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Joined: October 29 2008
Status: Offline
Points: 573
Topic: Forming a Prog Band Posted: July 06 2009 at 12:45
Hey everyone, I've just been feeling pretty discouraged lately and wanted to make a post like this.
I've been playing guitar for about six years now and I've been a prog fan for most of that time. I've always wanted to write prog music and be in a prog band, but it's never really clicked. Right now I'm in a classic rock band with some other guys, and it's a lot of fun, but while I try to push them in a proggier, art-rock direction, it just isn't scratching that itch, you know?
I've been working on material by myself, but I find it a challenge. It's awfully hard to jam with yourself, and I typically use a computer program to get things down so I can play them back and hear what they sound like (PowerTab is what I use). The problem with this, though, is that writing songs occasionally becomes a bit soulless, I find, and that because the output the program uses is midi, I can never really get good feedback on my music because whenever I send it to someone all they'll say is "LOL this sounds like video game music!" which is frustrating. Also it's difficult because when all the music is coming from one person, you feel as though you're missing out on a very important creative dynamic. But it seems very difficult to find someone who has a similar ideal to me when making music, a lot of musicians I know are more interested in rocking out, getting smashed, owning the bar scene, scoring with chicks, or making cheery three chord songs that will brighten peoples days. No one wants to break boundaries, no one wants to experiment, no one wants to try the road less travelled, and I just can't jive with that.
Anyway, I just wanted to get this off my chest, I guess. It's got me feeling pretty down recently. I'm hoping a lot of the people here will understand. If you're in a prog band, how did you get your start? If you aren't in one but wish you were, share your tales of woe. If you're a solo artist, how do you get around the difficulties of writing music alone?
Joined: March 14 2005
Location: Finland
Status: Offline
Points: 1119
Posted: July 06 2009 at 15:05
If you're a solo artist, how do you get around the difficulties of writing music alone?
Here's an answer that will be completely useless for you, but I'll still write it down. I learnt the electric guitar for several years, but after the lessons I slowly realised I had little use for the instrument because it's such a lonely case. I could play a melody, but what's a melody without a rythm. Or I could play a rythm, but what's a rythm without a melody? After a while this got me really depressed, composition wise and in every way too.
I felt really uncreative. I didn't feel like playing songs, didn't feel like composing, and when I finally did something, I had no ways of building them into songs. Why? I had no bands to play them with. I only had a melody or a rythm. I never could do both. That's when I started playing the acoustic guitar solo. And I started playing jazz, rythm and lead guitar together, and I did that for years and got pretty good at it, but at the same time forgot a lot about the el-guitar.
A lot of the people I know write music with programs like GuitarPro or PowerTab, but I couldn't. When I was playing, the song felt like a song. Then when I started writing it down on tabulatures, it lost everything it had in it; it started to become maths, figures after each other, 1s and 0s that are played through a computer. The music basically lost its soul.
The only way I could get it working was recording my playing with Audacity and then listening and playing on top. It'd be rough and mostly acoustic, but it'd be music, not just blocks and pieces. Then mu sound card exploded, and I couldn't record anymore. At that time I recorded the one song that I have a link to in my signature.
But my biggest problem is, that playing my instrument, I can't hear the rest of the band, and I can't compose them. If I do, it feels pretentious, and I start hating my work. Because if I compose drums or keyboards, I know, I'll never be able to try them myself, nor with anyone else so why even try?
It's never easy, I can say that. But good luck on your efforts too. I've got plans myself now, just need to find a band and a muse
hmm, I'm in a similar situation, the best result I've had so far is to download a program like reason or cubase, which can convert a midi file into much more realistic sounds (the guitar still sounds pretty robotic but keyboards and drums sound genuine). I just make a backing track then record the guitars over it with audacity,
this is the best short term solution I've found until I can get a prog band
Joined: March 14 2005
Location: Finland
Status: Offline
Points: 1119
Posted: July 07 2009 at 10:43
Yeah, and now that I think of it, it's been a while, but GuitarPro 5 at least came with a huge package of sound fonts, and one could download more and better ones from the internet, though of course they would cost something. That is if I recall correctly. I don't know which version of GP is the most recent at the moment, as I mostly use Sibelius and if tabulatures are needed, then TuxGuitar, which is a free and easy creator, though not as versatile as GP perhaps.
