I’ve seen many bands who never reach one of the most important levels in performing. The level I’m talking about is the level at which each musician learns when to play and when NOT to play. A typical band includes instruments such as bass, drums, vocals, guitar, fiddle, piano, banjo, steel, harmonica, etc, etc.
Here’s some general rules:
- The bass, drums and rhythm guitars usually play continuously.
- Singers may or may not sing all of the time.
- Lead instruments (guitar, steel, banjo, harmonica, horns, piano, fiddle, etc) may SOMETIMES play together in unison or harmony, limiting the number of instruments to two or maybe three at a time depending on the skill of the players (ability to play different harmony parts).
- Lead instruments may play short instrumental “fills” between the phrases of the singer(s). When this happens, only one lead instrument should play the fill. Of subsequent verses, another lead instrument may play the fill. Under no circumstance should two or more lead instruments play fills at the same time. The arrangement of the music should dictate which lead instrument plays fills on each verse, section, chorus, etc.
As I said, these are GENERAL RULES and there may be exceptions (such as an orchestra, a two piece band, etc) I have attached a link below of one of my favorite group of musicians doing an excellent job of playing parts. I hope you’ll take some of these general rules to heart and implement them in your band!
Stringbender
A Great Example of Playing Parts (There are no vocals in this example, but one should consider each lead instrument (steel guitar, fiddle and piano) as performing the same task as a singer. (You will have to download the video to watch it)