Is there a disconnect between music you like listen to and the music you play in bands??

[JapanAxe]

Learning material for bands has led me to discover a lot of great music that I may not otherwise have heard, so I have ended up with less of a disconnect than when I started!

[SimonEdward]

[quote name='T-Bay' timestamp='1510262570' post='3405213']
We have two different sets, a punk and alternative set where 90% is stuff I love and a general covers set where 10-15% is stuff I love, about 40% I really like and the rest stuff I wouldn’t choose to listen to but don’t mind. Even then most of my favourite music isn’t exactly mainstream so would not really fit that well but there are always some ones that work. And then there is the issue of a band being more than one person so it will always be a compromise.
[/quote]

Yes, the same here. One thing I would say about being in a band, is that some of the music/songs by artists you thought you couldn't and wouldn't like - after a while, you start to appreciate it/them a little, and you learn little bits and bobs. Technically, and as you say, in terms of how much you are prepared to compromise.

The band I played in (mostly covers) came to a natural end, and I stopped playing - to do other things. But, when I started up again (and this time doing my own thing), I wouldn't have been able to do it without that experience, and having a broader knowledge of genres to 'fuse' into my own music.

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1510252486' post='3405097']
I disagree, I put all into playing the music we play (well, a couple of tracks maybe not so much), just that I wouldn't actually listen to that music myself.
[/quote]

I've probably spend about half my career playing stuff right up my street (classic rock/metal, purple tribute) and the other half playing stuff I don't have a particular interest in (soul, blues, generic covers). I still put the work in for the latter stuff and enjoy playing it, it just wouldnt be on my youtube favourites list. When I see people playing songs they have obviously never studied because they presumably think its beneath them that does annoy me - not putting the work in to do it properly is treating your audience with contempt in my opinion.

[Dad3353]

We only play songs that we all like (not necessarily in equal measure, but all accepted...). As we've quite an age spread, it's not that easy choosing songs, and, once chosen, some fall by the wayside with passing time. Still, that's our whole purpose in playing together. When we perform 'out', our repertoire is most often very well received; I've memories of a few mis-matches, but even in those cases, I don't really know what we could have played that would have gone down better. Disclaimer: we don't play for a fee, and we're usually invited to play, rather than having hunted down the gig ourselves. In fact, I can't remember any gig that we'd 'tried' to get.

Edited November 12, 2017 by Dad3353

[T-Bay]

One thing I have found as well is that some of my favourite songs to play aren’t my favourite to listen to and vice versa,

[NJE]

Really refreshing to realise I am not in the minority for playing music I don’t necessarily like.

It’s a bit of a weird situation for me, I play about 99% music I would not listen to on a day to day basis and that had been the case since I was about 17, with the odd exception.

The things is, just because I wouldn’t listen to, it doesn’t mean I can’t get some enjoyment from it. If the band and musicians are good and people enjoy it I would probably enjoy playing any music, that’s where my pleasure comes from.

I play loads of disco/pop/90s dance music and soul with another band, I would never put anything like that on at home, but maybe that is because I get enough of that type of thing from the band. At home is lots of folky/electro/pop stuff that no one would want to listen to if I played it a band.

It’s part of the reason I usually don’t like live music (ironic really) because most live bands play music I really can’t enjoy.

[DaytonaRik]

Yup - I'm not at all a Thin Lizzy fan but somehow I've found myself fronting a Lizzy appreciation band for the last 3 years! I can listen to the odd track, but a lot of it I find tedious.

[Painy]

We bill ourselves as classic and modern rock and pop covers and the songs in our set fall into that rather broad category but we naturally play everything with a hard rock feel because that's the style of music that we all enjoy listening to and playing.
It means we can play Hold Back the River and Uptown Funk in the same set as Hold The Line, Rock and Roll and Paradise City and it all sounds coherent so any song is fair game if we can make it fit.

Basically we play a fair few songs that I wouldn't necessarily choose to listen to the original but I'd happily listen our version .

That said, and as others have said, there are other genres I'd love to try playing (not with this band) like jazz for example but I'm not sure I'm up to it - not so much lacking the chops as the music theory knowledge.

[Leonard Smalls]

In both bands I play in we all write the songs together, and both bands are funky and rocky which is a lot of what I listen to.
Neither band does much in the way of electric or improv free jazz which is also one of my favoured types of music - though I find most folks leave the room when I out on Last Exit, including both of my bands!
As for covers, the rockier band has just started on a first cover - a version of DAF's "Der Mussolini". We'll see how that goes down in the Welsh Borders...

[EliasMooseblaster]

Interesting question! I've certainly found myself playing in bands where I didn't like the music - needless to say, I didn't stick around for long. But with Cherry White, it's a lot more nuanced. There's certainly no disconnect, but maybe a bit of a gap. Our guitarist has historically written most of the songs, though as I've contributed more, I feel I've had more of a steer over things. So there's quite a lot of overlap between what our guitarist likes - and therefore models his own writing on - and what I enjoy.

I suppose this is going to be true for a lot of people, because a lot of us listen to a far wider range of genres than one band is ever going to play. I'm fortunate in that the band doesn't just play "rock," but happily takes in elements of blues and prog-rock, which help to keep things fresh and interesting. They're never going to play jazz, but they've also not put an embargo on me bringing songs with "jazz chords" in them (i.e., anything more complicated than a dominant 7th).

Of course, if it were entirely up to me, I'd have dragged us down a bluesy prog-rock rabbit hole that would probably have driven the others to resign in frustration, so it's probably for the best that I've not become the main writer. I can keep all that for my solo side project and then everyone's happy.

