Bands and rehearsals

hotpickups

Roland said:

Doing homework is essential, but rehearsals can be more than checking that homework.

We’re a covers band, but we don’t always play songs like the original. For starters, which is the original version of Tainted Love? Sometimes the band doesn’t have the instrumentation to play it like the original. So we use rehearsals to work out our own arrangements. 

A band that plays together regularly sounds tighter than one that doesn’t. Our individual weekend commitments mean that we only do one or two gigs a month. So rehearsals are a way of keeping things tight in between gigs. Anyway, we like playing

Totally agree with that 

Musicwolf

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy rehearsals and I also enjoy the socialising aspect.  What winds me up (apologies for oncoming rant) is;

People who do little or no homework.  You may have all agreed that you will work on song XYZ for next week but then they turn up and say "I've not had chance to look at that one", however, between songs they're playing something new that they've obviously been learning all week.

Who turn up late every week with the excuse "traffic was bad, I left at my usual time".  If 'usual time' means the earliest that they could finish work then fine or if it was a one off.  When it's most weeks and there was nothing to stop them leaving earlier then it's not the fault of the traffic - you need to set off earlier!

Usually the ones who complain that we're 'not getting together to practice often enough' are the ones who do the least homework.  As someone said earlier - if you can't get together because the calendars don't line up then book yourself a couple of hours rehearsal time at home and do some bloody practice.

Noodling between songs when other people are trying to discuss something.

People who complain about problems but who never put forward a solution.

I could go on (and on, and on)

TheBigDipper

As ever, the answer depends on the people, the sort of band you are and what you're trying to achieve.

Me - These days, I'm not interested in playing out regularly, in being "the entertainment" or doing it on a semi-pro basis for extra income. That means I'm not looking to do lots of gigs, nor play from the "everyone does these coz the audience loves them" covers book. (Not that I'm dissing it - I've changed and don't want to spend my time doing it any more, that's all). 

I'm between bands at the moment, so these comments are more about what I've done in the recent past and would like to do again in the future. Why did the last one stop? Not enough mutual respect between people and people not doing any personal work on stuff in between sessions.

So, for me, practice sessions are as important to me as any gigs. I like the regular meet-up. I like the playing together and trying new things out in a "safe space". I prefer to play originals these days, or heavily-customised covers that might not sound like the famous recording. This requires the band to play together more to find their spot in the music. That creative exercise is a fun part for me.

If the main writer just sends out demos and says "learn your part" then it's just a different sort of covers band for the rest, isn't it? As a writer, I start by sending out a demo and saying "this is roughly what's in my head, so let's see how we can turn it into our arrangement and discuss things at the next practice". Which requires people to have a listen, and have a think about what they might do with their piece of it before turning up to the next practice.

But they shouldn't be "social" events in the sense that going to the pub together is social. People still need to practice their parts at home - learning the song structure, who comes in when, and when we all stop dead together. 

If you're a covers band, or a function band or a tribute band then it's a different game. Sending out detailed arrangements and learning your part so it fits with what the others are playing shows you respect the others enough to not waste their time. If they've done the work and you haven't, it is quite telling.

Back to the OP. If the pros in the band would like to practice less, it might mean they feel practice sessions are wasting their time because they're just observing some of the band doing the hard work to learn something that they should have done at home earlier.  Something they've already done. Having less practice sessions might be seen as forcing the others to get it done in private because the band practices are not frequent enough any more. 

Bands and people, eh? 

mudslide73

I've started videoing all our gigs and distributing the results with Google Drive and WhatsApp. I then link any extra songs or specific versions we've identified so we can just do them. It's cut down on the "how does this go again?" massively.

Practices are just for working out new stuff now.. we do a quick test run to see if we can play the main parts of a new tune. If it feels good we agree to have it ready for next time. We've put a song straight into the set on a Saturday when we hadn't tried it before the previous Wednesday too. 

Edit: we're a covers band.

