Covers bands: (1) Your method of choosing songs; (2) What about...

Grunfeld

The covers band I play in is nicely democratic. 

When we rehearsed weekly it was really easy to try new material and decide on it.

Rehearsals are far more infrequent now so I'm wondering if there's a way to plan choices for new songs a bit more efficiently.

The current method has been group emails with YouTube links.

The biggest problem has been the bitty nature of the medium -- suggestions get lost over the months, and if you put helpful titles like "song suggestion" it goes off topic always into stuff which just isn't relevant.  That won't change because we're just not disciplined enough, and I'm as guilty as all of us.

What I'm picturing is some kind of online thing which can be viewed by all, posted to by all, but can't be derailed by other talk.

So what you have is a list of links, and only a list of links. 

And then we can chat by email or whatever about whatever we think about the ideas.

Is there such a thing?

Oh, and no one does facebook, whatsapp, grindr, or anything vaguely social. 

What am I looking for?

And have you discovered a way to do this?** 

**Democratically, as in we know a "band leader" is the answer for many bands but that's not for us.

PhilW1

What about Dropbox or similar,it works ok for my band .

Grunfeld

Dropbox would be perfect but I'm the only one who uses it.

But you've got me thinking Google Drive.  That might work.

sw67

We had the exact same issues - pages of shite and nothing got done. We have a set of 35 songs and now aim to replace 5 per year that are agreed in Jan. We have a few that will always be in the set but mostly we decide what song is removed first then work on its replacement. 

We work on our own parts then meet at mine for a practice before slotting the new song in at the next gig.

The last 3 years have been great but in a previous line up we were doing 2 songs per month and as a result the band almost fell apart. We have had the same line up now for 3 years but in the previous 2 went through 3 drummers , 2 guitarists and 2 vocals. 

John_P

Spotify playlist - assuming the technophobes have Spotify of course.  

Roland

We compile a list, discuss in the pub, vote for our favourites, then prioritise into groups of four. Our biggest problems are agreeing the arrangement, and persuading the singer to put them on the set list. He has a habit of only listing his choices, and ignoring the others we’ve worked on.

Keefy

Try trello.com

Grunfeld

John_P said:

Spotify playlist - assuming the technophobes have Spotify of course.  

I really like this one -- it will probably have to be a YouTube playlist because I think I'm the only one of us with Spotify.  But a YT list would definitely tick the necessary boxes.  Not least because I know we all have YT and so it's nothing new to do.  Just make a list and get a URL of the playlist.  And the list can be modified as needed.  I think this is potentially the winner.

The Trello thing looks good but I can think of one band member for whom that's not going to work and tbh I can feel that as a band we wouldn't look at it past the first week and it would default to bitty emails. 

@Roland omg tell me about it with the singer.  Our singer is just the same. 

WeZ84

Try the BandHelper app, we put the lyrics and chords on there so everyone has the same version. You can transpose it to so everyone can learn it in the same key and if the singer can't sing it in the original key, it is easy to tweak it and play in a different key. It's easy to tag the new song suggestions so you can go through them later. We use it to plan set lists for upcoming gigs too.

viz

I think the most important thing is to make sure your first song is I bet you look good on the dance floor, and last 5 songs are:

Rio
Rebel Yell
Jump
Living on a prayer
Bo rhap. 

ArchtopDave

How much of the problem is due to the 3rd line of your first post ..... "Rehearsals are far more infrequent now". What's the cause for this???

Grunfeld

ArchtopDave said:

How much of the problem is due to the 3rd line of your first post ..... "Rehearsals are far more infrequent now". What's the cause for this???

Two reasons and they are both benign, basically changes in circumstances: 

(1)  We gave up our dedicated rehearsal space.  We are actually a pretty tight little band.  Everyone learns their stuff, we book a rehearsal, and polish the arrangement.  No egos, few dramas, and still having fun and gigging weekly. 

(2)  A couple of years ago I thought it might be interesting to do some post-grad work and the lying hound of a supervisor said, "Oh we can probably do most of it online..."  Let's just say this turned out not to be been the case!  I've been straight with everyone in the band, and when I'm down in the labs in Bournemouth (150 miles away) I don't have the time to rehearse anywhere near as often. 

mudslide73

If it's in an advert we do it. Loads if ours have turned up in adverts since also. 

Vaiai

In my last band we used Google Docs - Dropbox seemed to cause problems but Google meant we could all edit at the same time if needed and was a central location.
We had a list of suggestions and a Y/N column for each band member if we got 3 of 5 yes - we'd give it a go. Each of us had a veto if we really hated a song!
Sometimes we'd try a song and it would work out so well even the No's agreed it worked well - the same happened vice versa tho.
We also use Spotify playlists but usually it's YouTube playlists - and that way we all learn the same version - as a general rule we do the Official single version as most people know that one!

Grunfeld

mudslide73 said:

If it's in an advert we do it. Loads if ours have turned up in adverts since also. 

@mudslide73 -- yes, we hadn't played "Pump it Up" in ages but someone said it's doing the rounds on an advert at the moment. 

I was thinking the other night the most recent song in our set list is from 2009 and most are from last century.  Gawd knows where you'd find current material which "everybody" knows.  What people listen to now is very fragmented. 

Not sure I want to spend an evening playing Ed Sheeran songs.

EricTheWeary

Grunfeld said:

mudslide73 said:

If it's in an advert we do it. Loads if ours have turned up in adverts since also. 

@mudslide73 -- yes, we hadn't played "Pump it Up" in ages but someone said it's doing the rounds on an advert at the moment. 

