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Snarf
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:12 pm
Posts: 116
PostPosted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 8:51 pm 
 

How do members in your project communicate ideas with other members? Do you present them at band practice? Record them and let others listen offline? Use some sort of music tabulation program and send those files to others?

My last band recorded all our practices and got a lot of ideas out of long, drawn-out jams which got pretty messy. I'd listen to these in the following weeks, and extract ideas out of the things we were playing, and tab these out in Guitar Pro. I'd then send a proposed song structure out to the rest of the group, who would then listen, edit, and comment on what they liked. This way, we'd all be on the same page next band practice. The great part about Guitar Pro was that if I had an idea for an instrument other than my own, I'd tab that out and the other member would be able to see exactly what I was talking about.

I'm wondering what other ways people use to collaborate. I hope this isn't too spammy, but I'm working on a class project right now which has created a short survey just for this purpose. If you'd like to contribute, it's here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1op...h8dUg0/viewform . I am legitimately interested in what ways people find are most effective to collaborate, since this has been the most difficult part of being in a band for me.

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somefella
Veteran

Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:57 pm
Posts: 3134
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 11:06 pm 
 

The way Oshiego works, my vocalist will write all the songs on guitar, and then we help with the arrangements like harmonies, basslines and drumparts during rehearsal. I agree that long drawn out jams can be messy and unproductive, that's why its better to come with a set template that everyone can work around, rather than free-jazz it for 12 hours.
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AppleQueso
Veteran

Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:02 am
Posts: 2525
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 12:46 am 
 

The few times I've been able to write with another guitarist, we'd sit there in the same room just playing and thinking of ideas. Someone would think of a riff, and if both of us liked it we'd make changes and start building up ideas back and forth from there, coming up with new riffs back and forth and bouncing off of each other until a song was mostly put together and we agreed on a solid arrangement. It's really rewarding, since often the other guy would come up with ideas I would've never thought of, and vice versa.

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FearTheNome
Metal newbie

Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2003 8:41 am
Posts: 201
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 12:00 pm 
 

Usually my guitarist or I will come to practice with a pile of vaguely-related riffs and a general idea of the order they'll go in, then at practice we work out drum parts and arrangements together. If there are parts that are too complicated to learn at practice, then we'll make tabs and recordings to study at home.

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xThe__Wizard
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:59 pm
Posts: 845
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 12:45 pm 
 

Usually I just come up with a riff. The drummer and I will tweak it and think of something we want to do with it. THen we get the other band members approval and we are all set. Not too difficult compared to other bands.
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infinitenexus
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:35 am
Posts: 1895
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:26 pm 
 

I wrote some songs and recorded some rough guitar tracks and sent them to SLK. He gave me feedback on them and recorded drums to them, and sent me back the drum files. Now I'm redoing the guitars over his drum tracks, and then I'll add the rest of the instruments and mix and master it and be a famous rock star in no time.
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themicrulah
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:00 am
Posts: 1167
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:43 pm 
 

Spoiler: show
That's where I come in with the hard drugs and hookers!
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Last edited by Zodijackyl on Mon Dec 23, 2013 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ShaolinLambKiller
King Asshole

Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:10 pm
Posts: 13320
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 9:14 pm 
 

Actually in one of my old bands... long drawn out jam sessions was exactly how we came out with some of best songs. Be it just the guitarist and me on drums, but we would easily flow through 30min death and progressive sounding sounds with no issue at all and from that he started picking out stuff he really liked and then we developed that into a proper song. Or we would jam and the singer would come and stop up and point out some riffs immediately to make note of and some suggestions on what else to play and how to arrange it the best way someone who doesn't play anything could recommend.

One of the few bands where I played guitar with another guitarist we kinda just dicked about and if something sounded immediately cool we went with that and then dicked off more and threw shit about left and right with the drummer till we finally got something after a week of practices cause our shit was riff stacking in a positive good way.

