how long be4 ceating songs????

[shadowzone138]

for all the bands out there about how long did u and ur band play covers be4 creating own songs??? around how many covers???? and also if u reply to this please say how long ur band bee play independently oh and also off topic how long does it take for ur icon to show if any time

[SRVFan2005]

I actually made it a point to stay away from joining bands in high school for this reason. Too many times do the bands compensate musical integrity for a cool sounding song that everyone knows. I am by no means saying no one should do covers (though I personally prefer it when a band redoes a song with their take on it). Bands should focus first on original stuff then add a few cover songs as fillers. The cover stuff should be the band's influences so as to make their songs actually connect.

[Rats]

i duno i'ev nevar bin in band. butt i pridikt that ur liricks wil b no goood

[larry_emder]

Im not in a band, hoping to start one soon, and have already got songs ready for it - so hopefully wont get stuck doing too many covers

[superpeer]

We first bought a dictionary, you know, to learn to spell our own band name and the songs, of course.

[KKKKKocaine]

for all the bands out there about how long did u and ur band play covers be4 creating own songs??? around how many covers???? and also if u reply to this please say how long ur band bee play independently oh and also off topic how long does it take for ur icon to show if any time

We did none, we started writing our own songs from day 1.
Covers are a waste, most bands take covers too far, starting out with a 10 song cover set is a complete waste.
Why would you start with such a big cover set?
Obviously so the crowd will connect with you and like you more, you'll get more cheers.
Which is fair enough, but the fact of the matter is, one day you've got to play your own song for that crowd, they won't care, in a live situation the only way to get a crowd to like your stuff is to play it alot of times. (Youneed a good song to start with naturally)
You need a few people who have been to other gigs you've done and heard the song to get energetic and the rest of the crowd will follow.
You will never move the crowd with original material on the first few goes, the only way to get around it is to keep on playing it and not to fall back on covers, you don't want the crowd to remember you for the mean rendition of Enter Sandman, you want to be remembered for your own material and for your own style. Work on a set that is strong that can support itself, if a song isn't good then throw it away, if you don't like it why play it?
Throw a couple of slower songs in, and a few faster and construct your own set of your own stuff that can hold it's own.

Who do you want the crowd to clap for when the lights go out?
You?
or Metallica?

So in answer to your other question, my band has been writing our own stuff for about 5 months, we've got 10-11 songs of our own (a couple more if you count scrapped material)
Other bands tend to play covers for anything from a few months to get to know each other musically (good if it's your first time playing with other musicians) to up to an entire year in some cases.

[KKKKKocaine]

We first bought a dictionary, you know, to learn to spell our own band name and the songs, of course.

Just out of interest, how did that help at all?
Yes he has poor grammar and his spelling isn't fantastic, but the worst of it is txt speak, he isn't spelling "liek dis u guyz ROFL hOw L0ng u ploy kova?"
I could read it and so could everyone else, please be more helpful in future.

[you want romance?]

i agree with the dude over, covers are kinda useless, they are a waiste of time to be honest!!! start writing u'r own stuff or like u'll never get it together to do sow!!! with my band we know one cover perfectly and warm up playing it once everytime we practice and then play our stuff, it's the best way to go along i think, it's working for us!! good luck man

[airborne50caliber]

chat language, big deal.

[you want romance?]

what's that supposed to meen? i don't get it, sorry i'm stupid...

[shadowzone138]

can any1 of u tell me why my icon wont show???

[you want romance?]

nah sorry man, mine wont show either...

[BassMan182]

for all the bands out there about how long did u and ur band play covers be4 creating own songs??? around how many covers???? and also if u reply to this please say how long ur band bee play independently oh and also off topic how long does it take for ur icon to show if any time

i began to write originally as soon as i picked up my instrument, learning from existing songs. and type properly.

[Pisstory]

When you feel like writing your own songs do it whenever. If your band is starting out I recommend doing no more then 3-4 covers. This allows your band members to understand what the band is going to sound like (as you will be playing songs you like and have influenced you). and will help with writing your own songs.

[October Powder]

When my band first started we had no choice since our drummer didn't want to play covers at all, so we wrote our own songs straight off. Although when our drummer left we planned to play a few covers but for some reason never got around to it yet, and that was nearly a year ago.

[sliver]

Covers are good teaching and practising tool for a band. Learning other styles and covers will make the band a lot tighter as a unit, it also will give the band ideas for writing original material in the future.

As long as you see covers as a learning tool, then they're great :thumb: I love doing covers with my band whenever we do them, although we are mostly original stuff.

[TaylorRules]

My band di a few covers. Bon Jovi and Matchbox20 stuff because it was easy and not many people hate it. We're also learning Lazy by Deep Purple, just because its difficult to learn/play and will help us play a lot better together as a band.

