Tips on band formation

**beingmused** · Joined: 13 Dec 2007 Posts: 2475 Location: Boston, MA

Band formation is becoming more and more popular - which I think is freaking awesome, since following band achievements is far more interesting to me than solo ones - but the vast majority of bands never survive past the initial stages. They're like delicate little eagle eggs; weasels tend to eat 75% of them. WEASELS OF POOR PLANNING.

So, while not to try to sound like an authority or anything, since the game is coming out for new systems and whatnot I wanted to give a few words of advice on how to organize a band that is likely to stick together.

- Look beyond the numbers:
The number one mistake people make is thinking that a band will be as good as the combined sum of its player's ranks. There's a lot of reasons why that is almost never the case. For one, ranks can be deceptive; at the top they tend to illustrate more how much one works on playing songs to path and squeezing...while being able to follow paths without missing on activation is an important skill, it doesn't necessarily translate into FB success. In other words, a 10th ranked guitarist isn't necessarily better than a 30th ranked one; when they're that close, you are best off playing with them to see how they actually fare.

- Checklist for getting on the same page
Be super-clear when you're starting a band! Here's a list of all of the things you need to specify right from the get-go (but bands NEVER do):
1. Goal of the band (competitive play? leagues? dlc band? making videos? casual fun play? Dave Grohlolics Anonymous?)
2. How often per week you want to meet.
3. What times you are available, and timezones (if you want to meet more than twice a month, you MUST set a weekly schedule out in advance. Bands that play whenever everyone happens to be online never, ever work).
4. Whether you want to switch instruments around or stay confined to your roles
5. How long you want this to last
6. What DLC you possess (put this online somewhere and link to it, your wiki page if nowhere else), so that others can see what you have. Saying "I have 50 DLCs lolz" doesn't mean crap when we have hundreds available!
7. How are you handling pathing? If you are just a casual band, no need for it. If not, you'll need to establish that up-front.

- Character is more important than l33t skill.
Very few people seem to take this into consideration, but you're not going to meet and play on a regular basis if you don't get along! Moreover, some people are better at committing to things than others....if you have a choice between an amazing guitarist who can FC most tough solos, but who is flakey, and a decent, dependable, guitarist who will get gold stars but isn't blowing anyone away, take the dependable one every time!!!!! Looking good on paper means nothing, you have to actually do something, and doing something FB wise takes an incredible amount of organization.

- Follow the Yellow 8x (Tigers and Lions and Pistons? Oh my)
If you want to be competitive, pathing is a must. Kawigi has helpfully provided tons and tons of resources for people to figure out how to do this...it isn't as difficult as it seems at first. The more pathers the better - good paths can take a LOT of time! There's a reason the top band at the moment has 3 people doing the dirty work.

- Life beyond the meet-up thread
Audition people you haven't played with before, communicate back-channel (too many "will rock 4 food" threads have gotten messy and confusing because of mixed signals, poorly worded messages, etc.), and be nice. And when you do find your partners in plastic rock, there are often easier ways to communicate than the forums. Even if each and every one of you spends way too much of your time here (*cough*), email and instant messaging can be much more efficient means of communicating....besides, then you're free to talk trash about other bands. Like, x band smells bad, or y band has cooties, or z band got rejected by Shelly Anderson (ps, x, y, and z = Bread Michels Band. (Actually, they're kind of the paragon of organization and efficient play)).

Anyone else got any other tips?
- The David Byrne Syndrome
As Deathbloom reminds us, while it is fine to show interest in multiple bands, if you're constantly just replying indiscriminately then people are less likely to want to play with you. Try and explain why THIS band is where you were destined to play in.

**nbrazzx55** · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 4:24 am Post subject:

wow mused this is great!

inb4sticky

**Deathblooms51** · Joined: 22 Apr 2008 Posts: 1686 Location: Toledo, Ohio

Very well thought out and organized, maybe add something about people applying for every band in the forum?
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**blackout4** · Joined: 31 Jul 2008 Posts: 1069

this is an awesome list beingmused!

definately inb4sticky =]
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hi

**Chil** · Joined: 05 Jan 2007 Posts: 850 Location: Delaware

Needs more bold text, but other than that I demand a sticky.
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**beingmused** · Joined: 13 Dec 2007 Posts: 2475 Location: Boston, MA

Content and formatting additions suggested by deathbloom and Chil added!

