Posted in: Musicouching by Bob Craypoe on June 10th, 2009 | 0 Comments
This articles explains how you may have to get rid of a band member if he’s not pulling his weight or living up to expectations, even if he is a friend. You must learn to separate business from personal.
A lot of bands start out with a few friends getting together to jam. Sometimes friendships are formed after a few acquaintances get together to jam. The point is that sometimes, in band situations, we form or strengthen friendships with our fellow band members. That’s nice, especially when it works to everyone’s benefit. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.
If you want to succeed in the music business then it goes without saying that you need to treat it like a business in order to maximize your potential for success. I think most people would find that to be a reasonable statement. Therefore, if it is to be treated as a business, then we must consider the profitability of the venture. That means money. The bottom line is money. How do you make money, as a band?
A band really only makes money in one of two ways. It is either by live performance or merchandising. Merchandising can be anything from CD’s, T-shirts, posters and other items. Live performance is self explanatory. So the idea is for a band to begin making money from those two sources as soon as possible. That means that you need to get out there and play.
Obviously, to get out there and play, you need songs to play. This requires that all members of a band learn enough songs to play an evening full of music. Most bars or night clubs require four hours of music. That’s a significant amount of material. I have found that the average running time for most songs is actually around 3 ½ to 4 minutes. In most cases a band will perform three 45 minute sets with 15 minute breaks in between and ending the night with a full hour long set. That comes to a total of 195 minutes of music. Divide that by the 3 1/2 minute average run time of a song and you get about 56 songs.
Now, it takes a while for a band to build a repertoire consisting of 56 songs or more. So it is important that all members of the band have a certain amount of discipline as it would apply to learning the material they are to play out. Since the overwhelming majority of material the band will be playing out is usually cover material, each member can learn the songs from CD’s, sheet music and other sources.
So what happens if one of the band members doesn’t learn the material as he should? What if he shows up late to rehearsals all of the time? What if he shows up at gigs late all of the time and you start losing gigs as a result of it? You have somewhat of a problem don’t you? Now it interferes with your potential to make money.