[paul_5]

Not really; I'll listen to owt and play owt!

[uk_lefty]

In my covers band we play enjoyable songs, there's very few I dislike, but I don't listen to that music except to learn the song structures, figure out parts and practice backing vocals in the car.
I prefer to listen to lots of different types of music and sometimes it does make me think about how I can change my playing in certain parts of covers that I play, because we have licence to play our part as we please as long as it works.
If I was writing and playing originals I think the music I enjoy listening to would have more relevance to what I play in a band.

[TimR]

Once we have tunes up to gig standard I don’t listen to them again. Most tunes suffer from a bit of creep and if I listen to the originals I start to notice things that we have naturally arranged slightly differently to suit our line up.

Plus there’s so much music out there, why would I listen to the tunes I play several times a month?

I don’t think I even listened to recordings of originals bands I’ve played in.

Thinking about it, I’m not really an active listener of music. I tend to listen to all my music in the car rather than in a darkened room. In fact I’m not even a very active TV watcher, most of the time I’m on the internet with the TV in the background. Think I need to go on a meditation course...

Edited November 10, 2017 by TimR

[Barking Spiders]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1510307699' post='3405423']
Once we have tunes up to gig standard I don't listen to them again. Most tunes suffer from a bit of creep and if I listen to the originals I start to notice things that we have naturally arranged slightly differently to suit our line up.

Plus there's so much music out there, why would I listen to the tunes I play several times a month?

I don't think I even listened to recordings of originals bands I've played in.

Thinking about it, I'm not really an active listener of music. I tend to listen to all my music in the car rather than in a darkened room. In fact I'm not even a very active TV watcher, most of the time I'm on the internet with the TV in the background. Think I need to go on a meditation course...
[/quote]

+1 here. my in-car CD player has a higher spec than my one at home. Yep, I'm an old fashioned f@rt who still prefers CDs to streaming, vinyl, MP3s. BTW does anyone now ever just plug in and sit through a whole album while doing nowt else?

[mikel]

I like the music we play, because I love playing the songs. They have grooves and rhythms I would never have got into If I had stuck to only playing the music I like listening to. A lot of the stuff we play I would not listen to at home, but playing is different to listening. I chose to listen to songs that suit the mood I am in at the time. I am not genre biased, I simply like songs, and they can be from almost any style of music.

Listening and playing are two different things for me, and as mentioned above, I like to listen to a whole album and enjoy the experience, I have no time for background music.

Edited November 10, 2017 by mikel

[Rich]

I'm in two soul/r'n'b/pop covers bands and have started depping for a weddingy type function band.
My listening habits are almost entirely composed of prog rock/metal, jazz, fusion, audiobooks, and Radio 4.

[thebrig]

All the members in my band have more or less the same musical tastes, so generally speaking, we like all the songs we play, but after playing these songs over and over again, I find that I actually go off them and hardly ever listen to them again.

[markdavid]

Sometimes, i have turned down some bands that play music i like as although i like the music it is not fun to play as a bass player

[Gottastopbuyinggear]

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1510264343' post='3405231']
Learning material for bands has led me to discover a lot of great music that I may not otherwise have heard, so I have ended up with less of a disconnect than when I started!
[/quote]

This!

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1510308996' post='3405440']
I like the music we play, because I love playing the songs. They have grooves and rhythms I would never have got into If I had stuck to only playing the music I like listening to.
[/quote]

...and a bit of this too!

When I first started playing bass (a few years ago), I played along to a lot of blues and blues rock stuff because I was familiar with it, and understood it, from playing guitar (I do listen to a lot of other types of music - I'm just crap on guitar!). Since being in bands, even though it's not exactly a hugely diverse range of styles, my listening tastes have diversified, and I've found that it's a bit of a circle - I learn to play something with the band that's a little bit different for me, listen around that and find some more stuff, then learn to play a bit of that, and so on.

[martthebass]

I'll say.

Listening is mainly 79-84 electronica, new wave and indie.

Playing is exclusively 70-74 glam rock

[MartinB]

As many people have already said - the music that you like listening to isn't always the music that's fun to play, and vice versa.
I [i]like[/i] most of the covers my main band plays, butI don't [i]love[/i] them. I wouldn't play something that I really didn't like; obviously this would be different if I was doing it for a living!
I've learned from experience not to suggest any of my [i]favourite[/i] songs, as it just annoys me when everyone else doesn't give them 100%.

[davegriffiths91]

I'm on contract in Bahrain playing modern pop tunes.
90% of the set I'd say I've never heard the original tunes. Or at least I hadn't until I took the job. It's not my bag to listen too, but I love playing. My practice time is consisting of learning more jazz etc because the gigs are long and boring!

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1510313272' post='3405490']
My listening habits are almost entirely composed of prog rock/metal, jazz, fusion, audiobooks, and Radio 4.
[/quote]

Hard to get that all in one covers band..

[blue]

Sings I like to listen to wouldn't necessarily go over well in a live gig setting. Particularly a bar gig.

Blue

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1510308640' post='3405434']... does anyone now ever just plug in and sit through a whole album while doing nowt else?
[/quote]

Most often when listening to Schubert, for instance, but also with many disks which have a particular resonance with me (Nostalgia..? A theme..?) Examples would be 'The Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus' (Spirit...), 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars' (Bowie...), 'Surrealistic Pillow' and 'Bless Its Pointed Little Head' (Jefferson Airplane...); very recently I came across 'Bee Gees' 1st' which I'd not listened to for fifty years. Some albums are only complete if listened to in their entirety, and with attention.