How do bands make music?

Question

I'm a kid in India and have absolutely no clue. One of the things I would really like to do sometime during the course of my adult life is make dreamy, escapist music like Oasis,Coldplay and Jamiroquai do. But I would really like to know how it all happens. How come some songs have so many layers, all perfectly woven into each other?

I'm stunned that people have taken this question so seriously and typed so much. I really appreciate it. Sorry guys, but if I chose a best answer I'd be disappointing some people badly so I'm going to let the voters decide. Thanks for the great response!

Answer 1

Like everything else it's down to practice. Bands like that will have put in hundreds of thousands of hours of practice and study to be able to get to that sort of standard. The way to start is to learn to play an instrument and to study music that's already been written to get an understanding of it. You need to build up a basic understanding of what makes music work, either intellectually (i.e.'I need to use a secondary dominant modulation') or artistically ('I need it to sound like this'). Once you have mastered the basics of music and musical theory you could start with composition more seriously.

In order to progress with composition you need to try out new things and keep on at it. To start with they'll be pretty basic, but if you keep applying yourself you could get these compositions to sound more like what you'd like.

A new way of composing and something which may be more suited to you would be to take samples and to put them together with a program such as protools or fruity loops. These take existing sounds and allow you to play with them (protools does this better, but fruity loops is cheaper and easier to use) to get what you want. This way you don't even have to be able to play an instrument and have no more than basic musical theory understanding to be able to compose. One problem with this is that the copyright laws on sampling are very obscure, nobody seems to know exactly what you can and can't do - so if you were ever to make money of it you'd have to either use royalty free samples or record your own.

Answer 2

I have recorded several times with my band. The way the process works is that we all go into the studio and set our equipment up as normal with the exception that the guitars are plugged striaght into the recording equipment. The drums, being acoustic, are wired up to microphones, about sixteen of them, so that all drums and cymbals can be recoded. The drums are in a separate, sound-proofed booth so that the microphones don't pick up stray sounds (bleeding, as we call it). Everyone wears headphones and we play the song with the singer in another separate sound proofed booth. This enables the drums and bass guitar to be recorded forst. The other guitars, lead and rythm and keyboards if used, are then recorded one at a time with vocals going on last. In the studio the engineer can then synchronise all the different instruments and voices adding effects, such as echo or reverberation, as desired. The recording equipment shows the wave patterns of each instrument on a screen so that they can be moved and edited together. Any mistakes can be eradicated and that particular instrument recorded again. On some tracks I played more tjhan one instrument and the voices were double tracked by the vocalist singing the same words twice and then having them dubbed. Some singers, who are not very good vocalists, can have their voices artificially improved by the use of a 'Voice Enhancer' or a 'Harmoniser'. Many so-called 'top bands' use these as their vocals aren't that good. many of the created boy-bands and girl-bands also do this as they are chosen for their looks and dancing abilities rather than for their vocal talent. That's one reason why I don't buy modern music. If you go back to the 60's and hear music by, for example, the Beatles, then that was the way they actually sounded because in those days such tricks were not used.

Answer 3

Traditional music from your country is more complicated to play than in the US. I don't think there's one answer to your question because inspiration takes many forms, except hours of practice and a lot of democracy, and figuring out what works and what doesn't. Typical CD has 12-15 songs, the songwriters may have written 3 times that many in different states of completion. A lot of times they may put two of those songs together, or someone will play the wrong note, but the band likes it and winds up taking the song in a different direction.

But your question about layers can lie with the producer and engineer in the room trying different mixes out and rerecording parts. You're also finding more bands recording their parts at home if they have their own studio. They're uninterrupted and no one is picking apart their playing, but constructive feedback's def. important. The big names have home studios as good as most big studios.

Answer 4

Well they first get together and show each other the individual pieces they've been working on...then they go for a studio session and jam...trying to incoparate all the music that fits together...then they make the music n then sum1 writes the lyrics..and Voila! ur done!