Does anyone feel they can't play with oth

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 StarsongAgeless wrote:

^ It's never much fun when one member of a band doesn't give other members artistic freedom, or tries to tell another band member how to play his/her instrument.  On the other hand, it's just as frustrating when one band member writes a song, and the other band members, rather than write their own parts for the song, decide the song needs to be changed to fit their needs.  It works both ways.  With the band I was in, I was the only one who actually wrote songs before hand, so this was always happening to me.  It bothered me a lot when the other band members took out anything that wasn't in 4/4, and changed a lot of the basic structure.  It went way beyond their artistic freedom, into stamping out my freedom to write a song that I liked  (well, I could still write them, but if I wanted the structure to be the same I'd have to do it by myself).   I think this is why our jam sessions turned out better... because my feelings didn't get hurt because I hadn't done any work beforehand.  We'd just play some chords or something in 4/4 for a few minutes, and it sometimes turned out pretty or psychedelic-sounding in some cases.

Apparently I needed to rant. :)

Anyway, I think what I was trying to get at with all that, is all the band members need to give each other the freedom to experiment, play, and have fun.  I wouldn't be surprised if it works better when all the band members compose their own songs, so it's more balanced and varied.  Freedom and staying relatively relaxed are important. :)

You're absolutely right. When you write a song, you have the right to protect it from being changed in ways you don't like, but when you're just jamming, let everyone do their own thing.