How do I find musicians like me to play with?
How do you find musicians like yourself? A good place to start looking for local musicians is at church, with friends and their contacts, music stores, and guitar teachers. If you are a professional musician and looking to gig, a great resource for finding musicians is with local bands.
Most local bands are made up of players that have been networking for some time. Chances are good that they know someone who is between gigs and looking for a project to put together. The upside is that you get to listen to a wide variety of local bands while you are searching for players to start your own group. Check out open mic nights.
How Do I Know If I am Really a good Fit?
To know whether you are a good fit with the other players can be a tough decision. Your preference on music might be a good match, but your personalities might be too diverse to connect in a way that would make a relationship possible. On the other hand, your personalities might match but your goals could be way different. Even so, music can be a straight up business. In other words, you can hire on as “the guitar player”. It is great if you have a connection with your band mates, but in many professional settings it can be a straight up business agreement. Guitar for hire. It’s important that everybody has the same understanding and everybody is on the same track.
You might be more interested in doing originals while the other cats are interested in doing covers and gigging at clubs. You might be OK with traveling, while someone else might want to stay close to home. OR………someone else might have a significant other that wants them to stay close to home!
Your skill levels could be way different. Your personalities might clash over time. They have a family to deal with and you don’t. You look at it as a career and they “kind of” look at it like a business, but they are not really completely invested.
As you can see, there are plenty of dynamics. Those dynamics can change over time. You are working close with a small group of people. It very much feels like a family as much as it feels like a business.
As you are searching for players, keep in mind that your skill levels do not necessarily have to match up. There are many bands where the guitar player is just OK, but the vocalist is outstanding. There are bands where the vocalist is just OK but the guitarist is outstanding. It’s the chemistry and the overall sound that makes the magic.
If You Don’t like the Same Music
That is a big problem! This is a particularly big problem for a professional wanting to do all original music. It’s an impasse. Someone is never going to be satisfied with the compromise.
On the other hand, if you are putting the band together for the fun of it, it’s not a big problem at all. Expand your horizons and learn something new.
How Do We Decide What To Play?
Once you have found some players, it’s time to come up with some songs. What is going to be your thing? What is going to set you apart from everybody else? Answering these questions is a good place to start when you are compiling your set list.
Ironically, not being unique could be the thing that makes you unique. In other words, you play cover tunes “exactly” like the recordings. That is not my preference, but there is a unique aspect to it and it requires a great deal of skill.
Many times, the characters that you have in your band will organically create a uniqueness. If you can define what that is….great! Refine it and exploit it. Let’s say you have an Eddie Van Halen’ish guitar style coupled with a Talking Heads rhythm style. That would be unique.
Once you have your sound defined, it is going to be easier to select, write, and arrange tunes to play.
Auditioning To Join a Band
Whether you are giving an audition or being auditioned, they are evaluating you as a fit as much as you are evaluating them. It’s a two way street. You are looking at the styles, the personalities, and the goals to see if you can blend together in a musical sense.
It is not unusual for a band to be established as a project. That means it is not necessarily put together with the intention to be a long term commitment. It is more of an experiment. Bands will hire in extra players for specific gigs. Background vocals, horn sections, and that kind of thing. The attitude is “Let’s put this thing together, run it for a year or so and see what happens.” In this case, some of the peripheral stuff is of less importance. It’s a matter of whether you can play the chops the band leader needs.
Do Your Goals Line Up?
When you are forming a professional band, it’s good to have some kind of vision of what your expect from it. What do you want? Is this a project, or are you looking for something that is more long term? Is there a core to the band that will hire in extra musicians as needed?
The more clarity you have about where everybody stands, what their goals are and what their vision is, the better off you will be. It will help you define where to put your energy and where not to waste it. For young musicians that are doing the “good buddy” thing, this can be difficult.
In a long term band commitment, your livelihood (income), is tied to these other band members. You will be working hard at writing, practicing, and tweaking your sound and act. What happens if after 7 years one of the core members decides to leave? Where does that leave you? I am not saying that it will happen. I am saying that it could happen and if it does, it can be a devastating blow. It’s important to have the most information that you can about each others commitment level and goals at the onset.
What if the person you audition is weird?
Great! If some of the band members are weird, that can be a good thing as long as it isn’t in a perverted way. Anything that makes a unique dynamic is a good asset. Of course, if the weirdness results in a personality conflict, it’s never going to work well.
What are good Online resources for finding Musicians to Play with?
https://www.musicianscontact.com/
https://www.find-a-musician.com/Musicians-Wanted.php
https://www.join-a-band.com/ads