The Key to Great Bands or Music Groups
Unlock the secrets to exceptional bands and music groups in this article.

In this day and age, all music listeners have come across at least one music group or band. Whether be it a K-Pop group, a Boy band, a Rock band, or any modern Pop band, it’s safe to assume all of us have at least one of these groups that we love.

However, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in the formation of these groups, and in their journey to success. Not only in finding the partnership that’s necessary to form a healthy group, but also in the qualities that the members of the group should have.

That doesn’t only involve the members of the group as people, or even as celebrities, but the group as one entity in the face of media, challenges, work, and the public. This means that other than the qualities of the members, the group, which will, in an abstract sense, be the celebrity, must also have some qualities that are essential to its success.

The Influence of the Leader

In all groups, a leader is essential to the guidance of the group. In a band, it is a lot of the time the lead singer, like ‘Syd Barrett’, who is the main vocalist and leader of the band ‘Pink Floyd’. In some other groups, like boybands, the leader isn’t usually easily known by the public but has a rather silent role in the leadership of the group. A good example of this would be ‘One Direction’, where the leader is ‘Louis Tomlinson’, which is a piece of information known only by true ‘One Direction’ fans, whereas the public forefront of the group was always ‘Harry Styles’.

The leader plays such an important role because they basically need to have the most qualities. Those include patience for the other members, a spirit of insensitive criticism to help the group improve all while conserving respect between everyone, a decisive spirit, as well as strong communication skill.

This means that the leader themselves, even as a person, remains a quality for the rest of the group in just having good traits. The leader also most of the time takes vital decisions for the rest of the group in either the improvement of the group, or the release of music, and sometimes even affects the songwriting process.

The Importance of Teamwork

The leader might be able to lead the group, but each member should have a teamwork spirit, as well as a lot of dedication for the group to even have a chance at success.

Firstly, it’s essential that members of the group have a career/self-sacrifice spirit for the rest of the group. This means that all members should be ready to give up themselves as a sole musician, in order to become a part of the group or band. Staying with the example of ‘One Direction’, there was no ‘Zayn Malik’ and no ‘Harry Styles’ before the band split up, there was only ‘One Direction’ As a group. A member of the band is the band before they are their own artist.

Secondly, just like the “One for all” mentality plays a part through self-sacrifice for the group, it’s almost vital for the group to hold an “All for one” mentality as well. A member’s problem should be everyone’s concern. Examples of this could arise in the hiatus a band could take because of a member falling ill, because of a member’s relative passing away, or even a member going through a very tough time. It’s very unlikely you’ll see a successful group perform without a member who is going through serious problems.

For this case we can keep the example of ‘One Direction’ where the band got broken apart because one or two of them wanted to be solo artists and weren’t feeling like keeping the band alive.

Third, it’s very important for everyone to have a dedication in the group. This helps the group to keep improving in a team spirit, instead of individually. For rehearsals as well, the members’ dedication could make or break a performance, purely because a group’s rehearsal depends on the full dedication of everyone. Basically, if one member is absent to rehearsals because of laziness, the entire group will likely perform weaker than they would have if everyone was present.

Friends before Colleagues

Yes, it is arguably the most essential quality in a music group. Although it might look small compared to the other qualities and traits that we mentioned before in this article, friendship is the strongest pillar in the construction of a music group or a band. That is because having a strong friendship between members helps the band in many ways.

On one hand, with the evolution of trends and mediatization, shipping is becoming a worldwide phenomenon on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and even in between friends. It’s more common in bands, or fictional characters. With that in mind, having dynamic friendships or even relationships in a group can be a big factor in boosting the group’s fanbase.

On the other hand, and as we already mentioned, music groups or bands go through a lot. And to be able to push through, they’ll need to stick together, and there is nothing better than having friends to push with you.

Staying at the example of the band ‘Pink Floyd’ we can see exactly how a broken friendship drove the band to destruction. After ‘The Wall’, Roger Waters started to get even more controlling trying to be political with every song Pink Floyd makes, which sparked a feud between him and his former friend and colleague David Gilmore. This feud turned into legal battles which broke the group apart only coming back together again for one live performance.

Conclusion

To conclude this article, we can sum up that there are 3 main qualities that a band and its members should have: A band should have a great leader to lead the band and inspire them to make music. The other is that as a band member, you should try to be friends with the other members if you aren’t already, as a strong friendship could protect the band from a lot of outside factors and inside issues. The last one is that band members should have a strong sense of teamwork. They should have a one for all mentality and an all for one mentality dedicating everything to the success of the band.

I wish you luck in your endeavors of creating a band or sustaining it, and if you are reading this for information then I hope this article has helped you in some way in getting to know more about bands.