Thanks, I didn't actually mean for this to be useful....it was just one big excuse to use the phrase "weasels of poor planning" - because, really, when else am I going to? Oh well.

**PaddyRoon** · Joined: 22 Aug 2008 Posts: 505 Location: Belfast, Ireland

I've been wanting to know this for a long time but didnt ask in case I was called a nub.

What the hell does inb4/in before mean?

**blingdomepiece** · Joined: 03 Aug 2007 Posts: 4358 Location: Ottawa ON Canada

It's variations on "in before lock", where people post to a thread they know will get locked before it gets locked. That's a punishable offense incidentally.

re: original post, if you want to join a band, POST YOUR SCORES. This seems so obvious but people don't do it. Also, unless you can FC 90% of the setlist, there is little point trying to join a band with people who can FC 90% of the setlist, because they probably aren't looking for you.
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**Kuznagi** · Joined: 12 Feb 2008 Posts: 516 Location: Calgary

Great thread, there are so many threads of bands that aren't sure why they are having struggles but this answers pretty much all the band type questions.

I think a thing to note is that there are also many diamonds in the rough for players who don't use scorehero. So this may not be your only source to find great players eg. Lycrios. Heck, I found usernameNA bored one evening playing random band quick play.

Having some way to communicate (eg. IRC/MSN/AIM) is greatly beneficial to talk about what you want to change or to give out paths. I've found voice chat not as beneficial as I hoped but it depends on the person.
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**nbrazzx55** · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:28 pm Post subject:

**woozerkristen** · Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject:

This is really well done!

Maybe a few more things to consider:

Can you all connect to each other?

I'm not sure if it necessarily belongs in this, but I did have a prior band for which the nail in the coffin after scheduling issues was an inability to connect to each other for a session. It took us a ridiculous amount of time to find out that was the case, would have been good to know in the first week instead of like a month later.

Related to the character thing: a really honest self-reflection on the part of all members is not a bad idea. Are you the type who gets really frustrated with other people for messing up, or are you the type who's going to be making cracks about your own screwups but never getting pissed at other people? I could see a band where everyone is more the first type possibly working, but I think a lot of the time, unchecked, that first personality type thrown in with others who are more the second type is going to cause problems. It can't hurt to figure out if this is you or not, be upfront about it with your other band members, and decide where to go from there. If you think you can keep it in check, you may be good to go, but a type A personality with three type B personalities with everyone getting frustrated with each other is probably not going to lead to a long-lasting band, and for sure is going to mean a lot less fun for everyone involved.

And that's the last thing, which I think should possibly be added: if you aren't having fun, it's probably not going to last very long for you. If it's a chore, you'll have very little motivation to make time for it.
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**woozerkristen** · Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 1:37 pm Post subject:

I think this forum has tended to be skipped over in the past just because posts here tend to need less moderation than those in other subforums. But now I have the power to sticky!

For those forming bands, this information (like several who have replied above have remarked) is full of gold. Beingmused knows what he is talking about -- our band has been going strong since last summer, and in addition to being a very high-ranked band, is also one of the longest-lasting and the first to reach a billion total points in RB2. He and I in particular have had numerous conversations reflecting on why we have worked out and why so many other bands have fallen apart. He has a lot of good insight and advice here that you should consider as you try to form your band.

Feel free to post additional advice or suggestions for the OP or discuss issues related to band formation here.
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**nipps** · Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 974 Location: brooklyn, ny

great thread... i also find the quickest way for a new band not to be formed is for me to respond to a thread.. haha..
on a serious note, i wish there is a post minimum on starting a will rock for food band thread.. as people with a low post count starts a thread.. gets action on it, but never returns to follow up on it. making it pointless..
also btw. congrats kristen on your new position
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**GuitarHailz** · Joined: 11 Jun 2007 Posts: 4910 Location: Austin, Texas

I have a couple of suggestions... hopefully they won't seem like a broken record haha.

**Deschain** · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2137 Location: Austin, TX