What role do you play in your band?

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I'm kind of the "Trent Reznor" of my band. I do most of the writing, creative direction, logistical arrangements, recording/producing. I'm playing 1st & 2nd guitars, keys, lead + BGV's, traditional Native American Drums, Flute, 7 whatever else we can use.

My bass player does all the I.T. and information management & protection through various networks and backup systems, including F.T.P.

My drummer does his drums, percussion programming, some other web related stuff in development.

We have another partner who is going to handle the mixing and some additional drums & programming.

This is how it's currently functioning on this first recorded work together. Once this first recorded work is complete, I hope to have us all 3 writing together, and take on a 2nd guitarist to not only reproduce the recorded work live, but to be an equal partner as well.

This originally started out as a solo project, and I found that I still wanted to collaborate, so even though I wrote the material thus far, that's not how I intend to continue beyond this point.

 

[Prydogga]

I write the majority of a shell of the music, and all of the guitars. I then give my opinion on the direction of other instruments from my original vision, or do the same for entire songs/parts other band members will write.

I cover the majority of the promotion, locally and on the internet, and do all the art/design, including merchandise.

My drummer Joel (Kurkkuviipale) writes drums and most of the synth, and mixes the music. Wayne, the bass player just plays bass, strokes our egos and complains about other bands with me. It's the perfect team.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

"Roadie" = Old School Terminology for "Grunt Guy".

Howzabout a new, more sophisticated title, like.....






"Equipment Valet"...

 

[Valennic]

I'm "outside evaluation" for a partial band that I'm not even in. Since I'm usually there when some form of practice is going on, I'm usually asked for my input on a lot of things as an outside perspective.

I am guitarist for said partial band.

 

[Konfyouzd]

I'm good at segments. I am very narrow minded and have trouble viewing entire songs. The songs I write are unnecessarily complex and lack repeating parts. I need people in my band that are good at taking my chaos and organizing it. Thanks to my Axe-Fx, I also do alot of production now. Recording and mixing is just as much a skill as playing is.

I'm the same. So is my pianist. The drummer, however can be a bit *too* conventional (for lack of a better word) and tries to push everything into a scheme someone else has done. It's not bas per se but I don't like the mindset of copying something you aren't covering.

Musical success isn't necessarily a goal for me. I just like to play it, so I don't really see any reason I shouldn't be allowed to write complex songs that don't repeat if that sort of thing pleases me.

The real issue--I think--is that he played in ska bands and church bands which tend to have very conventional structures and time sigs. So when I write something that isn't 4/4 or 6/8 he'll try to make me add beats to fit one of those 2 sigs.

I'm not "metal" by any means but I do hear things that aren't all that conventional and I don't like playing something other than what I hear unless it gains something in playing it differently. Changing time sigs to make it "easier" = a cop out imo as long as I'm not going out of my way to be complex.

Now that someone brought up the idea of being "band leader," I feel like we may actually be subconsciously battling for that spot as it seems like whenever I play something he doesn't understand he tries to educate me on music and can be a smidge condescending in doing so.

I can kind of see how groups of talented ppl get tired if each other, disband and leave the world wanting more.

 

[Fiction]

I notate things in guitar pro and never look at them again.

But in my actual band, with real people, We usually set up and everyone says okay what are we going to play, and then everyone stares at me until I start up a song. Then we flesh out a song, talk about how good it is and practice once every few months and have to remember the first song

 

[Vinchester]

cigarette dispenser

 

[Konfyouzd]

I notate things in guitar pro and never look at them again.

But in my actual band, with real people, We usually set up and everyone says okay what are we going to play, and then everyone stares at me until I start up a song. Then we flesh out a song, talk about how good it is and practice once every few months and have to remember the first song

Yea... It really seemed so much easier to get together and practice when I was in college... Why didn't I take it more seriously?!

... oh yea...

But now it's like:

Me: We jammin' Friday?
Drummer: Sure
Pianist: Uhh... There's this party...
Me:

 

[VBCheeseGrater]

cigarette dispenser

Your bandmates must smoke OPCs?