Joined: June 11 2009
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 80
Posted: July 08 2009 at 09:45
Oh the woes of being a progressive musician! I'm in a similar scenario, but with a different twist. One thing that I have is a drummer that is awesome and has very similar music tastes to mine, and that is great because I can bring riffs to him and tell him the kind of feel that I want and he can do it.
Our problem is that we are recording illiterate! I'm a tone-perfectionist and get discouraged if the guitar doesn't sound perfect. Now with a free recording progam like Reaper, and a couple of cheap mics, I can't expect perfection, so it's difficult! And as I mentioned, I'm very bad at recording and engineering and all the B.S. that goes into it, so we have another guitar-playing friend that we jam with who is savvy on all that stuff, but we have apparent creative differences.
He's into the more intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus classic formula. And I don't want to come off as arrogant, but I'm being honest in saying that he simply cannot play the guitar parts that I come up with. He's not a bad guitar-player by any means, he just has a different, more narrow style of playing (basically blues/classic rock stuff) and is unwilling to sit down and learn the songs; instead he'll just thrown in half-assed imitations that I think bring down the music. We just don't see eye to eye.
The problem is that since he's pretty good at all the technical stuff like recording, it's hard to include him in that aspect and tell him that he can't play on the songs. We've compromised a bit and we'll play the songs he writes, but I think me and my drummer would be better off if we just got a new guitar player and found somebody else that could help us with the recording aspect, or *gulp* learn it ourselves.
Sorry, I've kind of rambled about my own problems, but I think the answers to everybody's problem here is pretty much the same; stay focused on what you want and make sacrifices to attain it! It's extremely hard to piece together everything and turn collections of melodies and riffs into actualsongs. But I'm just counting on the end result to be the rewarding inspiration that I need to keep doing it!
Joined: July 03 2009
Location: Chile
Status: Offline
Points: 290
Posted: July 08 2009 at 15:13
Well I have a similar problem, I have a very cheap computer and this piece of crap doesn't allow me to use softwares as Cubase, Audacity or Reason, so I haven't been able to make any decent recording of my material. I write my songs on Guitar Pro 5 just to not forget'em, btw Passionist the "Realistic Sound Engine" you mentioned is a piece of crap compared with some VSTi and VST technology. Anyway, the fact is that I can show my songs just to a couple of people because the MIDI-sounds-like-megaman-music thing, and those persons are Guitar Pro users too, so my advice KingCrimson250 is that maybe you might join a tab site forum as Ultimate Guitar or whatever. The problem is that anyone would be able to download your songs and you're exposed to being robbed =/.
But now my branches suffer
And my leaves don't bear the glow
They did so long ago
Joined: March 14 2005
Location: Finland
Status: Offline
Points: 1119
Posted: July 08 2009 at 15:26
Haha, yeah, it's true, but it's a short term solution if you for example can't find drums to record. I've heard some "ok" stuff recprded with instruments and RSE drums added to the background. Basically only for the song to sound better to listen to and for the live-drummer to learn. Nothing beats a real band though.
Joined: July 03 2009
Location: Chile
Status: Offline
Points: 290
Posted: July 09 2009 at 20:47
Passionist wrote:
Haha, yeah, it's true, but it's a short term solution if you for example can't find drums to record. I've heard some "ok" stuff recprded with instruments and RSE drums added to the background. Basically only for the song to sound better to listen to and for the live-drummer to learn. Nothing beats a real band though.
Agree, anyway, have you heard Ziltoid The Omniscient? It's a Devin Townsend record, the point is that he recorded every instrument and for the drumming he used a software called EZ Drummer, which has a lot of available drumkits to chose... you have to pay for them of course.
Here's an example of how they sound:
Pretty realistic huh?
