The Modern Band

I gave my presentation in class on Wednesday on how media has affected the way bands work. I looked mainly at how it is different from how famous groups like the Beatles and Elvis had their starts as opposed to how bands can get their start now. For Elvis, a singer, he had to find a band that would take him by leaving his record at the the recording studio to play for bands without a singer already. This method took over a year before he was finally picked up by a band. The Beatles were fortunate that their group was easy to start but they needed to play gigs, pass their record around to companies and mostly serve as background music for more famous individuals. Their first record was a flop and only ended up playing as background for telemarketers and that was only because they had a friend who worked there. 

Starting a band around this time period was not easy it involved stopping everything else because a band has to keep moving and stay relevant for people to be interested. Most bands did not make it far simply because their music would not appeal to everyone and thus record companies would not take a chance to hire them.

Skipping to today I would only need a few things to start a band and basically cut out middle men and the record company all together as several bands have proven so far. Using a video camera and some instruments a group of people can post a song onto youtube by the end of the day within a couple of hours if they feel motivated enough. Thats pretty much it a process that usually takes years can be done in a weekend it is a quick and effective way to gain an audience. A band like this does not need to visit a record store or really go out of their way to make music. Things like garage band further take the recording studio out of the equation and using youtube it is possible to target a more narrow audience interested in a certain kind of music. Finally using things like Garage Band and drop box which someone else talked about in class band members no longer really need o be in the same room to put music together. Media has helped to alleviate some of the problems bands use to face and now everyone should go start a band.