Dumb question but I'm pretty dumb: how do you start a band?

>>72662027
Depends on what age you are/what stage of life you're at.

>>72662048
19, in college, decent at guitar+piano, would love to eventually make music for a living

>>72662143
gonna take a wild guess here, but maybe you should meet some people with similar interests.

>>72662143
Join a society or something and make friends with people who also make music.

Don't start a band, unless it's only for the purposes of doing old pop covers for bars.

If you genuinely want to make personal reative music, you're going to have to go solo and make everything yourself. If you try to do this through a band you'll just argue a lot.

First, you can't be dumb.

Second, this
>>72662257

Learn any instrument you'd want to put into your work or find a good substitute and be your own god

>>72662027
play/write music, find people who want to do something similar and who you get along with.

>>72662027
>try to start bands all through out middle school
>do the same thing in high school, try to get in to school clubs that centered around music
>get unmotivated, stop playing/practicing the guitar and piano
>give up on the dream
yeah..

>>72662257
I'll add that if in the course of meeting people who play music you happen to find great musical chemistry with a few then starting a band would be a good idea.

>>72662027
start solo, start a duo with an intelligent dude

>>72662683
You were never meant for it.

>not being a solo folk singer
>not being an autistic idm bedroom producer

>many words incoming

you really have to know what you want. if you want to make your own songs, just do that and then look for relatively good musicians to play them with you. if they like your project (and if they like you), chances are they'll join.

if you want to get a group together to compose collectively, it's a bit trickier. if you have musician friends, just tell them that you're looking to start a band and invite them to jam, play covers or just show each other what you like to play. then talk about what you would like the band to be like and its goals, and if you agree then they'll join.
if you don't have any musician friends, make some. it may seem hard but making music or just being into music is very fertile ground for connecting to people, just saying hi and starting a conversation about music is very easy. also at this point people who are into music but have no experience making it can learn to do simple enough things like singing, or playing rhythm guitar or bass or anything accessible very fast (especially if they can learn from other band members). many bands that start out young have members that have little or no experience at the beginning.

remember that forming the band and the honeymoon period are arguably the easiest parts, and what will keep a band together is alligned goals, constant rehearsing, getting live shows or recording stuff and a friendly atmosphere.

>>72662683
Should have tried harder or have done something yourself.

>>72662996
If you're doing stuff solo, how do you get it so others can hear it? Like to get the attention of other musicians who might be interested.

>>72663038
I did, the whole "Utopian inch" thing was me trying to tap into that side of me again. I still get plays even though it's nothing I'll do again because I failed at it. Still today I wonder what I could do if I hadn't stopped caring, but I'll never know.

>>72662143
Start doing jam sesh's with people at parties and you'll eventually meet people who take music as serious as you

>>72662027
The internet made it easy. All you have to do is put your music on the internet and people will come flying toward you, unless your shit is so extremely experimental that no one wants to collaborate with you, in which case, you'll have to go it alone.

>>72664674
i've heard your stuff and it sounds all tossed together have you tried taking your time,being serious and seeing what you can do?

>>72664842
No I haven't. I've thought about getting a cheap akai keyboard and drum machine to fuck around with in ableton. I have a guitar I've thought of doing some stuff with but I don't own an amp or anything anymore.

>>72664674
there's no deadline on being an artist, only you can define success or failure. If you really were over it you wouldn't be moping about what could have been. You can't change the past, all you're doing is wallowing in your failures. Maybe instead think about what will come thinking the way you do about your life. There's lots of things I've given up on in life, and it's ok to put certain things behind you, but if it's still bothering you, you obviously aren't over it.

its a fucking annoying process. i got a couple of friends interested in the idea of starting a band and it eventually grew into a band. the thing about bands is, they die out if no one is as serious about actually doing it as much as you are.

ive been in 6 bands in the last 5 years, and all of them lasted less than a year. it takes persistence and finding the right members. me and a guy from my first band are still in a band together because we have an understanding you know. its weird doing creative stuff with people so its like a different relationship then a friendship.

we eventually found a bass player on craigslist and he shared the same musical ideas. so pretty much forming a band is just luck and persistence.

>>72665178
I've thought about doing music like ambient or post rockish, the whole weird electronic thing I was doing I enjoyed messing around with but I never made it sound like what was playing in my head. I got close once or twice. I did send a demo to Graveface just to see what would happen and I was told to work on structure more. I was flattered I got an answer but it wasn't the one I wanted obviously.

>>72662027

Im aspiring to be a musician as well, what Im doing is focus getting a day job or sticking to college till I can transfer to music in any course I take. That way if the dream does fail i can still do it just as a hobby. Its good to habe dreams but if you really want to go for ot youll need a back up plan

>>72665271
it's still a good answer. Just keep learning and working at it. You should look up Oblique Strategies or something like that. If you want to improve what you're doing you've got to experiment with your process. And don't get hung up on lack of equipment. It's obviously useful to have gear, but it's more about finding novel ways to use what you have.

I made my first album with just a portable voice recorder and the most rudimentary one track editing software.

Finding another person to work with is invaluable. Working solo is very easy to get lost in naval gazing bullshit, when you have another person in the room with you there's continuous feedback, and it's harder to get lost in making pointless adjustments.

If you want to work on structure, just try writing out your song before you record it. It doesn't have to be proper notation or anything, just find some way of making a diagram to explain to yourself how it will go, then you just have to put it together like you planned it.

Of course, the other part of that is sometimes you have to adjust your vision. Sometimes you want to make one thing, but as you work on it it becomes something else. That's ok too.