If you've ever been at a show, and the band just sucks, it seems like a bad experience. Here's the thing, though, that can make it a good one. Any time you find yourself saying "man, I could do better than that," you are obligated to try. It's easy to do! This DIY episode is about how you can start your own band. Unless you're into that Beat Happening thing (which is ok too), you're gonna need some instruments. Non-traditional instruments are cool and I totally encourage them, but most people want to start off on something like what their favorite bands play, like bass, guitar, or drums. So I'll focus on those three. There are a lot of different ways to get gear; if you've got parents who are willing to help pay for that stuff, that's great. Playing music is so improving, I try to help encourage my friends and little sister by offering to help pay for equipment to get them started. My dad did the same for us when we were kids, and I'd have never gotten started if he didn't get us that drum kit. So if you've got someone who wants to help invest in your future, that's wonderful. Most of the time, you've got to buy it yourself. My first bass I bought at a reasonable price from a friend; sometimes you can find someone around your school who has some stuff they don't use. It's hard to know what to pay for stuff sometimes, especially if you're new at the instrument game. There's a place online at www.harmony-central.com that has reviews of equipment, and they frequently include new and used prices, so you can see if you're being ripped off. It's a good way to learn about different brands and models too, but for a beginner I think it's way more important to get something that's affordable. Seriously, I've tried, like, every guitar on the planet, and there _are_ differences in quality, but there's not that much difference to make it worth it to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on your first guitar. Just get what you can. The three instruments that I play the most were all under two hundred bucks. Even still, you can usually find something for a hundred bucks or under. If you're playing guitar or bass, you'll need an amp too. If you're planning on playing with other people, it should be big enough so they can hear it over drums, like, say, 30 watts or so. Watts are basically the rating for how much power an amp puts out, so, how loud it gets. Anything 15 watts or less is pretty much a bedroom practice amp. Anything over 60 watts, for guitar, is more than enough. A full Marshall stack is 100 watts. The amps Ian and I use for guitar are 50 watts, and they're loud enough for our loudest practices, and for any shows we need to do. For bass guitar, projecting low end requires more power, so you might need something like 60 watts or so, for playing with others. I've gotten by just fine on lower wattage bass amps, though. For drums, they're a little more expensive. However, unlike bass and guitar, they're more upgradable. My first drum kit wasn't too great, but I got some new cymbals, and later some new stands, and new hardware in spots, etc. Be aware that most drums kits you buy don't come with cymbals or "hardware," meaning cymbal stands, a stool, a kick drum pedal, etc. So it takes a little bit more money to start off with usually, but they're cheap in the long run, especially if you consider the years of enjoyment you get out of them. So, the quick list of gear you need: for drums, you'll need a kit (with bass drum, snare, a tom or two, and the stands for all of these), a hi-hat stand and hi-hat cymbals, usually at least one other cymbal and stand, a stool (I used a kitchen chair for my first year, no problem), a kick drum pedal, and some sticks. For guitar or bass, you'll need a guitar or bass, an amp, a strap, a cable or two, and a tuner. If you want distorion, you'll have to get an amp that includes it, or get a little stompbox. I recommend a stand and either a case or a gig bag as well, but they aren't totally necessary. So those are the basics you need to keep in mind when shopping for gear. And where to shop for gear, you might ask? I look around online for information and pricing on equipment all the time, but I almost never buy anything without using it first. Guitar Center stores let you play with everything, which is pretty cool. I don't personally support Guitar Center, because they're a corporate chain and tend to drive small, locally owned stores out of business. But they do have great prices, especially on beginner instruments. It's been my experience that the people that work there are generally uninformative, and not terribly helpful. I recommend American Music here in Seattle; the staff there are always helpful, informed, and on the level. If I go in there with a question they don't know the answer to, they usually find out before I leave. So just go in there and let them know you're a beginner, and you need some stuff for really cheap. They'll find some good, cheap stuff for you without pressuring you into buying something you don't