The typical configuration for a garage band consists of one or two guitarist, a bass player, a drummer, perhaps a keyboard player or a lead singer. The combination of the drummer and the bassist make up what is referred to as the rhythm section. They try to work as a team and play with the bass hitting it’s accents in unison with the drummer’s kick or bass drum. The basic idea is for them to lay down a solid, steady beat over which the other instruments can flow. Simple is better than complicated as the primary function is to maintain the steady beat. The small gaps between lyric lines can be used for fills which gives the bass and drums an opportunity to add their own personal expressions. These fills should be agreed upon in advance so that the different instruments don’t all cram their own fills in at the same time leaving no one to keep the song together. Many times the bass fills will be in unison with the drum fills but if the guitar takes the fill, the bass and drums need to keep the beat. Never use a bass guitar through a guitar amplifier rather than a bass amp as the bass will most certainly blow out a guitar amp’s speakers.
The guitars usually separate their work into the lead and the rhythm. The rhythm guitar plays chords and strums or picks the strings in time to the beat while the lead guitar plays a pattern of individual notes such as a melody line. The lead must be aware of what the vocal is doing at all times and work to complement and supplement the vocal melody by adding fills between the lines and by adding the solo during a section of the song, usually a verse, where the singing is held back. Different styles of music require different sounds on the guitars but usually the rhythm guitar has the cleaner sound while the lead can be a louder or more distorted sound. In punk and Heavy Metal, the sound of both guitars is loud and distorted but even then it is advisable to have each guitar fill a specific niche in the sound spectrum. This is usually done by giving the rhythm guitar a deeper tone while the lead guitar has a more treble or high end tone which helps it cut through the layers of mud underneath. Double lead guitars are tricky to pull off but impressive when done well. Each guitar has to arraign it’s part so as to not step on the other instruments’ fills or the melody line. The two leads can take turns playing solos and can double each other by playing the same lead pattern but an octave apart. All the musicians need to remember that they exist only to complement and support the vocal melody. They must never play anything that obscures or clashes with what the singer is singing and the singer needs to know when it’s time to shut up and let the band play.
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