One songwriter or collective

Lestratcaster

For those of you who have played or (still playing) in bands did you have 1 person writing everything (as in guitars/bass/drums/vocal parts) or was it a collective effort?

Me personally it was always a collective part in most of the bands I played in, I think 1-2 it was 1 person writing the majority of the guitar and bass parts.

I don't think I'd be totally happy playing in a band where I couldn't contribute any of my own parts, I would welcome input/constructive criticism for others but I think work best when we all have our own sonic space and not dictating what each other is meant to be playing. Kinda hard if you play the pop/punk metalcore tight stuff however as rhythm guitars and bass usually match the kick drum.

spark240

Mostly me and the keyboard player wrote the music, singer did vitrually all lyrics

meltedbuzzbox

Currently its two of us writing the tunes and "helping" the singer with the lyrics

guitarfishbay

As a general thing I’ve picked up, it’s a lot faster to just try out ideas that people have rather than spend time discussing why it won’t work.

If something will work or not it’ll be a lot more obvious when it’s tried. And sometimes it will work even if you didn’t think it would.

I do think the total democracy thing is a bit of a unicorn situation, but most of the time things work themselves out as to who wants to be in charge of what. Everyone being left to their own part decisions only works if everyone has the same vision, usually there has to be some negotiation to best present the key parts without something masking them.

pintspiller

In my last originals band I strummed out a rhythm part and sang. If the band liked it, I switched to bass and the guitarist and drummer did their own parts, sometimes changed bits around.

I taped jams too and added vocals.