Queen and David Bowie, Aerosmith and Run DMC, Jay Z and Linkin Park – throughout music history, collaborations have created magical genre-bending sparks – a sound clash which fans and followers find difficult to resist or celebrate. Collaborations can be great ways to understand new creative processes you didn’t think were possible, and for new musicians, it is a way to access new audiences by cultivating a following together.
Not sure how else collaborative efforts could benefit you and your work? We’ll give you a rundown:
Build meaningful relationships
Never underestimate the power of collaborations when it comes to building relationships. Every time you collaborate with someone, you form a new relationship, and if you give a good impression of your work, it will be appreciated through more networks than just your own.
Take The Lonesome Souls for example. Four musicians who stumbled upon each other on BandLab collaborated on a few tracks together. Their work is now available on streaming services and picked up by several radio mixes. Despite never actually having met each other in person, they’re calling themselves each other’s soul brother working towards a common goal.
Learn and create something new
Fresh ideas could be few and far between the longer you’ve been a musician. There will be times you’re stuck with the same melodies or the same drum patterns. Every musician has their own creative process, so by collaborating, you will get bigger ideas for your songs. There’s a lot to pick up and learn from another musician on your next song.
That said, combining different ideas and minds together often leads to something new, and rather unexpected. Jay Z and Linkin Park impeccably combined rap with nu-metal to give us one of the most celebrated collaborations in recent memory. These new ideas will keep your engine running so you continue improving one track after the other.
Speed up the creative process
Creating music on your own starts off as an exciting adventure, but you may sometimes get fatigued along the way and lack the motivation to see out the long process of finishing what you started. With collabs, your workload is divided, and with the frequents injections of inspiration with fellow collab artists, you’re more likely to see out your projects.
Of course, make sure you discuss and lay out each others responsibilities and timelines in advance to make this collaboration a straightforward and seamless one.
Increase your audience
Naturally, if all artists of a collaboration share their work with their audience, you’ll reach more people that you would on your own. Combining audiences with collabs is readily beneficial not only for the artists, but also for listeners. You’re introducing your fans to new music, and there isn’t a greater gift than that!
Ready to get collaborating, but unsure just where to start? We’ll give you a rundown to the best practice, and how you can effectively use BandLab to collaborate right away.
Know what you’re after
Is your latest work missing that crucial drum fill? Do you think it could do with a ripping guitar solo? How about some synth to spice it all up? It’s important you think like a producer, and not bind yourself to the instrument you play. Once you work the missing puzzle pieces to your latest creation, looking for respective collaborators gets all the simpler. Get busy in the BandLab community, put your music out there and let everyone know you’re looking for a collaborator and you might be surprised at the response.
Reach out to potential collaborators
So if it’s guitar riffs and solos you’re looking for, your search is already narrowed down to the guitarists. Lay the groundwork by browsing through thousands of musicians on BandLab to figure out which sound will suit you best. You can invite users to collaborate on BandLab easily. Add a collaborator and they will get access to work on your song. Here’s how to add collaborators.
Reaching out to them is as simple as shooting an invite their way, but it’s important to remember that a collab is intended to benefit all of you. Let your potential collaborators know that you value their talents, and strive to be easy to work with. Respect personal differences, and should conflicts emerge, use them as opportunities for your group to achieve greater synergy.
Collaborate without the collaborator
Not quite collaborating, but have a go at ‘Forking’ on BandLab. When you ‘fork’ another user’s song, you get access to their tracks and you can then build on the work, add to it, change it, and ultimately, if you like, republish your version of the track.
What this means is you can remix or take someone else’s track you love in a different direction, or give it your own twist. You don’t have to wait for permission to use their track – when you’re inspired, you can start re-creating immediately.
You have full control whether you want your songs to be forkable or not. If someone forks your song and publishes it on BandLab, the original creator of the song will always be credited.
Get started on your collaborative journey and find musicians to make music with here.
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