Now we're working on our own stuff, we use the covers at gigs. I think people like to here bands play some covers as well as originals, so they recognise some of the songs.

[shadedlife]

i suggest writing as soon as possible. writing gets better with time.

[Sandtrap]

actually started wrinting my own songs before I performed any covers...just do the convers cuz there fun!

[Seafroggys]

Write songs when they come to you.

[Sandtrap]

Write songs when they come to you.

yeah thats good advice...if you try and force something its gonna should like shlt....if you know what I mean.
when you get the right mindset to start writing songs you should just pick up a guitar, or a pen, and just go with it. they might really blow at first...but youll get better.

[Merkaba]

I dont think covers are a waste of time....If used properly. I say if youre gonna cover something be **** good at it..and dont do a typical cover.

[Camel42]

yeah thats good advice...if you try and force something its gonna should like shlt....if you know what I mean.
when you get the right mindset to start writing songs you should just pick up a guitar, or a pen, and just go with it. they might really blow at first...but youll get better.

I disagree with this in regard to music (i don't know about lyrics though.) I just turn on the drum machine and jam out bass lines until i get something cool, or just think through meldoies notes by note and work something out on my acoustic.

[Bcorwin]

I agree with the first post about notting joing bands in highschool. Im not saying its a bad thing, but people forget what individuality and uniqueness is.
I started my band my sophomore year of highschool consisting me and some members of the highschool jazzband. We've been playing two or three years and we actually got a tiny rep as far playing music goes but we dont do gigs very often because were sick of playing with bands that sound IDENTICAL to us.... Were called Ivy League and the Preps (local punik/ska/reggae band)

ok to answer your questions.....

Been playing 3 years

We started out doing random songs (we had a phase were we did punk rock versions of girl pop songs like Hit Me Baby One More Time, or Opps I Did It Again) i dont know why that was it was just funny and everyone seemed to like it, then we found out the offspring had already done stuff like that on un realeased albums so we stopped as a sign of respect for what others have already done.

I wrote the bands first REAL song. It was a called I Dont Care for Clams. after that Chris took over the song writting and wrote about 20 sum songs.

i dont remember what the other questions were lol.

anyways back to the advice....
so far these guys have given pretty good advice mine is gonna be pretty cliche'.

Never be afraid to write any ideas down on paper, it was made to crumble if not desired. Never be afraid to do cover songs aslong as you give the former band respects, and do a **** good job at it. Like they said previously do a cover song that people dont really know, doing songs like Brown Eyed Girl, Summer of 69, Johnny Be Goode (random songs) they get old and that gets you like 5 minutes of attention. BE CREATIVE!!!!! :thumb:

and dont be afraid to write serious lyrics, and goofy lyrics....give you and example of our songs names and you can guess what there about...

I dont care for clams
State of the Union
H2NO!
How many licks?
Bob Marley is Superman! :naughty:
Bush Bush Bush
Tommorow Comes A Day
Daddy! Dont touch me there!

and dont be afraid to get friendly on stage if you get that far (down the road advice) :lol:

[Sandtrap]

youll also get attention if your exiting on stage...make the audience become part of the show and let them know your having a hell of a time puting on your act. its funner to watch a band having fun then a band just sitting on stools singing bout the love they once had and all that stuff. have fun and be exiting!!

[cytoplasmicglob]

personally, the length of time that it takes an individual band before creating a song is generally depending on the artists playing. My first band was all covers. Then I realized that they had absolutely no creativity and only wanted to sound like covers, so I gave up playing with them. My second one started instantly. Basically, it just depends on who you are with.

[Bcorwin]

do WEIRD stuff to lol that always makes the crowd scratch there heads and wonder whats going on...... if you do it right, (a dash of creatitivity and a hint of fun) you will pull off a strange but equally entertaining show......

umm example!

i dont know what the hell happened we all decided to decorate our amps with chia pets (you know the little clay pots with the grass growing in them......yeah i knew you knew what those are) so anyways me and my lead guitarist Ryan's strings just snap.......it was like spontaneous snapping.......
so we looked at eachother knowing we couldnt change up and play with the ammount of time left (i think it was 5 or 10 minutes dont remember) so we pull a member out of the crowd to talk to, told him some jokes, gave him a chia pet sent him on his way....... then the dummer did this really drum solo with random horns added in here and there while me and Ryan smashed the living hell out of the other chia pets........the crowd didnt really get what was going on but we got some people yelling "smash that ****" or like cheering us on...........

yeah so creativity really does help, never be afraid to turn a bad situation into a entertaining situation!