BahHumbug

My thoughts for the OP are.....you have a classic trap that I’ve come across in probably every band I’ve been in.  It’s not so much about hobbyist/professional, more about about musicians who have differing levels of aptitude and experience.
I would count myself as a hobbyist, albeit one that has been playing for some years and has played in a few different styles.  I don’t think of myself as a professional level player, but I do know that with experience, learning your parts gets to be something that you do very efficiently.  For a lot of rock music, I’d go as far as to say it becomes easy and requires very little effort.  Retaining the material in your memory also becomes really easy.  I suspect that for professional players, they can do this stuff in their sleep.
At a lower level of experience and aptitude, learning your parts requires considerable effort and is prone to mistakes.  You might get to a rehearsal only for someone to tell that there’s something not right about what your playing;  then you have to go through the process of unlearning what you already have and relearning it correctly (hopefully).  Furthermore it takes further effort and practice to get the music properly installed in your memory.  The whole thing takes sufficient effort that it’s difficult to fit it into the rest of your life, so you rely on rehearsals to give you more practice time.

I think the key problem is this:  if you’re the guy who needs rehearsals to supplement your practice time, you will feel that you are winning during rehearsals;  you are getting better at your stuff and the band is sounding better for it.
However, if you’re the other guy, who got all his homework done already, you will not feel that you are winning during rehearsals, because you’ve already done your winning at home.  You may even feel like you are losing, because you’re just going through the motions of playing easy stuff while waiting for others to sort their stuff out.

For professional level players, I think they’d need to be very tolerant individuals to keep turning up for rehearsals that they don’t need.  If they also don’t need the social side (and it sounds like they don’t), then yes, you’ve got a problem.

ooh.  Long post.  Sorry.

TheBigDipper

^Have a wis for a well-stated summary. 

steven70

Depends what you want out of it.

'Homework' is one thing - making sure you've learned stuff so you can continue to progress from where you left off. 
And it's frustrating if people can't remember stuff time and time again.

If you're doing it to explore new ideas, write stuff together or jam to find new musical inspiration, then that can't be done at home on your own, the joy is in the playing itself.

That said, some people like to learn a list of songs and perform them for money or pleasure. Nowt wrong with that.
Might be that people want different things. 

Also, people showing up late, wasting time on non music is as waste of rehearsal time, you may as well meet down the pub.

hotpickups

Apart from the one rehearsal I mentioned we are pretty well rehearsed. However, to maintain it I think a rehearsal every two or three weeks would be ideal as we don’t have that many gigs booked in. Danger of losing it imo. Does that make sense ?

digitalscream

In a covers band, I'd expect everything to be learned ahead of time - rehearsals are really for touching up the cues and making sure it's all tight.

For an originals band...they're usually combined rehearsal of existing material (doubles as warm-up), writing sessions and band meetings. Less of an emphasis on preparedness, and more of a collaborative effort.

BahHumbug

hotpickups said:

Apart from the one rehearsal I mentioned we are pretty well rehearsed. However, to maintain it I think a rehearsal every two or three weeks would be ideal as we don’t have that many gigs booked in. Danger of losing it imo. Does that make sense ?

I can see the sense in that,  but your ‘pros’, may not.  Have you considered ways of having rehearsals without the pros?

hotpickups

BahHumbug said:

hotpickups said:

Apart from the one rehearsal I mentioned we are pretty well rehearsed. However, to maintain it I think a rehearsal every two or three weeks would be ideal as we don’t have that many gigs booked in. Danger of losing it imo. Does that make sense ?

I can see the sense in that,  but your ‘pros’, may not.  Have you considered ways of having rehearsals without the pros?

Hmmm I can’t see how that would work in our scenario tbh.  

All too bloody difficult if you ask me. Maybe time to throw it in

Yearofthegoat

No disrespect but there's nothing new about this. Same thing happens in workplaces all over. There are the people who turn up prepared, and those that don't.

If you can't 'turn up prepared' then really it's on you to make the others aware so they don't think you're being wasteful with their time. In fact, most of the time (prob not in a music/band situation though), that's seen as fair enough. For a while anyway, like while you learn the ropes for a new project etc.

I do fieldwork for a living and if I had a pound for all the times I've had to lend out kit to people with sieve-like brains I wouldn't have to work any more.

Beyond that, if there's a serious mismatch between ability/commitment levels - like BahHumbug said - there's always going to be friction. Maybe better to chuck it and be in a band where everyone's on a similar footing. Life's too short to be doing things you don't enjoy - unless you have to in order to pay the bills!

hotpickups

Yearofthegoat said:

No disrespect but there's nothing new about this. Same thing happens in workplaces all over. There are the people who turn up prepared, and those that don't.