need. I was at Guitar Center one time, and a guy was buying a bass for his daughter for christmas. I overheard the salesperson talking to him, and he was telling him all the stuff he'd need. By the time I was done playing their guitars and not buying anything, the salesperson had loaded up this guy with a bass, a huge amp, the most expensive tuner, a hardshell case, just, like, everything he could pawn off on the guy. That kind of stuff doesn't happen at smaller stores, at least not the ones I go to. Some other good stores in the Seattle area are Guitarville and Trading Musician, although they usually tend to have more vintage, and therefore expensive, stuff, but you can sometimes find good used beginner-priced instruments. Stores that have new stuff, like American Music, sometimes have package deals for instruments, like, you can buy a set that has all the stuff to get you started, for a low price. I'd stay away from pawn shops, because the prices are usually a little higher. They expect you to try to bargain, but they'll usually take advantage of you if they can. Next you'll need to learn how to play. There are a lot of books of sheet music out there, but it's _way_ easier to read tab than traditional music notation. Tablature is a system of writing music that shows you where to put your fingers on the neck, so you don't have to know the names of the notes. When you're playing with other people it's helpful to know the names, so you can say stuff like "play a D there," but it's not necessary for beginners. Best of all, tab is readily available on the internet for free. If you go to www.olga.net, they have a whole archive of popular songs that people tabbed out for them. You might find some bands you like at www.punkhardcore.com too; they've got a lot of tabs there for punk bands. Oh, Olga also has a chord generator, so you can find different ways to play chords, etc. That's pretty much all you'll need to start playing your favorite songs, if you can find the tab for them. Play along with the cd for a while. It's hard to get your fingers to press on the strings right, but you'll get it pretty quickly. There are also tabs for drums, too, but not as many. For most people, it's really easy to learn drums just from listening. Basically, your right hand (for right-handers) keeps time on the hi-hat, playing, say, a repeating pattern of four beats in a row. With your right foot, you step on the kick drum pedal on the first and third beats, and with your left hand, you hit the snare drum on the second and fourth beats. Sounds complicated, but if you just start with, like, the hi-hat and snare, and add the kick in later, you'll have it in no time. Almost all rock music is just a variation on this pattern. Later on, you'll probably want to play with other people. If you don't know anybody that wants to be in a band, you could advertise in the Stranger (a local Seattle counter-culture free publication), in your local record stores, or in music stores. I chose, rather, to wait until I met some people that I liked, and who were into the same kind of music. If you go to shows a lot, chances are, the people there like the same kinds of bands and will want to play that type of music. But, keep in mind, a band is a relationship, just like with your girl- or boy-friend. Everybody has their own issues, and insecrities, and strengths. In Exempli Gratia, most of us live together, but we have our differences. Sometimes when we show up for band practice, somebody's cranky, or didn't get enough sleep, or broke up with their girlfriend, or whatever. It doesn't help to get angry at somebody, or on the other hand, to get defensive either. Just know that you have to take breaks, and not push anybody too hard when there are disagreements. If the band is worth the trouble of being in, then it's worth the trouble to set aside your differences for a while and come back to them when everyone's got a clear head. Communication is the key, and you've gotta let everyone know if you're having a hard day, or don't feel good, or are having trouble with part of a song, or whatever. Your bandmates aren't mind readers, and it smooths things over infinitely if you talk honestly. So, try to be in a band with people you get along with. Also, try to find people that have common goals. That may sound obvious, but just because two people like band Z doesn't mean they have the same objectives. Make it clear to others where you would like to go with your music, what you want to play and what you don't, what you'll do if you earn money at shows, what you'll do if you're offered a contract. It may seem silly to talk about finances when you're playing in your mom's basement, but if you stick together, you'll most likely start playing shows eventually. If someone wants to split up the money, and somebody else wants to invest it in a van, that's an argument that can get tempers up. So make sure you've worked that stuff out before it's a problem. So you've got some equipment, and you've got a band, and you're