Live Music Archive

(For the purpose of this article I’m going to make a couple of assumptions before I go any further. They are that you’ve a little bit of vocal or musical instrument knowledge and that you also have a fledgling network of friends and contacts)

Starting up a performer is a eminently exhilarating time in a artists life. There’s a fine balance of nervous anticipation and the fear of the unknown that follows the whole process.

A band has a varying dynamic than working as a solo artist. There are other individuals involved, other personal ities, other strengths and weaknesses in character and abilities and because of this it’s really vital that you have several things worked out before you start looking for band members.

1. Have a good idea of your own strengths and weaknesses

The band members that you want to get will need to be around the same level of competence as you are. The main reason for this is that you may all grow together rather than have one or two musicians carrying anyone else. This kind of player imbalance causes doubt in the group and doubt is one of the major killers of bands.

2. Know beforehand how the band is going to be run

Is the band going to be run by you or the whole group? The individual ity types of the performers that you choose will need to be agreeable to the way the band is going to be run.

3. What instrumentation is the performer having in its lineup?

This is mainly determined by the type(s) of music that you want to performance but having an idea of what musicians you’re looking for will be of exceptional help.

It’s now time to hunt down some performer members

4. Ask your network of companions and/or contacts

This is always a nice place to start. Ask anybody at all that you know or come into contact with. If you do not have much of a circle of companions and/or contacts this will be a exceptional occasion to wide n it. This is one of the reasons why networking in the industry is so vital, for occasions such as this.

Having a musician referred to you has a much better opening  of working than one that comes from an advertisement. This leads me onto my next point.

5. Post an advertisement

Having said that I’ve had made some exceptional contacts from musicians enquiring from a ‘muso wanted’ ad. The key to effective ads is that they need to be concise, to the point, not too lengthy and put in places where musicians are truly prefer ly to see it and read it prefer in a music shop, a Local/Regional music magazine or a music classifieds web site.

A sample ‘ performer wanted‘ advertisement may read something prefer this:

BASS PLAYER WANTED

To join folk/rock band

Influences include

Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Counting Crows

Some experience prefer red

Own gear and transport essential

Interested?? Give me a call

Corey – (put home and/or cellular phone  number here)

As you may see, the ad is apparent in its intention.

It apparent ly states the musician wanted, the kind of music the band is playing, what the music may sound prefer and that the band has some experience behind it. Make sure you’ve a apparent contact name and phone numbers (if you want to include an email address as well that is cool).

Don’t put in stuff like ‘work waiting‘ or ‘no time has been ters please’. You might judge those sort of things yourself when an interested performer contacts you.

Once you have done that the waiting game begins.