Julienne Strips
(Reading)
Thursday 26 Apr 2018, 11:42pm
You've honed your craft with the passion of half a lifetime, setting the bar high as demanded by your idols, your words and music have attracted great reviews, mini-masterpieces accumulated over many years, you've adorned them with tasty arrangements - it's your life.
Or it should be... it can be. There is a way.
But why does it seem frustratingly impossible to simply form a band, play gigs, generate buzz, making it justifiably worthwhile shelling out to record/master properly?
Last year you wrote close to another album's worth of material, some of it your best yet.
Meanwhile, your would-be bandmates seem only to be interested in churning out the same old covers just because it brings in a few quid. Surely you'd expect any self-respecting music loving semi-pro player to jump at the prospect of being a part of something interesting, different, challenging, authentic - rather than stooping to karaoke.
The truth is, about originals, is that everyone wants to be a part of the creative process, part of the songwriting, bent on stamping their own sound on existing songs, ignoring the wishes of the author, disregarding parts that have already been written - melodic hooks in their own right.
But writing or arranging by committee can result in lowest common denominator, mediocre music and isn't our way, not the best way. Many successful bands have individual songwriters presenting fully-written songs to the band, and may have demoed them first. Else they take their songs to another band member or the producer, and arrange them one-to-one (that person listening, taking on board, and then helping realise the writer's production ideas) before taking fully fleshed-out songs to the band.
And so the band are essentially a backing band - session musicians. The problem is that the vast majority of musicians fail to register this fundamental fact: the importance of respecting the creative vision of the writer and being sympathetic to the song and genre. Despite - ironically - that this is exactly what they're probably doing when they're playing Stuck In The Middle With You for the umpteenth time for pocket money.
So when you advertise for a band, you're really asking for session musicians to play for you for free - and that's because paid gigs for originals are, sadly, pretty thin on the ground.
I'm suggesting building a pool of people creative enough to be complete songwriters, or songwriting partnerships in their own right, whatever instruments they play, and whether or not they sing...
...In the hope we can help each other out mutually, work on one another's projects in a reciprocal fashion, allowing songwriters to get that backing band and gig/festival, all the time adhering to and respecting the artistic vision of the creator.
If this is you, or you play but don't write songs from the ground up (maybe you're a drummer or producer) then do please comment or PM, add your link, etc.
If there's enough interest I'll look into forming a collaborative, hooking people up.
Cheers,
Kristian
P.S. links below, no local lineup. I sing and play bass and rhythm.
http://watchingplanesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/this-is-audio
Www.WatchingPlanesMusic.com