Originally Posted by: maggiorFrom recent experience, I can relate to how hard it is to get a band moving and off the ground. It led to me leaving the band abuptly because it was driving my crazy. Fortunately we have a second chance at this thing and we are seeing how we can make it work applying what we learned before.

What I'm hearing is that you are much more enthusiastic about playing your instrument and the band project than your bandmates. I wouldn't throw anybody out of the band yet.

Somehow I think you need to convey to your bandmates just what your goals are and what your vision is. It sounds like this is your project. If you want to manage it that way, then you need to get a definitive answer from them whether or not they are on board with your vision. This of course means to need to reflect on just what your vision and goals are. If they are not on board, and you feel that strongly about it, perhaps it's best to part ways at that point. This approach will make it difficult to find people.

On the other hand, you might consider managing this as a more collaborative effort. Rather than trying to find out when they can get together to jam, ask them what they want from the project and how it would work best for them. People respond better when their input is requested and valued. Find out where there passions are and see how you can fold that into your passions and your vision for the band. You are basically recruiting people...and you need to show them why YOU are the guy they should be working for and why YOUR project is the one they should be involved in.

You might also think about how realistic your timeline is. I may be wrong, but it seems like you may be rushing things because of your enthusiasm. You want this to happen NOW!!! I fully understand that, I do. It might be helpful for you to stretch out your timeline a bit to allow time for the people you've brought together to gel.

You read my "realizations" I posted in my band thread. Perhaps you can take away something from that too.

Hopefully something in there is useful :-).[/QUOTE]
Well, I don't know if I'm the most enthusiastic one, when it comes to this band-project, but I'm the only one who's doing an active effort to get it to work out properly. I've tried asking them if they have any suggestions for songs to learn, but the only results that yielded was 1 song... And I got that song down pretty fast (one weekend was more than enough time to get that song sorted out). And even more jarring, every song I suggested was shot down immediately, either dismissed as "too difficult" or "horrible song". I think I understand now how you must have felt when your band couldn't decide on what songs to learn...

I don't know if I'd call this band "my project" or "our band", since I'm a bit split between the two. Both kinds of "projects" could be fun to be part of, as long as the number of covers is kept to a minimum (I'm not a big fan of cover-bands), and I don't really see much of a difference between the two. Sure, "my project" indicates that I'll have complete creative control and make all the decisions that need to be made, while "our band" indicates that decisions should be made amongst the band-members and that everyone should have equal say in all matters. I don't know how much experience the others have with writing their own stuff.

Originally Posted by: haghj500If a person cannot play at least 30 songs they are not ready to be in a band yet. A person has to be serious about playing for a long time to be able to do that. Those people are ready to invest the time it takes to be a band. Yes a band, not a jam group. A lot of short lived bands come from jam groups.

By that guideline, it seems I'm not "ready to be in a band yet". I can play
fragments of a couple of songs, and there's a few songs I can play from start to finish (although I improvise solos on some of those...). I've seen that 30-song-guideline other places as well, but one thing I don't understand, is why it applies to people who mainly want to play original stuff on-stage. I can understand it when it comes to cover-bands since they play, as the term implies, covers.
[QUOTE=maggior]there is a different between rehearsing a band (songs) vs. jamming.

Personally, I can't stand aimless jamming. To me it's a waste of time and I lose the little interest I might have after 5 minutes. By then, everybody starts repeating themselves. Yes, when you don't have a good list of songs you can play together, it becomes problematic.

Kasperow - perhaps your bandmates are of a similar mindset?

They both say they're up for playing together in a band, but as your comparison indicates, that requires a bunch of songs to rehearse as a band, and as I said earlier in this post, we can't seem to come up with a list of songs to learn as a band. All of my suggestions, which span a wide array of genres and styles (Blues, Classic Rock, 80's Metal and a bit of Heavy stuff, just to name a few of the central ones), are shot down before I even get the chance to play a recording of them so the Bassist can hear it before deciding.

Sometimes, I start to wonder if I should just write a bunch of songs myself and just run with a solo-career instead of trying to start a band. It seems to work just fine for a few of the guitarists I like listening to...