General Music Chat

Been having some issues with every band I'm in lately where we are lucky that everyone shows up twice a month to rehearse.
Over the pust few years I've gotten frustrated about not playing out as much as I hoped or getting new music put out, people not showing up and never seeming to get anything accomplished.

Is it too much to ask for 3-4 nights a week to work on a CD project for a couple months if everyone is is within 20 minutes?

I used to drive 3 hours to band practice a few times a week years ago...am I just nuts and asking too much of people???

The short answer is yes. You probably won't accomplish much more than rehearsing twice a week and will most likely cause some members to quit. I understand your frustration; this is the reason bands used to live together so that they could practice more often with less hassle.

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I guess I should have qualified that and said some bands lived together, back in the day.

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One of the guys that works for me has been playing guitar with me since
1971. Its not unusuall to play 4 or 5 nights a week around here with him. But getting the other guys to play more than twice a week is like having eye teeth pulled. We dont practice to perfect anything when we do practice, I think thats my biggest gripe when it comes to the band Ive been playing with for 25 years. Were no better now than 10 years ago and things are starting to get old in that sense.


And its another in Paradise !!!

The AEROSMITH song, Movin On Out I believe it was (correct me if I am wrong please.) was all about the band having to relocate the home they lived in because too many people found out about it and were interfering with progress.

On the practicality side, twice a week of consistant mapped out rehearsal should be sufficient I would think. More than that would require some extrodinary commitment.

Asking us won't help. It's not US that is doing the project with you. What matters is what THEY are willing to do or not. 3 or 4 practices a week is easy, WHEN AND IF you find guys committed enough to sacrifice it. The big question for them, is WHAT DO THEY GET OUT OF IT?

You have some plan. You KNOW what you intend this to accomplish for YOU, and so you take it seriously. You will find guys that will take it that seriously, when they find the sacrifice of time to be worth the potential reward.

If the potential reward is not the same for them, as whatever is motivating you, then you will have a very hard time finding anyone willing to commit to that schedule.

You will have to offer a bigger carrot, or accept the fact that they will not commit the same amount of time as you.

Find a compromise.

See if you can add ONE extra practice. See if you can make up the hours by having a LONGER practice. If it is an all day practice, give them a half hour break midway through and feed them.

Good luck with whatever you try.

But I feel for you. I couldn't get my old band to commit to more than 2 practices a week either, and THEY DID HAVE every reason to believe it would pay off well for them.

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Short answer - YES!

3-4 nights a week is too much, & prolly won't accomplish much more than 2. Ya gotta give the info time to "set in," imho.

If I were gonna do it in a rush, I STILL wouldn't expect more than twice a week.

If the material is that worthwhile, it STILL shouldn't require more, because it will stick in the muso's mind. If it isn't that worthwhile, it becomes tedious, in spite of your best efforts.

I've been with & jammed with bandmates more than that, but it was for FUN, & NOT for an upcoming project. We even got some new material out of it when we did that, but I couldn't expect more of anyone than twice a week, & even that seems more than most are willing to handle.

Good luck. Try to lighten up & keep it sorta fun, no matter how much YOU may be feeling the pressures, cuz when you pass them pressures on to others, it ruins it for everyone, & amplifies them for you, although your intentions are the best they could be.

you need your practice for flawless sets...but commitment is difficult . There is software for realtime jam sessions that way you can get it all done over the net so equipment to lug around.

Chemical Residue has a great point.

And whether you do it LIVE or not, could they make some of this up (if they were sincerely doing it) by taking a CD home and doing a night of practice at their own homes, so when you get together you are just tweaking everything?

YES!! Holy crap! I would love to rehearse 3-4 times week... ain't never gonna happen!

We're lucky if we get rehearsal in at least once a week but everybody sure as sh¡t knows that they better have their homework done or there's gonna be hell to pay...

Cool part is that rehearsals with my new band are at my home again which means we can take our time and really perfect each tune... We've only had one rehearsal so far and already have 10 songs down perfect... We could actually play out already but we want to have a least 20 before we get out there... last rehearsal was 2 weeks ago... next one is tonight...

I personally think 3-4 nights a week is too much. I think it depends on everyones ability. I like to put all my hard practice in a t home, get my parts worked out and then get together and run thru songs before we do them live. DOes this happen much? No, we ussually agree on new cover songs, learn them on our own and then try them out live to see if they owrk or not.

Originals is a little different you need to be tight for a recording project and if you have a band I like to cut the drums, bass and rythym guitar parts live in one run. Most bands that I work with these days just put the songs together like a puzzle, so its different. Once agian. this isnt rocket science its rock music. I think it all depend son the members abilitys and commitment, it really doesnt matter how much you actually rehearse all that matters is getting a good performance down on tape.

Im currently writing new material. I have a steady monday night gig and I get to try these songs out and work on them in front of a live audience. Its pretty cool for me. SOmething Ive always wanted to do. I think one live performance is worth 100 practices anyway.

Sorry Im not much help, Im just at a point that I cant stand to woodshed the samo songs over and over. They lose their freshness for me. Most songs sound best the first or second time you really get thru them. I wish I could record every song Ive ever done that way while they are still fresh.

For the sake of the argument, I'd like to make a distinction-

Practice - What you do, individually, at home, to prepare for band rehearsals.

Rehearsal - When the band as a unit gets together and rehearses what they practiced.

My old band - we rehearsed 2x a week. What happened was that everyone would bounce from one rehearsal to the next, without enough time to actually practice what they needed to before the next band rehearsal.

90% of the improvements the band can make need to happen by way of individual improvements.

We switched to 1x rehearsal a week and we found that everyone was much better practiced and that rehearsals went a lot better.

Your mileage may vary, but 3-4x a week leaves NO room for individual improvement, and as far as a band "gelling" well together, as a "for hire" fill-in player, I feel that better musicians don't need to worry about it, it just comes with experience

After rehearsing as a group, every band member needs time to practice alone, and fix whatever needs fixing, before rehearsing with the group again.
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That is vitally important.
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If some people at group rehearsal are making the same mistakes at the same places, then they don't have (or didn't make) enough time to practice by themselves.
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Talk to your group about this.
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My ratio of self-practice to group practice is about 10 to one. I practice about 10 hours for every one hour I spend with the group.
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