Playing in a band

Okay, the real stuff! Let’s assume that you are about to join a band. A bluegrassband, a countryband or another kind of band, it doesn’t matter. What does matter are a few simple facts (I call them ‘rules of politement’) to make your musical contribution a pleasure for the band, yourself and the audience.

Bandmembers (you...) are part of a band, not the centre of the band. Together they make music and members are taking turns to play a break. This means that you are playing in the background for most of the time (see my article ‘Playing back-up: working in the background’).

Always think of the band as a music producing unit and think of the contribution you can make to the overall sound. It’s important to listen to each other while you are playing, rather than ‘pushing’ your own sound forwards. Of course, your contribution is a part of the band, but it should not interfere with the musical part of another bandmember. This is especially true when you are playing in the background. It should be obvious who is doing what at in a specifiek part of a song.

Sometimes it’s good idea to step aside and listen what is going on in your band. Don’t play your instrument, just listen...



The Big Americana Band



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fill it in

The ‘empty’ parts at the end of a line (before the singer goes the next line) are perfect for so called fill-in licks. One instrument can make a contribution here, but not all the instrument at once! I’ll give you an example: in our band, called the Big Americana Band (BAB), I play banjo and harmonica(‘s). We play a song called Mystery Train and I start the song by imitating a train on my harp. I play fill-in licks in the rest of the song (trainsounds). One evening, while working on this song, I noticed that our fiddleplayer also did a very good imatation of a trainwissle. So we decided to take turns to play the train-whistle as a fill-in lick.

Playing a break or not?

It’s not a must to play a break in every song. Sometimes a banjo can be more effective as a backup-instrument, giving the right sound on the right moments in the background. Also the band can start a song with a banjo-intro. Banjo and fiddle together can make a nice intro too.

Anyway, be creatieve. Poor your own musical sauce over the songs and be distinctive.