TBD Rock Band

The Class of 2021 at MIS is full of experienced musicians; however, its students have never been able to showcase that experience and talent as a collective group. In order to solve that problem, Rishabh, Ermal, and I (three students from the Class of 2021) got together to form TBD. TBD is a three-person rock band that aims to upload edited recordings of musical covers by the band onto social media, primarily IGTV on Instagram. The band consists of me (the drummer and chief editor for the band), Rishabh (who manages logistics for the band and plays the guitar), and Ermal (who acts as the band’s director, lead singer, and guitarist).

Every band requires teamwork, coordination, communication, and collaboration between its members. Of course, our band was no different, but with each of us having a fair amount of experience playing as a band, it was not our primary cause for concern. Rather, the challenges we faced emerged from the fact that we had to practice and play as a band during a pandemic. When the band was first founded, an area of major discussion was how we would conduct our performances to meet our primary goal of playing music and showcasing our experience. Initially, the band was formed with the intent to perform live with two to three songs at MIS’ annual Winter Concert, but we were made to adapt to our conditions and consider the accessibility and presentation of our musical performances, following the cancellation of the Winter Concert amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to our decision to perform songs through Instagram where the students of MIS could access our content. Beyond concerns over our final product, we have also faced challenges while trying to practice playing songs as a group, given the ongoing pandemic. Our solution has simply been to practice individually as much as we can, having unsuccessfully explored other options like playing together on a group call or using ‘metronome’ apps on phones. The first time we play together will be on the same day we record ourselves playing together for Instagram, which is fairly uncommon for a band.

By the end of March, you can expect the release of two covers from TBD at https://www.instagram.com/thebandtbd/ or @thebandtbd on Instagram, where we will be playing 21 Guns by Green Day and Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead.

(Purav DP 2)