 

[C2Aye]

Generally the main songwriter of everything except lyrics and the token Asian back when I played in bands. Now that I'm solo, I'm not sure it's possible to be a token Asian anymore

 

[Bandersnatch]

I'm the primary song writer in my band... usually the other guitarist or drummer will come up with a riff or a beat and we record it, I take it home and start writing chord progressions/licks/fills and then I take my ideas back to the band and then we all start modifying from there giving each other input on what we think is done well and what we think can be done better.

I don't even think the other guitarist designate ourselves as "Lead" or "Rhythm" guitarist since he and do both.

The drummer is more producer/audio engineer on the demo we're working on...

 

[hairychris]

I play guitar a bit and ooh shiney.

EDIT:

OK, reasonable chunk of writing and arranging, some vocals and electronic nonsense. Unfortunately I hate most of the other stuff that bands have to do except playing live.

 

[opti]

Well, I'm working on a one-man project (brutal/techish death) so that one kind of goes without saying. The only person I know who plays an instrument and is interested in playing the same stuff has only played bass for about a year and a half and isn't yet up to playing that stuff, so I'm stuck being God of half-assed music.

But, the stuff I've written with that bassist is usually a give-and-go between us but I do the final arrangement. He has more interesting vocals (Luc Lemay, early Chuck Schuldiner) than I do (AJ Magana, Jens Staschel) so he gets those fun duties.

 

[MetalBuddah]

In my main project, VELA, I am currently guitar player/backup vocalist as well as booking guy and producer. lots of job, but I like the control I have. Our other guitarist write a bit more than I do, our drummer just drums and gives really good opinions, and our Vocalist/bassist writes all lyrics and makes our promotional material.

In my side project, Kerberos, I am the main writer as well as prodcuer (Tre watson mixed and mastered our first song simply because he wanted to and I was an idiot making the release date so soon)

 

[JosephAOI]

Currently, I write all of the music for my band myself, including all three guitar parts and bass and I try to come up with some drum ideas. My drummer (Djishbox on here, who is the only other part of the band for the time being) will then go into Superior Drummer and write parts out in his style and we'll finish drums for the song like that, tweaking some things as we go along and he gives input.

So far, I'm very happy with the results of this process

 

[MetalBuddah]

My drummer (Djishbox on here, who is the only other part of the band for the time being) will then go into Superior Drummer and write parts out in his style and we'll finish drums for the song like that, tweaking some things as we go along and he gives input.

God, I wish my drummer was proficient enough with drum programming to do that

 

[SirMyghin]

An interesting trend is most of the bands here seem to be some variety of metal, and the guitarist (who are present) are all the 'songwriters'. Interesting, but not overly surprising as it does seem like most metal songwriting starts and ends with the guitar, everything else being very much the back seat.

 

[Scattered Messiah]

An interesting trend is most of the bands here seem to be some variety of metal, and the guitarist (who are present) are all the 'songwriters'. Interesting, but not overly surprising as it does seem like most metal songwriting starts and ends with the guitar, everything else being very much the back seat.

Yeah, although that's somethign we really try to tackle by making different instruments the angle point of different sections in a song ... since I really detest when it is enough to know the guitar line in a song to essentially know the song

 

[opti]

An interesting trend is most of the bands here seem to be some variety of metal, and the guitarist (who are present) are all the 'songwriters'. Interesting, but not overly surprising as it does seem like most metal songwriting starts and ends with the guitar, everything else being very much the back seat.

I think you give metal drummers and bassists too little credit. Without the rhythmic backbone of players like Inferno, Flo Mounier, or Lille Gruber on the drums metal would be pretty lifeless (whether you think it is or isn't). I couldn't for the life of me imagine a Defeated Sanity song without Lille Gruber's drumming; it's just not the same band - that and he is the main songwriter.

And that's just in death metal. I could see your argument work for black metal, but every other genre of metal is heavily reliant on bass for the low end punch and - especially - drums.

But maybe the lack of a drummer explains my appreciation for them

 

[Konfyouzd]

An interesting trend is most of the bands here seem to be some variety of metal, and the guitarist (who are present) are all the 'songwriters'. Interesting, but not overly surprising as it does seem like most metal songwriting starts and ends with the guitar, everything else being very much the back seat.

Well if it's of any consolation, I play both guitar and bass--guitar primarily. However, I do just as much writing with my drummer as a bassist as I do with my pianist as a guitarist.

We don't do shows at the moment so it works if I can loop something. I need to either get better at looping or get more loop pedals.