Do you play in a band?

My friend and I are a two-piece death metal parody band called Death After Life.  We have recorded one EP (Life After Death), which contains 6 tracks at a length of 5 minutes.  I play guitar and he sings, aside from on one track on which it is the other way around.  If anyone really wants to hear it, I could set it up for download.  However, I should warn that it's good for little more than novelty.

Tips for putting a band together;

1. Your friends, or people you work with. It's quite amazing how even people that say "I can't play a note" can turn out to have really great musical ideas, and can become very good very quickly with practice. As Radiohead said "Anyone can play guitar" - and keyboards and computers are even eaiser!

2. Advertise in music shops, newspapers, internet forums, cafes, bars - anywhere that musicians are likely to frequent and that will allow you to advertise.

3. Practice for short periods but often, record as much as you can and analyse it, play lots of gigs and chat to the people who listen to your music.

4. You may be the only person you know who likes prog - but don't let that put you off. I tend to find I'm in the same position when I start a new musical project (either join or form a "group"), but after you've had a few jam sessions on more simple material, most people like to explore new territory. Just don't tell them it's "prog", and most people will be happy to play your ideas, if they like them.

5. Have fun! (the most important item).

I've been in bands on and off for 24 years or so - and there's no guarantee of hitting the big time; just about all of that is luck - right place, right time. The main thing is that I cannot not write or play music. It's an indelible part of my life. Part of my obsession is fuelled by the initial tutorial I had with one music professor, a chap named Stephen Deutsch (who did the music for Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, among others...). He said "If you are a composer, then compose. If you are a musician, play music.". Patronising git, but absolutely on the money

I'm currently working with a work colleague who has a recording studio, the basics of which are pretty cheap; PC running Sony Acid 4.0, Echo external sound card, basic mixer, microphones, Line 6 Pod for the guitars and an assortment of keyboards. With a few drum sample CDs you can whip up ideas in a jiffy - but the best ones are always team efforts!

In our little setup, I play all guitars via Pods (the Bass Pod has just arrived - w00t!!!), we share keyboard, writing and mixing/arranging duties, and kinda share the vox - being as self-critical as I am I'm reluctant to let anyone hear me make a fool of myself by trying to sing rock, as I'm classically trained.

We also share lyric-writing duties - I posted some lyrics a while back to a recent song of ours called "Grey". The initial music style varies as I particularly enjoy listening to a very wide assortment of music, but we try to make the arrangements as homogenous as possible to create "our sound". Trouble is, as we keep adding kit, like the Pods, "our sound" is evolving, and the old stuff gets re-written...

One day I'll stick some of our stuff onto a website. For now, I can email mp3/wma files to those interested - but it's not very proggy, in fact, it's quite simple music, as I enjoy the challenge of writing music that concentrates more on expressing the lyrical ideas through simple melody, atmospheric layers and dramatic structures than delving into technical complexity. I'm a big fan of Fish-era Marillion (although we sound nothing like them!).

I'm just glad I've got the day job

HaroldTheBarrel wrote: I guess I'm in something of an imaginary band.  I play with a guitarist at times (I play bass) and another of my friends wants half-heartedly to sing. So no, I'm not really in a band.

It sound's great. I'd go see you guys

I participate in a Eletronica-Prog outfit called THE SOUNDCHASER PROJECT, writing lyrics and doing the vocals. I was aslo intimidated to help with some chords at keyboards. We recorded a 49 minutes suite Called INTERGALACTIC RADIO STATION, that was 4 years ago. If anybody is interested follow the link ; http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/The_Soundchaser_Project/ There are even some mp3 samples and samples from the album we are trying to put together.

________

Lunar 

I play in a small band composed with friends. I play vintage keyboards and grand piano. One of my collegue plays acoustic & electric guitars, the other play percussions (tablas, congas). Musically it sounds really ethereal, sometimes psychedelic with a lot of ethnic influences (flamenco guitars meet atmospheric keyboards parts and indian, turkish percussions)

In a certain way its nearer to american minimalist music  than real prog music