If you can't 'turn up prepared' then really it's on you to make the others aware so they don't think you're being wasteful with their time. In fact, most of the time (prob not in a music/band situation though), that's seen as fair enough. For a while anyway, like while you learn the ropes for a new project etc.

I do fieldwork for a living and if I had a pound for all the times I've had to lend out kit to people with sieve-like brains I wouldn't have to work any more.

Beyond that, if there's a serious mismatch between ability/commitment levels - like BahHumbug said - there's always going to be friction. Maybe better to chuck it and be in a band where everyone's on a similar footing.

Exactly this. It would be a shame as we’ve done some great stuff but it might’ve run it’s course

steven70

 Life's too short to be doing things you don't enjoy - unless you have to in order to pay the bills!

That...right there.

I wish it was always that easy...but it's true.

Cols

As many have pointed out, everyone in the band should at least have learned cover songs indvividually before rehearsal, which is what I would term “doing your homework”.  However, if I understand correctly the semi-pros want to skip rehearsal entirely and only ever play together as a band during gigs.

For me, rehearsal is ensuring that the whole band performance is working well as a unit.  Personally I would be very surprised if there’s any professional band out there that goes on tour without rehearsal.  

Setting that aside, if one half of the band needs rehearsal and the other half doesn’t then you do rehearsal.  Otherwise, the gig ends up with half the band stressed, miserable and most likely making mistakes.  The audience won’t care that there’s a couple of band members who clearly know what they’re doing, they’ll just see and hear the whole shoddy picture.

Lestratcaster

If you're gigging regularly enough (1 show per week) and its the same set you shouldn't need to rehearse it all the time. As you're playing every week together you should be tight enough without.

Touring bands for example don't need to rehearse every week as they're playing so often they know the setlist inside out. I guess if the shows are less often then you can get a bit slack and forget arrangements and parts, hence why you need to brush up on them but as a band. All well and good playing with a recording but you don't play with a recording live.

sw67

We don't do a lot of rehearsals now our set is established. It was once a week at the start but we got fed up trying to work round shifts etc and rehearsals at weekends are out. We decide new songs via chat then have a get together at mine with acoustics before a gig and just go for it. New songs are always played late in the set when everyone is too drunk to notice.

Fez

Personally I enjoy rehearsing to me it's an integral part of the whole being in band thing as is personal practice and gigging.
We don't play every week, our target is 12 a year i.e one gig a month so far we have done 14 and have 5 more booked.
We rehearse most weeks and we have a wish list of possible songs to add to our roster so there is always something fresh to work on. Some songs come to fruition quickly some take a while and some don't make the cut.
We never play the same set twice.

It is hard to match ability and commitment levels though.

Fiftyshadesofjay

I do a pro covers band and an originals band. Depends on what you want out of it really.

Originals I’m happy to rehearse but that time is normally hanging out with my mates and writing songs and being creative so it’s more of an outlet in that respect.

In my covers band we just have a list of tunes we need to learn and do one rehearsal to tighten them all up. 

Honestly if I had to do regular rehearsals in a cover band that was my job and constantly go through the songs etc I’d probably leave. 

ESBlonde

I'm in a number of bands and dep for a couple more.

One band I know and have played with all the members at one time or another. We had a rehearsal late last summer and I've done about 6 well paid gigs with them since then. No further rehearsal required, they know thier stuff.

A traditional country band Have about 4 or 5 gigs a year and we usually meet in the week before a gig to refresh memory and drink tea.

A new Country Rock band we meet frequently to work up a set and settle the lineup for about 6 months or so, but in recent months we had a session to rehearse the demo recording and then a session to record. Nothing now for 6 weeks while the promo and gig getting takes place.

60s british pop band, rehearsed for about 6 out of 9 weeks, set is ready but a key member has a personal issue and drummer is flakey. Not met for 2 months.

Main funk band. We meet at the drummers house mid week about once every two months to work up a couple of new numbers and a recent change of keys player had us use a studio sunday session. Othewise all is good.

Dep work varies and might require a rehearsal (if there was notice enough) or it might be trial by fire if something unavoidable caused the dep job.

When I want social and playing I go to Jam nights to mix with musicians.