Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Dictatorship vs. The Collective

One thing I find fascinating about the band dynamic is that essentially a band is a collection of "wills" all willing themselves into an end result. This leads to a big soup of chaos and often times complete destruction of an otherwise friendly and enriching journey as musicians.

Over the years I have experienced several different variations of the "Collapse". That place where the band hits a certain plateau and then falls flat on it's face, often times right before an ascension in some form of progress or direction. One thing I will cover in a different post is what sadly can be seen as the fear of success, and it seems to be a very strong trait amongst musicians.

From the outset I have a very strong opinion that a band must decide whether it falls under the "will" of a dictatorship, or if it can flurish in the realm of the collective. The dictatorship is an understanding that the creative force in the band drives the decisions and asks, but is not guranteed, complete band participation. The collective is an agreement amongst all members (to the point of a written agreement) that every member shares equal share, and ever member participates in every process, with equal energy.

Over the next two days I will dissect each in it's own entirity, with a rant on the good side and the pains of both sides of the fence. I have my preference, but before adding any influence either way, I will try my best to share my objective obersavations of each.

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