How do bands work?

A band plays songs. Every song (let's keep it simple folks!) is in a key and has a chord progression. Whether you play that song alone or with ten friends, you'll all be playing the same song. So if you are supposed to play an A-minor, don't play an A-major. As long as the band together plays the notes required for the chord you're fine. As for splitting up chords: yes, that is possible. If you are supposed to play an Am9 you can have the bass play an A note, the keybord a C-major and the rhythm guitar an E-minor chord, together that makes an Am9.

A bass-guitar plays the bass-part, whatever that is. Rootnotes, appergios, a groovy riff, whatever. A rhythm guitar provides the harmonic background, or in other words plays (decorated) chords.

Judging from your post you are really pretty lost. I suggest taking a real easy song with only a few chords and work through that first. Have the bass player play the rootnote of each chord and the keybord/guitarist just play the chords. Keep playing around until it starts to fall together, then see if you can add some decorations.

Welcome to GN!

Yeah, I am a bit lost. Though splitting-up chords to form complete ones seems way too difficult to sync-up, do most bands typically do that anyway?

We plan on playing some simple progressions at first. 12-bar blues with some minor frills, perhaps.

What about creating my own chord-progressions?
Should I just put down whatever progression that sounds pleasing, and write it down. Are there certain rules to forming consonant progressions I should know?

How would band-mates know the progression? Pass a sheet of paper around? Do they just pick it up when the lead starts playing?

This is really just for fun, but I'm curious to how bands organize and work.

Splitting up chords that way isn't very popular, but it's not as difficult as you might think. With a drummer, everyone knows what beat to play what, so it all syncs up that way.

For writing your own progressions, there are some rules, but you don't REALLY need to know them. Just play a chord, and play another after it, how does it sound? If it sounds "bad" or "invalid" then try a different chord, keep doing this until you have a progression you like.

As far as the band-mates knowing the progression, there are 3 different levels I think.

Beginner - pass around that sheet of paper
Intermediate - Tell everyone what chords you'll be playing
Advanced- play them and everyone will hear what they should be playing.

So right now, I'd go with the sheet of paper.

Welcome to GuitarNoise, Caterpillar! We look forward to seeing you around the forums! :D

Yes, everyone plays in the same key! And, yes, for the most part you do play the same progressions. Otherwise you would have just a big cacophony!!

OK... let's start with the rhythm section.... it usually consists of drums, percussion, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, but you don't have to have each one of those for a rhythm section! You can have drums and bass, or rhythm guitar and percussion, or just drums, or just bass or two guitars swapping between rhythm and lead.... whatever you've got! It's the rhythm section that sets the pace (tempo).

A bass guitar adds the "bottom", the deep, booming rhythm that you can feel in your feet or in your chest when it's played loud!

Rhythm guitar basically plays chord progressions throughout the song, allowing room for the lead players and vocalists.

Yes, you can create your own progressions! That's called songwriting!! :D Your bandmates will know the progressions when you teach them and yes, you can write it out on paper! You might want to become familiar with guitar tablature. Just makes it easier for everyone to understand what you're after.

Hope that helps! :D

Thanks for all the quick replies, really clears up some things

Though I'm still curious about the musical leeway within the band. What decorative frills could one do with their guitar/keyboard and still be in keeping with the band?

As long as you're in the right key... For example, you mentioned you'll be starting with some 12 bar blues

Well, the blues is perfect for solos. Depending on what key your in, say you're in the key of A, you'd use the Am Pentatonic scale to do some lead lines. Blues gives a lot of leeway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tL8T5w5HHM

Almost all of the leads you hear either clapton or Buddy Guy playing in this video are made up on the spot.

You have other options aside from soloing too. You can arppegiate certain chords (play the notes one by one) as can the piano. You can add in 7ths to make chords sound more bluesy... Really, you're going to have to experiment, see what sounds good. If you appregiate a chord, it has to be in time, you can't be arpeggiating the D chord when the band has already moved onto the C.

I see. But when you say add sevenths, not just one person can; the whole band has to play that note as a seventh/sixth as well, right?
And isn't appregiating what lead guitarists do?

Also, I may as well ask here, what in the world is a middle-eight? I keep hearing about it in music, but I haven't a clue what it is.

once you guys set some ground rules, like key, what chords, what progression, what song, you are going to have major fun.
keep in mind, when you see those awesome bands on youtube or other places making it look so easy, that they have gone over songs and parts of songs over and over and over for days and weeks and gigs on end.

I like your idea of doing a 12 bar. a nice pattern and count. pick a chord and the other two are determined. everybody knows
knows what is what.you could pick a blues song and add the lyrics. write up a lyric sheet for everyone. write the chord changes over the words. that is a great way to play with others.

fills and thrills and quick changes without warning doesn't work. but you can work into a song places for an improv solo. take turns soloing on a 12 bar. then you can work you ideas. each of you.

have a blast . keep us posted.

Just to add to all the good advice, even though everyone is playing the same progression, you don't always play the same technique. Take a Blues in the key of E. You might strum a simple E chord in the open or home position. Here is a simple Blues shuffle rhythm based on triplets, very common in Blues:


E

e-0---0-0---0-0---0-0---0--
b-0---0-0---0-0---0-0---0--
g-1---1-1---1-1---1-1---1--
d-2---2-2---2-2---2-2---2--
a-2---2-2---2-2---2-2---2--
e-0---0-0---0-0---0-0---0--
1 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 3 4 2 3


Now you have a second guitarist, what would he or she play? They could play exactly the same thing which would add a little fullness, but kind of monotonous and a waste of a second player. So usually the second player will play something a little different. In Blues you could play the famous 5, 6, 7 chord shuffle:

E5 E6 E7 E6
e--------------------------
b--------------------------
g--------------------------
d--------------------------
a-2---2-4---4-5---5-4---4—-
e-0---0-0---0-0---0-0---0--
1 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 3 4 2 3

The second guitarist playing this shuffle over your strummed chords will add lots of color to the progression. Now, in this case you are playing the same exact rhythm pattern, but you can play another rhythm pattern and many often do.

Often time a second guitarist will play an inversion of the same chords:

E

e-4-----4---4-----
b-5-----5-----5---
g-4-----4-------4-
d-6-----6---------
a-----------------
e-----0-----------
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &


Here the second guitarist is playing an E chord at the 4th fret with the 3rd (G#) on top instead of the Root. This rhythm is straight eighth notes. The guitarist also plays the Root note on the 6 string alone, and picks the chord arpeggio style at the end. These are just some colorful ways to spice up rhythm guitar playing.

But basically everybody should be playing the same chords in the same order. But you have lots of flexibility in how you play those chords. You want your rhythm guitar to be interesting and colorful.