Making a band

[edoguy]

How do you make a band and where can you find good but cheep scores?

[Carl H.]

Get money and hire players, ask everyone you know in the music biz :)

I am in the process of getting a big band going, and payment and music are the hard issues with nothing to work from - no reputation, no gigs, no charts, no name, no sound equipment. (We actually do have a gig and financial backing, but good charts are harder to come by than you would think.)


Get some money, and everything else is relatively easy.


Anybody willing to sell good standard (for mixed levels of ability- no time to do a real workup, and first gigs can't afford to, umm. . . , suck/blow) big band charts for cheap? :D

[Sasquatch]

What kind of band are you putting together? Big band, blues/rock combo, polka? Regardless, personalities are important in cooking up a recipe that will gel. I'd spend time finding players that share your vision of what you want to accomplish. Even if they aren't the best musicians available teams achieve way more than a collection of superstars.

/just sayin'

[edoguy]

A jazzband(maybe a bigband), I want to try and make out of my friends,but i Cant find any good cheap music or the rhythm section

[wolfmaiden]

It depends very much on playing ability/level....especially if you have a 'mixed bunch' so to speak.......
You could always start off with something like the "Discovery Jazz Collection", "Discovery Jazz Favourites", "Swing Classics", "Ultimate Big Band Sound" etc etc (grade 3-5 level - but some of them sound pretty darn convincing if played well).......then find which charts out of that sort that you do well, and go buy the single big band chart for that song..........or befriend a local band director......or volunteer at a school with an active music dept. and jazz program......quid pro quo.

[Media Lint]

Friend networks ... a suprisingly large number of long tenured and successful acts can attest.

Here's an odd one: I'm in the midst of reforming, in sorts, a band from the 80s. Meanwhile, the guitar player has been my roommate the entire time. Our last gig was on Earth Day in 1993. He went on to other bands and I mostly recorded. Now we're playing as that 1993 lineup replacing the bass player and vocalist with, well, a bass player (I guess I'm the 'vocalist') with a guy who played bass in a band that opened for us back then. Full circles. One thing I've noted is the same people are a lot more professional in their approach nearer to 40 years old than 20. :-)

[Morry]

Find players that are at your level, or preferably slightly above. This helps you play up to them. I'm easily the worst musician in my band, but it makes me a better player.

Try to find the best guys you can that aren't already overbooked. Sometimes a pretty good player that can be there all the time is better than a killer player who is too busy to show up. The better the players are, the more you're gonna need subs.

I've got a band with 11 members, so I have to have backup guys that I can call and who can come in and knock it out of the park.

[wolfmaiden]

that's too true.....!!
(if they can be taught to 'play up'........some can, some can't, some never will, not in a million years, especially those who only pick up their horns once a week for rehearsal....duh!!.....the 'weekend warrior' types...)

Which brings to mind an incident with a 'bone sub in our band a little while back....just a kid out of school......mentioned it was getting tough for him to juggle school, and gigs, and subs etc..........
...and this was a guy who played really loud, in your ear, points the bell at you, etc etc..........
all I said was...'man, your year-at-a-glance must really be filling up'

he didn't get it.

[Morry]

especially those who only pick up their horns once a week for rehearsal

Hey, that's me you're talking about!! :-)

[edoguy]

most of my friends are around my grade level or better, how do you measure grade level like grade 3?

[Morry]

I don't have any idea what "grade level 3" is. My comments were regarding guys who gig professionally or semi-professionally. I guess some of what you need to do depends on the type and difficulty of music you want to play.

Our band is basically a Tower of Power cover band, so I had to find guys who could handle that kind of tight section work, plus a few guys who could wail when needed.

The main thing is to play music you love. I was told there was no market for TOP stuff in clubs. I was told we'd never make a go of it without playing Mustang Sally. I've found neither of those to be true.

Have a vision for the group and work towards that. If you play stuff you don't really like just to get gigs, you'll end up being miserable.

[thekid]

Go get some REAL BOOKs. They're pretty cheap. They'll have like 400 songs. They can run about 20$ for the "New Real Book" and I've got my 5th edition real books for about $40. THey come in multiple keys so you don't have to transpose.

[edoguy]

when your making a band is it better to buy some charts first or to gather up the band?

[Bill Mecca]

form the band, then decide what you want to play, No sense getting a lot of trad jazz charts and then only being able to find guys who want to play Mustang Sally all night.

[JL]

Go get some REAL BOOKs. They're pretty cheap. They'll have like 400 songs. They can run about 20$ for the "New Real Book" and I've got my 5th edition real books for about $40. THey come in multiple keys so you don't have to transpose.

The Real Books are helpful. But, more importantly, get the recordings! Listen to them and transcribe the tunes you like. The "scores" are all there on the recording.

[edoguy]

thats a great quote :"The "scores" are all there on the recording"~by JL
I'm trying to transcribe tunes and so far I got the main melody of Rocky and Paglicci

[Carl H.]

New big band had it's first gig this last weekend, and 2 more lined up next month. Lot of work but it is a lot of fun too.

[groovesax]

I'm trying to transcribe tunes and so far I got the main melody of Rocky and Paglicci

Is that some kind of Boxing Opera???:?

Forgive me, but I'm picturing Homey the Clown in the ring with the Italian Stallion?

Seriously though - you can get a lot of free chord progressions from places like guitar tabs.com.

[edoguy]

listened to Maynard Ferguson's band play it on a cd, and thought paggalaci sounded cool( I either like jazz or "sad/evil" music like moonlight sonata)

I liked rocky's theme thats why