Here is a list of the top ten reasons why bands fall apart in today's music industry: 

1 – Less Productive Rehearsals 

Rehearsals are vital in the lifetime of a band, and your band members should make the best of it at all times.  

Usually a band starts to fall apart about the same time the rehearsals start to get boring or dull. You should avoid that by encouraging special rehearsing sessions with guests or by recording your rehearsals.  

Also try new ideas and new concepts while at the rehearsal studio... that will keep everyone's spirit's up. 

2 – Few Live Gigs 

When a band doesn't play live (to an audience) on a regular basis, there's the tendency to feel less motivated. Also gigs are a great place for feedback on your musical project.  

3 – Big Egos 

Big ego's are always a tough question.  It's not nice to impose your behavior on the other members of the band. Try to avoid having anyone in your band that has this sort of disrespectful behavior.  

It is really important that all members are equally respected, otherwise you'll gain conflicts very soon and in no time the band will break apart.  

4 – Criticism... Letting it Affect You. 

Critics are a useful vehicle for feedback, but don't take them all seriously. Many times critics are not well justified and are only meant to hurt some spirits. 

Take criticism as an important thing but listen to it carefully: if you find something useful and helpful on a critic or comment, take a mental note of that, if not.. then just forget about it.  

5 – Weak Promotion 

A good marketing strategy is always important. Never overlook this aspect of the music industry; even if you don't have a “selling-machine” on your back to help you, there are lots of tools on the web that you can use to spread the word about your music or concerts.  

Myspace and similar social networks are very useful for exposing your music and for maintaining a line-up of your upcoming concerts. A band's Website and newsletter also work the same way.

Lot's of bands break up or collapse simply because they didn't invest any time on some basic marketing: spread the word online, on flyers, on the radio, etc...    

6 – Divergence of Musical Visions 

One of the main issues when handling different personalities in a band is the various concepts and visions that people have for their music. Even very well-known bands have split up when musical visions or ideas diverge.  

So if you want to avoid this you should keep an open mind to all band members’ opinions and have open discussions while at rehearsal to ensure that every objective is taken in consideration. 

7 – Abusive Behavior 

Unfortunately it's not a rare thing to see.  Many band members tend to have abusive behaviors such as: arriving late to concerts or rehearsals, disrespecting other's opinions regarding the band's sound, trying to impose their ideas or musical vision on the projects’ identity and even other abusive behaviors related to drug use or irresponsible acts in the name of the band.  

Don't allow that sort of behavior in your musical project.  If someone acts this way, their only possible way to continue being in the band is to fix their conduct or else the band should continue without them.   

8 – Lack of Coherence 

Strong ideas and concepts are very important. They define what sound you are developing and help pass a certain view or musical idea to the listeners.  

A usual mistake with uprising bands is trying to shape their sound many times by a simple mimic of the hot trends on the music scene. That will lead you onto a fuzzy path... you'll change your sound and image so many times that it will be virtually impossible to establish a strong music idea or even a fan base. Get your thoughts straightened out and draw a clear picture of your musical project.  

9 – Bad Financial Management 

We could fill up this page with the names of those who have lost their musical project on behalf of financial problems… and it's not due to receiving to little money per concert.  

The most common mistake that can crash any band is bad investments or poor money management. So plan out who will handle the financial issues.  If none of your band members is confident and capable of handling this task, hire someone professional to do it.   

10 – Pursuance of Success, Weak Ambition 

Even if it sounds like utopia: your dreams are by far the most important thing here. Don't fall or let your band break apart by some bad episode or a terrible performance. Those are just rocks that everyone will find on their path.

Perseverance and ambition should be your main weapons.