Most important instrument in a band
 

give ur opinions

A singing voice.

umm

all of them?

:pssst: I think we're supposed to say the bass.

:laughing: what gave him away?

^lol

I voted drums.

Depends on the kind of music. In general, any of them could be their own band by themself, so it's a deadlock.

anything but drums.

guitar/vocals being the most important.

:laughing:

You try playing in a band without a drummer.

And yes that includes drum machines.

In my opinion (im saying this so you dont have to) any instrument can play a equally important role, depending on how its being used...For some bands, the bass is actualy more important than guitar, like in most R&B and funk bands and bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus, in other bands the drummer can play an equally important role as every other member, like Rush, Tool and The Who for example... Then you have bands like ELP where the role of guitar is demolished almost completely, and instruments like piano, keyboard, organ, moog and mellotron are used in its place.

I can't really think of a rock song without a guitar in it, but the same can't be said about vocals/bass/drums/keyboards.

So it's gotta be the guitar, and no one's voted for it yet, weird.

Well, that's the way I saw the question anyway.

I was voting for the importance of the instrument when it does feature in the band and how much it being played well or badly affects the music. Thus I voted for drums, as good drumming really gets a song going, whereas bad drumming tends to ruin it.

Big Bottom, by Spinal Tap, doesn't have a (non-bass) guitar in it, Don. Although they ARE a spoof band...

Oh yes, ol' Spiney.

Hmm, I dunno about your logic, couldn't you say the same for all the instruments?

Yes. This is one of those IMO moments. The logic for this one stops at your own preference. Badly played drums (particularly badly timed ones) tend to throw all of the other instruments out more noticeably than badly played guitars, keys or vocals. Other instruments do mess up other parts of the song if played badly, of course.

ELP qualify as rock, and many of their songs have no guitar...Béla Fleck & The Fleckstones are also a guitarless band with a very rockin' feel.

Radioheads National Anthem is also a pretty rockin' song and it has no guitar, at least that i know of.

And then of course there was Jerry Lew Lewis who could write a great rock n roll song for just piano, bass and drums.

The bass pure an simply because of Dos.

dos?

Dos is a bass duo of Mike Watt (Minutemen) and Kira (Black Flag).

Drums are definently the most important becasue without a good steady beat to keep tempo, your band is hopeless

...unless your band doesn't have drums.

I think drums, bass and guitar are all equally important to a song's structure. If one is missing, the song is lacking a very important ingredient!

Not all music requires drums though, Bluegrass uses Banjo to get its percussion sounds.

Wow, I forgot about "The National Anthem," great example and there's other Radiohead examples also. But yeah it's hard to think of them like I said, which I guess sorta makes the guitar the most important? This question is more about your definition of importance I feel.

Well, no one ever said that all music needs a guitar, its just the trendy instrument these days.

Its still replacable, you could choose any other kind of lead or rhythm instrument to take its place, it just produces a different sound.

Theres a lot of different and creative things that folks today could do musically, but they choose not to, and they follow the quarter centurys old guitar/bass/drums trend instead.

Is trend the right word here? The definition of being rock is partly comprised of usually (more often that not) using a guitar in your music.

The role of guitars in rock grew noticably in the 60s because of players like Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Santana, Page, Townshend, etc who helped raise the bar for true virtuosity of the instrument in the realm of rock music... Rock n roll wasnt always based strictly around guitars, just ask Little Richard, Jerry Lew Lewis and Fats Domino.

The role of the guitar has nothing to do with anything. From the blues, RNB, rock 'n' roll, Chuck Berry, etc spawned the creation of rock because people liked the way it sounded and so the commercialism grew. Others' copied and decided to take the rock elements and strand it into a wider variety of music, but obviously still encompassing rock because of the instruments. Rock = guitar/bass/drums/vocals. It's just a formula that worked. It wasn't "based" around guitars, per say, it was just a combination of instruments working together for the audiences interest.

Rubbish, tell that to Jerry Lee.

But he's rock 'n' roll.

i go with guitar..

a guitar sounds amazing alone as does a persons voice.. (if a person can sing or play well i mean)

but to me i really love the sound of guitar so thats why i go with that.

I voted drums with anything percussive in mind. I mean, the drums are like the heartbeat of the band. I play the guitar, personally, but I think that my own songs are nothing without a beat. Even folk songs with just acoustic and such still have something percussive with them a lot of times like tambourine.

Rock N Roll = Rock.

Though some may argue against that, saying something like.

Blues = Rock N Roll.

And

African Folk Music = Blues.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, music is music, its all relative.

Point is, piano (a keyboard instrument, duh) used to be a primary instrument in rock music (yes back when it was rock n roll) and then in the 60s its role became smaller in rock music, it was rarely used as a lead or soloing instrument from that point... But in the late 60s bands like The Doors restablished the role a keyboard can play in a rock band, and then in the 70s we had the most keyboard dominated rock genre there ever was, teh prog... But folks like Elton John and Billy Joel proved that piano players can also be rock stars.

Rock 'n' roll is a subset of rock, just like heavy metal is a subset of death metal. They do not equal each other, that's why they have different names :P

Juice Harp obviously

Hey bud, wise choice!!!:beer:

I totally agree that drums are the key to a good band because it really is the "beat" to any style of music!!!

Without drums what have ya got?:laughing: Just a quiet old guitar track (sometimes even a ballad) or a person singing and that's it!!!

I love the drums, man!!!Just try to imagine any of these bands without them:

-Slayer.
-Metallica.
-Megadeth.
-Fear Factory.
-Rush.
-AC/DC.
-Judas Priest.
-Queensryche.
-Morbid Angel.
-Pantera.

It just wouldn't be the same and (in some cases) the song(s) would just be a simple guitar riff/sh1t, ya know?

In closing, I'd like to say that there are definitely a hell of a lot of great guitar players out there that I've enjoyed jamming to, but even the greatest guitarist is just average at best without the magic of a great drummer keeping a great beat thru the song, period!!!:drummer:

Yeah, the drum beat is really important to a song. If I had more of a sense of rhythm I would like to play drums, lol :D

i interperted this diferently than a lot of people. most people are trying to justify which instrument you can take out instead of which instrument should stick out.
for me it's bass. i love music with a bass line that sticks out.

You can have an instrumental band (there are meny good ones.) so vocals are out the window. In a band (assuming rock), if there are keyboards, they're usually filler, and although can add some nice touches if used properly, are still not a necessity. So, it's down to guitar, bass, and drums. Well, since bass guitar is usually very seclusive, and is very much like a keyboard, in that it's mostly used as filler. Drums and guitar are both extremely important, however, and are both as equally important.

But that's only rock. If you go into other genres, guitar can become less prominent, and other things more dominant. But since drums are pretty much universal in all genres, as a time-keeper, I'd honestly say that drums are the most important instrument.

yes, however without the bass your band would or group consisting of just guitar and drums would not have a strong musical foundation.......

Tell that to the Doors and the White Stripes and Kraftwerk and ....well you get the point

I know I said something but I changed my mind. The best instrument is a good groupie