Aside from the shear tenacity that drives a new band to success, forward motion cannot be achieved without creativity. If you are starting a new band or trying to take your music to the next level, you need to think outside the box. The common cliché that failure is not an option is kyboshed here when trial and error may be the only way to break down the door of opportunity.
The most crucial starting point to a band’s writing process is to track ideas through brainstorming. For an artist, this could be sketching a few ideas before the painting. For a novelist, this could be a few short stories and 5 or 6 introductions. For a band, this means recording absolutely everything. You never know when that next great idea will spring up and the memory of it may only be a flash.
As easy at it may be to jot your thoughts into a word processor or scratch some drawings onto sketch paper, recording music for the first time is a challenge. A solid recording involves high tech equipment, advanced software, a sound engineer, and the killers… time and money. Assuming you have limited amounts of each of these items, let’s talk creativity.
First of all, there are certain key components to recording music that you simply must have. These are obviously a recording device and a microphone. If you do not have either of these, you need to pick up something… even if it’s from Wal-Mart. Remember that the goal is not to produce a hit song or saleable album, but to track ideas.
When it comes to a recording device, any computer will do. Ideally, you want to have a Mac which comes with Garage Band, but even a basic PC has a .WAV sound recorder on it. When choosing a microphone, you can go to any music store and pick one up, but to save some money up front, grab a headset from an electronics store with a chat mic attached. The goal here is to have something that can capture sound, whether it is vocals to a recorded song, a new guitar riff, a drum beat, or a simply hummed tune.
The key to turning an idea into a reality is to start with an idea that can be developed. It will take creativity to do this. Putting context to the situation, I am personally working on starting a band with a buddy of mine. We do not leave near each other which mean that every idea we have must be carefully articulated. Our goal is to nail down enough ideas to mold into song skeletons. These skeletons will then be developed when we jam together.
Speaking further on Wal-Mart, a couple weeks ago I was recording vocals to my band’s second song idea. In the parking lot of Wal-Mart, I sat in the car with an internet chat headset on, lyrics in front of me, and my computer in the passenger seat. I found that being in the car allowed me the privacy and creativity to let it all out. After I sent the completed track back to my buddy last night, he simply comments, “Now that’s how you start a band!” |