But now my branches suffer
And my leaves don't bear the glow
They did so long ago
Joined: December 09 2007
Status: Offline
Points: 610
Posted: July 09 2009 at 21:24
I'm not a musician and i wouldn't know how to play a single note on any instrument but I only seem to like old style prog and fusion when it comes to rock music. Most rock bores me because I just don't rate it, so I'm not bothered if someone doesn't like a prog song because I just giggle to myself and think 'they're not even on the same wave length' . I've been making tunes for the first time recently and I laugh when someone talks about video games. As soon as someone says video games, you know they have pretty simple taste in music and you're a couple of steps ahead because the only thing they noticed was that alot of keyboards/moogs have been used which they haven't even heard before and all they could say is it sounded like a video game. The ideas, complexity, melodies, cleverness of a song completely went through one ear and out the other and they had never even heard a moog, mellotron etc. I laugh at them and you shouldn't be upset at all by negative comments because only a small % of people would understand it anyway
Joined: December 09 2007
Status: Offline
Points: 610
Posted: July 09 2009 at 21:29
daslaf wrote:
Passionist wrote:
Haha, yeah, it's true, but it's a short term solution if you for example can't find drums to record. I've heard some "ok" stuff recprded with instruments and RSE drums added to the background. Basically only for the song to sound better to listen to and for the live-drummer to learn. Nothing beats a real band though.
Agree, anyway, have you heard Ziltoid The Omniscient? It's a Devin Townsend record, the point is that he recorded every instrument and for the drumming he used a software called EZ Drummer, which has a lot of available drumkits to chose... you have to pay for them of course.
Joined: September 21 2008
Status: Offline
Points: 242
Posted: July 20 2009 at 02:10
You'll find other musicians who like progressive rock. The most important thing is to not try to just jump in the prog scene immediately. Join a variety of different bands. I joined a metal band, a jazz band, and a symphony all before I joined the prog band I am in now. Joining many different musical ensembles will not only broaden your musical experience (an essential characteristic for any progger) but will also allow you to meet so many new people. Surround yourself with great musicians and let everyone know prog is your thing. Show people in your ensembles the wonderful world of prog by giving people some CDs or list of bands to check out. You can even form a classic rock band and let it develop into prog on its own. You'll get there eventually, just don't give up on your goal.
Joined: June 10 2010
Location: Upstate NY
Status: Offline
Points: 15
Posted: September 23 2010 at 09:38
Where are you from? Another tortured soul here who is about to give up after three years fo hard work and dissapointment with other musicians. A keyboardist sems to be our nemesis here in upstate NY. Still have a guitarist and drummer who are committed to do a classic prog tribute at tribute band levele for Yes, Genesis, ELP, UK, Gentle GIant, Focus, Zeppelin Pink Floyd, Tull, Rush King Crimson.
hit me up we are still looking ? Bassist has gone on to another tribute band I we don't blame him. Keyboardists do not exist up here or their to weird to want to work and tour.
Joined: January 20 2009
Status: Offline
Points: 1601
Posted: September 23 2010 at 14:50
Being able to play keys definitely helps for writing music. Because you can do chords and melody together (or since it's prog rock, maybe crazy **** with the right hand, while doing crazy **** with the left hand). It helps greatly for organizing and composing. And specifically what you said, guitar only allowing me to play one part at a time, is the main reason that I always play keys instead of guitar if I'm by myself. I like having the low and high end, the chordal structure and the lead. Hell, on organ I can have the chordal structure, the lead/melody, and a bass line going, all when I'm alone.
And yeah, finding keyboard players is impossible anymore. All I could ever find is these quiet kids who can play Beehtoven and Bach from music, but ask them to jam or do ANYTHING feel based (even a damn blues shuffle) and they look at you with confusion. Those are the kinds of people I like to call physical musicians, they aren't really musicians, even through their hands can move faster than mine ever will. Thus I started playing organ myself because I got so fed up with it.
And whats worse, I had the start of a good prog band going and it fell apart due to people moving away. If you look at the link in my sig, I once had that, and now I have nothing. (I've gotten much better at keys and writing since then, and I wrote the majority of the song, so I feel I'd be better now if I had a band)
Edited by himtroy - September 23 2010 at 14:55
Which of you to gain me, tell, will risk uncertain pains of hell?
I will not forgive you if you will not take the chance.
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Forming a Prog Band
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If you're a solo artist, how do you get around the difficulties of writing music alone?
. I've been making tunes for the first time recently and I laugh when someone talks about video games. As soon as someone says video games, you know they have pretty simple taste in music and you're a couple of steps ahead because the only thing they noticed was that alot of keyboards/moogs have been used which they haven't even heard before and all they could say is it sounded like a video game. The ideas, complexity, melodies, cleverness of a song completely went through one ear and out the other and they had never even heard a moog, mellotron etc. I laugh at them and you shouldn't be upset at all by negative comments because only a small % of people would understand it anyway 
