Finding other musicians to start a band can be difficult.  Musicians all have unique sensibilities and different playing styles and personalities, proficiency levels, drug habits, etc, etc.  But what if you are trying to find people to play with and start a band with?  What are some of the avenues to try out?  How do you go about it once you meet?  How about starting out?  Here are some more ideas…

FIND YOUR LEVEL-NEWBIE

If you are looking for people to “jam” with and are trying to get better as a musician, then you won’t be trying to look for musicians that have been gigging for years and are looking for a good music project to work on.  And there is nothing more disappointing than playing music with someone who is not as good at basic musicality.  Heading for an uncomfortable time not liking the way things are sounding.  A musician needs to be able to play to a reasonably steady beat, and be able to listen and begin to work on nuances of what sounds good when playing with other musicians.  Of course that means different things to different people.  But as practice, a less experienced player should play as much with “play along CD’s” and work with metronomes as much as possible.

Once you are there, have some sheet music, or chord charts, or lyric sheets ready work on.  Or songs you’ve written.  Fire up a craigslist ad, and see who shows up.

FIND YOUR LEVEL-EXPERIENCED

So, then let’s say you are getting back into music, or you moved to a new town.  You’d want to network with other musicians and see what the scene is like and start playing with people who are working on music projects.  Hopefully one day, this site will turn into a meeting place for musicians, but for now, try the Open Mic scene in your city, and clap for people.  In my experience open mics are good places to meet people because people are trying out material, and generally people are friendly and open about what they are doing.  It would be better to play at an open mic so that people hear what you are all about too.  And it saves the “I wonder if this guy is good enough to play with” question that can be on some-one’s mind.

The other technique is to go to other peoples’ shows, and listen and try to introduce yourself.  But at shows generally, a band is already staffed up as it were usually.  They are more into getting you signed up to a mailing list than looking for people to play with.  One more idea is…

CRAIGSLIST

Then there’s craigslist.  Here’s a link to the New York City Craigslist musicians community.  I’ve always found that craigslist is hit or miss. I’m sure there are good players there, but it’s hard to tell how much experience people have.  Ask lots of questions, get their myspace page, or what have you.  And then schedule a short jam session, or rehearsal.

Good luck.  If anyone has any other tips or articles, please send them to us.