I was thinking the other night the most recent song in our set list is from 2009 and most are from last century.  Gawd knows where you'd find current material which "everybody" knows.  What people listen to now is very fragmented. 

Not sure I want to spend an evening playing Ed Sheeran songs.

We were watching The One Show the other night and they had Little Mix on performing their new song which has bits of Back to Life by Soul II Soul in it. Even my kids knew that bit, not hard to think that in ten years time we’ll have forgotten Little Mix but can still groove to Soul II Soul. 

There is a wiki page on best selling singles in the UK in the 21st century, here’s the top 20 ( some 20th century songs creeping in there). I think I can vaguely hum 15 of them. Sorry, on the original premise of the thread I can’t really help, it was just interesting reading as whenever I think I should be in a band again stuff like this reminds me of another level of crap that stands between what I think being in a band should be like and what it is like. Anyway, I look forward to hearing which of these you suggest to the band... 

https://i.imgur.com/m0vkF5q.jpg

Musicwolf

Grunfeld said:

The covers band I play in is nicely democratic. 

**Democratically, as in we know a "band leader" is the answer for many bands but that's not for us.

Democracies have leaders.  You are confusing 'Leadership' with 'being the boss'.  Being the leader is not the same thing as telling people what to do.  Different people can take the lead in different situations, as you are doing here by the look of things.

Practical ideas.  Main consideration is - can the singer sing it and, if so, in what key?  You then need to be open minded but also practical.  If someone really objects to a song (as in, "that was the song that was playing on the radio when my Mother accidentally stepped on my pet gerbil" sort of thing) rule it out and move on.

Once you have the agreed song idea and the key you can either copy the original arrangement or somebody needs to sketch out your version somehow.  For existing arrangements find a YouTube version and share the link.  In our band I act as a Producer or Musical Director.   I don't choose all the songs, I don't necessarily decide on the arrangement, but I do make sure that we're all working on the same version.  Personally, I usually grab a MIDI version of the track from the internet, edit it to our arrangement and key, record 2 guitar parts (so I have MIDI drums, bass and a melody line) and send out copies via DropBox.  I'll also send out versions with the bass missing, for the bass player, and without the melody and second guitar for the singer / guitarist so that they can practice at home.

I use a Zoom LiveTrack as mixer in the rehearsal room so that I can record practices as we go.  If we capture an arrangement in the rehearsal room, even if it's just say an ending rather than a full song, I can clean it up and distribute as a reference.

stickyfiddle

EricTheWeary said:

Grunfeld said:

mudslide73 said:

If it's in an advert we do it. Loads if ours have turned up in adverts since also. 

@mudslide73 -- yes, we hadn't played "Pump it Up" in ages but someone said it's doing the rounds on an advert at the moment. 

I was thinking the other night the most recent song in our set list is from 2009 and most are from last century.  Gawd knows where you'd find current material which "everybody" knows.  What people listen to now is very fragmented. 

Not sure I want to spend an evening playing Ed Sheeran songs.

We were watching The One Show the other night and they had Little Mix on performing their new song which has bits of Back to Life by Soul II Soul in it. Even my kids knew that bit, not hard to think that in ten years time we’ll have forgotten Little Mix but can still groove to Soul II Soul. 

There is a wiki page on best selling singles in the UK in the 21st century, here’s the top 20 ( some 20th century songs creeping in there). I think I can vaguely hum 15 of them. Sorry, on the original premise of the thread I can’t really help, it was just interesting reading as whenever I think I should be in a band again stuff like this reminds me of another level of crap that stands between what I think being in a band should be like and what it is like. Anyway, I look forward to hearing which of these you suggest to the band... 

https://i.imgur.com/m0vkF5q.jpg

What's interesting in that list is how many are a triumph of a single hook and phenomenal production.

I Gotta Feeling is a great example of this - we tried it with my old lot and quickly realised it's actually really dull, musically speaking, which can make it quite difficult for a standard 4-piece to make it interesting 

Grunfeld

stickyfiddle said:

I Gotta Feeling is a great example of this - we tried it with my old lot and quickly realised it's actually really dull, musically speaking, which can make it quite difficult for a standard 4-piece to make it interesting 

@stickyfiddle That's interesting.  Good point about the constructions -- these songs were not written for "bands".  Arrangement is everything I guess because I Gotta Feeling is actually our most recent song and it always goes down really well.  As you say it's only 3 chords over and over -- to keep it interesting we've given each section a distinctive dynamic, and you've got the call and response thing that helps too. 

I'm just going through @EricTheWeary 's list (that's bloody great btw) and I figure the same approach is needed for arrangement.

Roland

I love doing arrangements. Taking a song apart and rebuilding it to suit our instruments and abilities.

stickyfiddle

Grunfeld said:

stickyfiddle said:

I Gotta Feeling is a great example of this - we tried it with my old lot and quickly realised it's actually really dull, musically speaking, which can make it quite difficult for a standard 4-piece to make it interesting 

@stickyfiddle That's interesting.  Good point about the constructions -- these songs were not written for "bands".  Arrangement is everything I guess because I Gotta Feeling is actually our most recent song and it always goes down really well.  As you say it's only 3 chords over and over -- to keep it interesting we've given each section a distinctive dynamic, and you've got the call and response thing that helps too. 

I'm just going through @EricTheWeary 's list (that's bloody great btw) and I figure the same approach is needed for arrangement.

That's definitely the way to do it. You just have to be aware that it's the sort of thing that's written via "construction" in the studio rather than played live by 4 blokes, so you have to treat it the same way when arranging for live, rather than just "here's the chords and verse/chorus structure" and bash through it. 

Doing this well is often what separates ok/good bands from really great ones. I'd love to hear how your lot do it