getting pretty tight on some songs, and you're ready to play a show. Sometimes you can set that stuff up at your school. If you've got a teen center, they're usually really down to help out. We don't have very many all-ages venues here in Seattle, but the people that work at them are really nice. If you let them know that you're interested in playing, they'll usually do all they can to help you out. They have a ton of bands to keep track of, though, so it helps if you give them some hard info. A basic "press pack" includes contact information, a brief description of your band, sometimes a photo, and if you got it, a short demo recording. This stuff is useful for finding compatible bands to play together. It's a bummer to get a show and show up and find out you're opening for a metal band, when you're an acoustic band, or vice versa. Most venues don't pay a lot, especially to smaller bands. I pretty much accept the fact that we're playing for free, and if we get a few bucks, it goes to gas and dinner. If you're on tour, it's important to get a contract that has a minimum payment, so you'll have enought money to continue the tour. Contracts are essential if you plan on getting paid, but understand that most venues give you a percentage of the door charge after their expenses are paid, and some give you a portion of the money from the bar or concession stand, but it's still not very much. I think it's way cool to play a benefit show and not get paid. When playing in town, we frequently donate our portion of the money to whatever band is on tour, so they can keep going. If you have merchandise, like t-shirts or cd's, you can usually sell them and make a little money. This is essential on tour, but if you're playing in town, it's cool just to see your friends wearing them. Plenty of bands make their own shirts: you can just get like a ten pack of undershirts and make a stencil and spray paint your logo on them. It's really easy. Just be realistic about your prices. We make all of our own cd's and packaging. We get a little more elaborate: I've made some block prints (really easy to do) and we stamp some ink on the cd's and make an insert with, like, a stamp, and then type on the info with my old typewriter, and photocopy that and put them together in a little plastic sleeve or something. It doesn't have to look "proffessional;" most stuff that looks really over-produced is really just covering up for a lack of quality of the contents. If you're a good band, and have good songs, then people will want to hear your recordings regardless of the packaging. I'm usually more impressed by the fact that someone made something than if they just paid for it anyway. Making recordings can be really difficult, but it can be really easy too. It depends on how much work you can put into it. At our house, I've got a digital 8-track recorder, a bunch of cheap microphones and a few nice ones, a few mixers, and tons and tons of cheap cables and mic stands. We can get recordings done easily, and i'm really happy with the quality of them. It's sort of a low-level home studio, but you can record on almost anything. In other bands, we've made demos using a boom box. If it's got a "record" button, you can just put in a tape, place it near the wall, facing the wall, so that it doesn't take too much sound in a direct line from your amps or drums, and just hit record. If there's too much bass guitar, just turn your bass amp down a little bit and try again. You can probably even dub copies on the same boom box, if it's got two cassette bays. Cassettes are cool, but today, I think cd's are easier for most people to listen to. Mark's computer has a cd burner, and so we use the headphone out on our recorder to connect it to the mic in on the computer, record it as a sound file, and burn it to a cd. I don't know much about the software for that stuff, but Mark does, and I'm sure there's tons of info on the web. If you've been making your own recordings for a while, and want something of better quality, and are not interested in investing money into your own serious recording equipment, there are many small studios in the area. My own experience is that, for the price of studio time, mixing, engineering, all that crap, you can afford to get your own stuff and work your way up. I was in a band once that spent way too much money at a small studio; the rates were comparatively pretty good, but it was still a lot of money, and the guy there didn't really know how we wanted to sound, and the recording just wasn't what we wanted. That's why I decided to just spend the money on our own recording stuff, and I'm way happier with our recordings than at somebody else's studio. If you're really serious about it, and you want a pro recording but don't have the gear, we do offer sliding-scale recording here at Bartertown studios. Check out the info for that on the page about our studio. However, I'm gonna have to recommend doing it yourself; it works best for us. And we'd be stoked to hear back from you.
