Songwriting With A Whole Band, Is It Possible?

Does the idea of writing songs with the whole band sound like an awesome vibe? Creating music with friends and having fun at the same time, there couldn’t be a better way to enjoy life, while building a great music career.

However, songwriting with a whole band is actually not very common at all. It more often the case that one or two members do the writing, and some marginal contributions of the others enable them to share in the credit.

The usual scenario with band writing is that all the members are there to help arrange a song that only one or two members actually wrote. This can be a very inefficient use of practice time.

So HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT from band members who want to contribute to the creative process?

The most common SOLUTION is for band members to write solo, or pair-up for writing in twos, or threes at the most. This way, you can EASILY switch around writing partners, and everyone will be bringing COMPLETED SONGS to rehearsal so that no time will be wasted.

To avoid wasting a lot of time having to show each band member, one at a time, how to play each new song at band practice, while the others wait, it is best to get a rough recording of the song to everyone prior to rehearsal. It can be extremely frustrating having to wait for each player to learn their parts before it can be played by the whole group.

If after that the contributions of band members take the song to significantly greater heights, or they change the song in drastic ways, it may be a good idea to add them as co-writers.

TWO THINGS THAT WILL MAKE BAND WRITING A BREEZE

One, Band writing is like dating, some relationships last, some don’t, some click at first, and others just don’t connect well. Keep the emotions out of this, and remember that a professional band needs to also be an effective business entity. Any partnerships that work well are going to benefit yourself and the band as a whole, so put any ego issues aside and go with what works. If it doesn’t satisfy you creatively, you can always seek outside co-writers to fulfill those needs, but you can’t force partnerships that don’t click.

Two, realize that some players won’t have a knack for writing at all, and that is ok.

Additionally, if drummers or bass players begin playing guitar or piano and singing, so that they might contribute more effectively as writers, that is great. This is a common scenario in creative music groups. Even though they might be hacks on the new instruments, their musical ideas could be awesome. Helping them with the performance of their ideas could then quickly add some new writers to the group.

This is how most band writing works. When I realized this it COMPLETELY DE-MYSTIFIED band songwriting for me, and eliminated the struggle AND ENDLESS SEARCH of trying to find the Ultimate Writing Team in a band.

Want to be great at Songwriting? Stop by Songwriting Planet and Discover More Tips About Great Songwriting.