Nowadays with online stuff it's like how infinite did. either someone already composes an entire song where I make suggestions and then I lay drums over scratch tracks. or if I'm doing the music I get as much detail of what they want to hear, do a song roughly of what it might be and if they love it, I just run with it
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Snarf
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:12 pm
Posts: 116
PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 1:53 pm 
 

ShaolinLambKiller wrote:
Actually in one of my old bands... long drawn out jam sessions was exactly how we came out with some of best songs.


Same here. There was always a lot of stuff to go through, but we did a good job of picking out the best parts.

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DarkWolfXV
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 4:08 pm
Posts: 208
Location: Poland
PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 2:25 pm 
 

I write all parts of the song(s) alone, then show them to the rest of band and then they suggest changes. Then after recording we analyse it again and change stuff we dont like. And bam, done.
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hakarl
Metel fraek

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:41 pm
Posts: 8816
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 4:01 pm 
 

I have come up with riffs during jam sessions, but the writing itself always takes place in solitude. I and my band's drummer have written songs together, but they have been based on riffs I had sketched earlier for the most part, as well as variations thereof. I have come up with a few riffs on the spot, though, some of them very good even.

I get most of my riffs playing the guitar in solitude. I write songs based on that. I write for two guitars, and the second one will get whatever I think fits best. My band's other guitarist sometimes has suggestions for improvements to make regarding his parts, and I often agree to them.
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Twisted_Psychology
Metal freak

Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 6260
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 8:37 pm 
 

For the most part, the bands I work with usually have a song's structure written out ahead of time and it comes down to the rest of the members contributing individual parts and suggesting ideas. Pretty much everything I write has bass lines and vocals completely done and some sort of guitar and drum ideas that either turn out the way I planned or go in a more suitable direction.

As for actual group collaboration, there have been a couple times where a guitarist had riffs together but didn't have them structured or needed some lyrics to be edited. I've never really had an experience where a song was completely finished based on jamming but I have had moments where a riff or two came from a jam session and worked them into a song.
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Porman
Sweek Souvlaki Muncher

Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2005 5:00 pm
Posts: 1703
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 9:04 am 
 

I usually record the riffs to a set BPM depending on the feeling of the riffs, then I just upload it to Dropbox and let the others listen to them.
After that, our drummer programs the drums he is going to play and we usually just arrange the whole thing at rehearsal.

Other times, I can just present my ideas to our drummer, just me and him, and we will arrange something together. Of course, it's not final, just a rough arrangement that can be changed when the whole band is present.

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Arkhane
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:39 pm
Posts: 1820
Location: South Texas
PostPosted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 5:17 pm 
 

You gotta realize, in almost every band there is a primary songwriter and the rest of the band just gives suggestions. Sometimes a different bandmember will write something but that's usually like 2 or 3 songs out of an album.
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ndogbomb
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sat Nov 30, 2013 2:25 pm
Posts: 3
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 9:20 pm 
 

My current project, people bring in their ideas and we see what we can add to em, then jam em out and a structure will either naturally grow or not, but either way, an idea comes out. Some time's, i'll try and create riffs centered around an idea for a progression, show em to my drummer as a rough guide and we come up with it. It's kind of instantaneous.

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The Infamous Bastard
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2013 7:47 am
Posts: 310
PostPosted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:17 am 
 

I do vocals in a band but I do all the songwriting as well. I share the riffs mostly through GuitarPro software. I tried sharing them while practicing but the guitarist kept on forgetting what I played. I mostly have the drums parts already fixed on my mind, and just communicate it to the drummer while in practices.

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thrashinbatman
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:31 pm
Posts: 1534
PostPosted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:13 pm 
 

One of us, typically the other guitarist or I, will compose the guitar riffs, their respective parts to any harmony, and the drum parts, send it to each other over a group conversation on Facebook. We'll each suggest arrangement changes if we have any, and come up with our own individual parts that need to be written, then start practicing it as a group.

I myself find it really hard to write songs around people. I have to be totally alone in order to properly compose anything decent. I don't know why. That's why my bands started doing it like that, as well as out of necessity, since we don't have enough practicing time in the week to have long drawn-out creative sessions.

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