I’ve been playing drums in bands of various sorts (and of varying quality) since I was in my early twenties. Some of the bands have been good, others not so much, but they were almost always fun. For many years I’ve joked that everything I learned everything I know about business in the practice room. This is a little bit glib, but has roots in reality and experience.
A fast count gives me the names of about fifty people who I’ve played with regularly so far (not counting auditions and casual goofing around with musician friends). This means that there are fifty people of varying temperament, goals, and skills who I spent hundreds of hours with (usually in a dank basement), working on writing, arranging, and rehearsing original music.
Getting along well with others in a group like this means developing strategies for working and playing well together. Imagine that you want to write something or to paint a picture, but that you needed three or four other people to show up before you can begin—you need them to show up on time, to collectively agree about the charactaristics of the end result, to be prepared to work on creating the piece, and then to agree on an ongoing basis about the direction to take the final work. It’s an improbable equation even before it starts, and it only works well if all, or most, of the people are dedicated to making it work. And we haven’t even factored in talent…
It was years before I realized that I’d developed a whole subset of social and creative skills to accommodate a creative group environment. These include negotiation, communication about aesthetic intangibles (music in the practice room, design in my above-ground career), constructive, non-confrontational criticism (“that’s really cool, but have you thought about…”), and just enough self-delusion to keep our spirits up (“we’re sounding great!”). There’s even HR management at a root level—I’ve had many conversations dealing with practice room problems ranging from ego, to bad interpersonal chemistry, to substance abuse (bad chemistry of a different sort, I guess). The practice room is the place where I learned to negotiate complex relationships with others that affect the group as a whole.
More important than anything, though, is the understanding that in a group of people who have embarked on a creative venture (and no mistake, creating a business is a fantastically creative activity) everybody involved has a part to play, that interdependence will create a stronger group than diva-like individuality, and that earning and giving respect to each other is a key not just to success, but to enjoying the process, whatever the result.
I figured out early on that I was not going to be making a living at music. Once I was at peace with that, playing in bands became a lot more fun. It’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever give up—something I don’t think I can give up—and it’s something that continues to delight me and instruct me.
Leave a comment
No comments yet.
Ben Thompson 
Leave a comment