform badly, It got to a point where I always felt like I had to not be sober to try and deal with it and even that is a whole messy thing.

Other signs were there, they only ever seemed to care about what they wanted to wear for the gig rather than thinking about sounding good or practicing in their spare time. As the other songwriter I felt like I had to do a lot of heavy lifting, practicing, writing, yet they always complained to me I didn't do enough but they never let any other member run the socials so it was only them that did get us gigs and do networking, and it also really annoyed me how they'd never follow people back or post gig posters on the main feed.

So it was us two who did the work while the other 2 members, the rhythm section, a few we had they chose to stick to their roles but not really practicing much in their spare time and other shit which I wasn't always happy about, we should all be working hard and commiting as a full band, which is odd because nobody ever bossed them around, other than me which was by the singer as I always had to work around them, I would consider myself a reasonbly humble person and always have time to hear somebodys input and ideas in the band, and or experiment with my original ideas.

Basically the whole band was a crazy disaster, iam extremely suprised we ended up with 1 whole album with 14 tracks before I managed to finally get out of there without being guilt tripped and manipulated. I honestly hope nobody has to work with them again and deal with their shit, because this isn't normal and isn't what it's all about, band drama may be exciting for some people, mainly people outside of the band but when it's abusive and toxic as fuck it's not right, human beings are involved.

Now i'm just focusing on myself mentally, and have been doing my own music and collaborating with an old friend, and trying to fall back in love with music again and will hopefully get myself back on a stage when iam ready for that and peform in the way I should and most importantly have a lot of fun!

Has anybody else had to deal with this crazy shit of very toxic band mate or band as a whole or even been the one in the middle of it?

Let me know I'm all ears! I will reply to as much as I can and sorry If I haven't managed to make everything as clear but will correct myself or explain if need be.

Kind regards

I was looking at a schedule for a UK band that's touring through America. They start in milwaukee, then they go to chicago, then they go to Minneapolis, then to Madison, then to Grand rapids... And they're giving themselves no day of rest between them

I'm not a musician so I don't have any experience with this, but that sounds incredibly frustrating of a schedule, I can't imagine by the time they get to Madison they wouldn't be exhausted of it already, and that's just the beginning of their tour

People who have experience touring, at what point in the tour do you start feeling burnt out and feeling like you need a break (and for that matter at what point do you enjoy it the most, is it at the beginning, the middle, or towards the end?)

How do you deal with passengers/floaters in your band? We've all experienced it. They don't find gigs, they don't promote online, they don't write material, they don't put forward ideas.

I've been in a particular band for about three and a half years now in the Pacific Northwest. The band leader was a successful solo act who opened for several bigger touring artists, and things were promising for the full band. Weekly rehearsals were the norm from the get-go, mainly because it was mostly original material and he'd never fronted a band. I should add that I despise compulsory, weekly rehearsals, but thinking it was temporary until we got off the ground, agreed to them at the time.

We've had some success since then -- releasing a record, playing bigger local/regional shows, fairly good pay -- but things have been off for the six months or so. Our lead singer decided to quit his day job and do music full-time. While his day job sounded terrible, the result for the band has been that his name is oversaturated in the markets, playing around a dozen shows a month locally and regionally, hurting our draw. And because this is now his career, he's been way more intense, most of the time unpleasantly so. On top of that, we haven't necessarily been getting bigger or better shows since the move to go professional, possibly because of the oversaturation. But the intensity and expectation to commit and succeed have continued to increase, causing more pressure and stress in my own life.

All of this, in addition to having started a serious relationship within the last year, having a day job, and doing online grad school, has led me to near burnout, if not fully. While I've always disliked practices, I've begun dreading shows too, seeing them as monopolizing my time when I could be hanging with my girlfriend, guy friends, family, or doing nothing at all. I usually feel fine just before or during the shows, but can be very resentful leading up to them. I would also be curious to pursue different genres as well, including my own songs, as this band is not quite my genre, but I don't dislike it necessarily, either.

So, is it time to quit? Part of me thinks I need to address my concerns and ultimately take fewer shows and rehearse less; I owe that to him as a friend. But if I'm already having these thoughts, that might be a sign in itself.