Are you/have you had conversations about it with players you know and play regularly with? That would be starters for me. I assume you play banjo. If you don’t have one or two fiddlers in mind, you might want to rethink. Are you comfortable being a bandleader? That’s different from being a band’s best player. Years ago, when I was playing regularly, I led a couple of bands, but I was the musical leader in neither. … You also need to have an idea about whether the band is going to be informal and occasional or to be semi-professional, with regularly scheduled rehearsals and looking for work. Be sure your bandmates are on the same page there. Those are some of the things to keep in mind. Good luck.

Bill great questions and points to cover. I play banjo and fiddle, thew goal is to be formal and play gigs eventually, I am nearing retirement and would love a little extra cash and play more music. Thanks for the advice.

Try to find one other musician to exchange ideas, & begin some get together musical sessions. In time, between the 2 of you, an acquaintance or 2 might be invited to the jam. Take your time & try out different musicians, one at a time. Putting together a band, & creating an Ensemble is an almost impossible project. Best wishes.

Hey Rusty, I have a buddy that I play along with and we jam with a few others but haven’t gone out to make money. One of the fellas is idk prolly 75 yrs old and has had a few groups he has played with and such but now he just gets his guitar and fiddle and will busk in town. He says he make a few bucks and just loves getting out to play. You should just find group of jammers and see if they would make it happen or see if the folks on the street like you enough to throw cash. I agree with Bill that yall have to get along or just git along! Good luck, have fun!

Make sure you all have the same idea about what it will be and how serious of a commitment everyone expects. Getting together once a week and playing the occasional gig sounds like a lot of fun. Do you care about what you make? Retirement homes are always welcoming free bands. Is everyone cool with that, or only paying gigs? Can everyone play during the day? Weekends? How far will they drive? It can be tough to find the right mix. If you're serious about it, I would discuss those issues up front. Otherwise, when you get a call to do something that does not fit a member's schedule or parameters for pay, then you can have conflicts develop after you have invested time in each other.

One band that I was in, started as a Craigslist add in the community > musicians listings. I answered an ad for a “public welcome” country bluegrass folk jam, with the organizer looking to form a band. We had a blast, it was kind of like a no pressure tryout. About 20 folks showed up. At the jam, we would all agree to the date for the next jam. After a couple months, some folks lost interest, some quit showing, etc, and we found ourselves down to four regulars. Interestingly, we were not the most talented musicians in the group. In fact several were much more pro level, and probably uninterested in hanging out with neophytes. But we became great friends, had great chemistry, and were serious enough to keep showing up. We came up with a name, and a setlist and spent the next four years playing local clubs and events. One of the best times in my life.

The biggest problem in the old time music, not just banjo, world today is that the vast majority of people who play old time music have the majority of their playing with others as playing in socalled jams, where a group of people usually larger and not correctly formed that is proper to play the music. These jams usually function on the basis of the idea that there is some general way to play old time music.

This is the opposite of what is good about and wonderful about and authentic about old time music, that being how particularly and specific the ways of playing tunes were, especially in the era before radio and recordings were the main form of musical exchange,'

The Jam culture creates an approach like there is one  way of playing a tune, when there are many many specific ways to play any tune, and different approaches.,

A band culture has to root itself in the specifics of tradition, rather than the kind pablum that that jam culture has created.

About 20 years ago when I was getting back into old time world playing more guitar than banjo, I told my friend the late Kerry Blech, a great musician and great collector of old time music, I was interested in the tune Reuben's Train. Kerry made me a CD with 25 different versions of Reuben and told me to work on two or three that were the most different from each other.

Traditional and even the show business variety of old time music was not generic like the jam culture tries to create, but it was specific, variable and purposeful.

Avoid pablum and develop a specifity based on the concreteness of the real tradition is real answer/

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Originally posted by Rusty

Bill great questions and points to cover. I play banjo and fiddle, thew goal is to be formal and play gigs eventually, I am nearing retirement and would love a little extra cash and play more music. Thanks for the advice.

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The idea of extra cash from having an old time band except at the very top of things is illusory.  Old Time music pay scales tend to be based on the idea that the players have some other kind of income, or are willing to pay for free.   When I first got into the old time music world about 20-25 years ago, I quizzed a number of people who I came to know who were well-known people in the old time world.  Very few derived their chief income from playing old time music, or had done so for long, and I am talking people who were nationally and even internationally known figures.

 I played in the band Ebony Hillbillies in NYC  especially 10 15 years ago, when their banjoist could not travel.  They were all professional, jazz, soul, or avante guard players, with all kinds of professional experience, when I say experience I mean one member who was a Grammy winner several times as a song writer, another who had been in the Saturday Night Live band, and another who had been in James' Brown's troupe.    My band mates pretty much turned down many gigs because it was more profitable for them to do other musical work,  or give lessons than taking the pay scales offered by OT festivals,  "camps" and old time gigs.

I do a number of old time banjo  gathering and fiddle hell regularly mostly giving classes on banjo history and old time music history or on Black banjo techniques and music, not with any idea about my income or extra money, through I do get paid some, but because it makes it affordable to attend things I could not otherwise afford, and since I am getting paid something, it makes other things I do in furtherance of that a tax deductible business expenses.  However if I wanted extra money, I would go back to teaching college English.

However, the kind of income available from doing that does not really cover even the expense of maintaining the proper instruments, and travel.   It makes it very hard on people who actually still do need to make a living by playing old time music who do not have other sources of income.   I would not be able to do what I do about old time if I did not have a very good retirement from decades working two different public jobs and social security,

I've never started a band. But I've started a company (still have it 24 years later) and I've started a few sports teams so I know the excitement of a new venture. I don't have any good advice but I'm excited for you Russell! Good Luck I hope it ends up being a great experience.

Lots of good advice here. 

Rusty, being ever snoopy, I listened to your two *.mp3s, read some of your posts, etc., and noticed that for your self-assessment of experience level you have "Novice."  So, putting together a band for fun is one thing, but I wouldn't look at it as a money making proposition.

Tony's comments re: jams are dead on.  As a good example, check out the four volumes titled "Standard Deviations" at Peter Honig's bandcamp site.  Each volume has only five tunes, but with up to 27 performances.  I would never play "Leather Breeches" (on Vol. 1) at a jam, because there would be no "correct version" that everyone could play.

But for a band, you could decide which "Leather Breeches" you want to do (provided you can agree!). 

Four of us met at my home for a Tuesday morning jam, starting in the spring. The other guitarist was frustrated with the commute and dropped out. Our mandolin/fiddle player brought in his wife as rhythm guitar player. We had a Bluegrass banjo player, and I played guitar and clawhammer banjo. We did one non-paying (but the food was great) benefit gig in May. Then a bass player dropped by our session and enjoyed it. Various other commitments derailed us, but I hope we can resume in the new year. We may add a dobro player who attends my "Advanced Jam" session at the Seniors Centre (I roped the Bluegrass banjoist into becoming co-leader).

The catalyst was jams at the Seniors Centre, where the fiddle player walked over after the conclusion of a session and joined in on "Seneca Square Dance" that I was picking prior to packing up. I'd played with the Bluegrass banjo player for years (originally at the now-defunct Bluegrass Jam), and played with the first guitar player at the Song Circle. I think one tends to form groups by bumping into players at sessions and find a common musical bond, and take it from there.

Thanks for all the advice.

Forming a band is a difficult thing. So many things are involved, musical taste, song selection and the biggest thing egos.