So a lot of you have been asking for an insight on what it's like to work in a band (particularly The Coddiwomples). Although I only have great things in mind when thinking about my journey with the band, here are a few truthful thoughts I had about the process (for those who are interested).
As an artist who has grown up relying on myself to prepare
for my own gigs, pick all my own songs, learn all my own parts, and rehearse in
my own time, I didn’t realise how much of a new and tricky transition it would
be for me to start working with a band. At first, the idea of playing music
with other people sounded like fun. Jamming out with them (in rehearsals and on
stage), writing songs with them, and creating a new sound that I couldn’t do on
my own was exciting to me. It wasn’t until I actually started brainstorming
with them for song ideas that I realised working with other people (not just
myself) wouldn’t work quite as smoothly as expected.
It started off in the first meeting we all had as a band. We
were all excited to be together and couldn’t wait to share our ideas and
opinions. Deciding on a couple of songs that we wanted to cover was thought to
be of an easy process, but within the first 10 minutes of discussion, there was
bickering, disagreement and conflicting opinions. It took us at least 5x longer
than usual to simply pick a single song that we all agreed on. This was the
beginning of a long road ahead. Rehearsal time became wasted on picking songs
and arguing, and it started to become a dreaded time of the week. When we
finally started playing and learning songs, there were arguments about who
played what, and what sound we wanted to produce. This continued on to occur
for a long time before we realised we needed to change something. After all the
arguing, frustration and exhaustion, we soon started to work on the things that
were going wrong, and focused on making the right decisions to make the band
happy, instead of each individual artist happy.
Over time, I’ve realised that the most important mentality I can have when meeting up with my band (and the greatest advice I could give to those started to work in a band for the first time) is to: PICK YOUR BATTLES. Not everyone is going to be ecstatic about the decisions made. But to be honest, if you learn how to put the band first and just settle for making somebody else happy in order to make the best sound for the band, then go for that every single time. It’s a journey that I am so grateful so have travelled, and would highly recommend to every artist to experience it at some stage in their life. It is an extremely eye-opening, humbling, and selfless way of learning music, and always ends up teaching you so much more than just chords, lyrics, and song structures.
Until next time,
- L x
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