40.2 Getting The Band Together (Essay)

Today our class formed ourselves into bands for this unit: Unit 40 – Working and Developing as a Musical Ensemble. The two bands I ended up in are as follows.

Band 1 (jokingly nicknamed “Superior Band”)

Drums: Ben Grose                                                                                

Bass: Tim Osborn

Guitars: Matt Alfrey & Reuben Harman-Mitchell (myself)

Vocals: Emily Hecker & Emily Jones

Band 2 (which is currently unnamed)

Drums: Ben Grose

Bass: Joe Stanton

Guitars: Rhys Bautista & myself

Vocals: Chesky Rogers & Sophie Wilde

Band 1 consists almost entirely of people from my old class that I have had experience performing with many times before. Ben Grose is the exception to this and I have only had limited experience playing with him outside of lesson time. Band 1 is going to be my main band for this assessment because I believe that prior experience and strong friendships lead to a better musical performance. In class we were all given time at the end to form ourselves into these bands and the inception of band 1 was very natural. Tim and I didn't really have to say anything to each other as it was pretty inevitable we'd end up playing together, Ben and Tim have previous band experience outside of college & Matt and I have performed lots in bands together before. The four of us united as a solid instrumental section and all that was left was to find two singers to complete the band. To be honest I can't remember exactly how the two Emily's came to join but they both expressed a keen interest in being a part of this band and Matt and I were in Band A with them last year.

In Band 2, on the other hand, I am the only member that wasn't in their class last year. I have previously performed with Joe Stanton at End of Term Gigs and I have also been able to jam with Rhys Bautista in my free time, however, I have never played with Chesky or Sophie so I think that it will be a little more difficult for me in this band this year rather than Band 1 which, as I mentioned previously, is very similar to Band A from last year.

 Moving on with Band 1 as my decided main band, we discussed what sort of music we’d like to perform together this year. Tim is an extremely versatile bassist, probably more so than I am at guitar so as a band we knew that he could play pretty much anything we decided to play and his music taste is also diverse to match. Matt is primarily a jazz/alt rock guitarist I would say and Ben is primarily a Jazz and Reggae drummer. So at this point we realised we probably wouldn't be playing any (dare I say generic) genres such as mainstream rock or pop and we’d stick to genres like funk, jazz and reggae. This is a stark contrast to last year for me where I played classic rock and pop-punk; nevertheless it’s a contrast I am pleased about.

I wouldn't say that there are specific roles in the band because I believe that any sort of hierarchy is detrimental to the structure of a band. All band members should have an equal contribution to the band, whether that's setting up a group Facebook mail to facilitate band discussion (as Ben did) or suggesting bands/songs to cover. We all share responsibility and we all make sure to practice in our own time and come prepared to band rehearsals on time.