[Discussion] People don’t change: A hard lesson everyone who wants to play in a band must learn.

I’m going to start right off the bat by saying the title is hyperbole. People can and do change all the time if they want to and have the support to do so. I firmly believe people can change for the better, permanently (and for the worse, but that’s not the point.)

HOWEVER!

You can’t wait on a bandmate to change for you. You will wait forever. You can lose so much time (and money) trying to make things work with the wrong players. People who struggle to play in time, in tune, or to show up to rehearsal – or to read, or to get along with other members of the band – anything – make the process of playing music difficult. And it sucks for everyone involved, especially them if they’re aware that they’re struggling.

Here is where things get difficult. I used to think that you could change a band member’s commitment, their playing style, their genre preference, their playing ability with support from bandmates, encouragement, and time. But it’s a path to ruin. It’s an exercise in futility to try and shape a band member into something you might want them to be, or even something THEY might want to be, if they aren’t putting in the time and the serious, serious amount of work that goes into making a band work properly.

This is especially shit if the person is your friend. We all want to play music with our friends. We all want to have that special musical connection with people that we love. This makes it even more important to know that you can’t wait around for someone to change.

Your best bud who’s just learning bass might be AMAZING in a year’s time – or he might not. Choosing to bring someone into a band can sometimes be like choosing a partner – particularly in the way that when that person leaves a band or is asked to leave, it can emotionally be like a breakup in some ways. Some of you will have no idea what I’m talking about and that’s great, especially for the real pros out there – but for many, many people, that bandmate connection has a personal intimacy to it that can hurt like hell when it ends. When it’s a year later and your mate is still crap on the bass, and you’re wanting to do bigger and better things, you can’t make him care the way you do. You can’t make him practice, and you can’t make him improve. You might have to make a tough decision and lose a friendship.

People DO change, but you can’t wait around for them to do it.

Peace and love.