And The Number One Sign You’re In a Rehearsal or Hobby Band Is….

Turns out, I came up with nine reasons in that list, and thought of one more the other day

Drum roll please… And the number one sign that you're in a rehearsal or hobby band is

• When you say, "we're spending too much time rehearsing," someone replies, "I don't care, I just like to play music."

Tue, 2016 03 29 at 10:05 AM |Permalink for this entry

No Major Adjustments Below 500 Feet

Stay on target…

WAY back when I was in high school, I took an aeronautics course. The teacher said it was basically the same as flight school without the flying part. While I thought the whole course was interesting, the biggest thing that stuck with me all these years was that when you’re landing, as you get closer to the runway, you stop making major corrections to your flight. A friend recently described this by saying you make major changes at the beginning of the landing procedure, and you make smaller and smaller changes on the way to the final landing point, sort of like a pendulum making smaller and smaller swings as it comes to a stop.

Why did this stick with me and what does this have to do with music? In general, I realized that the same philosophy applies to many areas of life. When you’re working on something, I think if you make big changes just before you’re supposed to finish, you’re asking for trouble. It’s almost like starting over at the last minute. “I know we’re supposed to release this tomorrow, but I decided to use X instead and replaced all of Y with it!”

In music, I don’t think it’s wise to change the set list or how you play the songs the week of the show. Maybe you’ve realized you’ve been doing it differently than the record, or maybe you think doing it some other way is better, but you’ve been doing it that way for weeks. To change that now could be asking for trouble. If what you have been doing isn’t bad, don’t change it. Save it for the next show if it must be changed.

Similarly, when I was in college, I came up with a rationalization for not cramming. I decided that if I didn’t know the material by now, I won’t learn it “tonight.” Along those same lines, I think rehearsals the day before the show or worse, the day of, are a bad idea. Any problems probably won’t get fixed, and even worse, if the rehearsal goes badly, people’s confidence can get shaken and/or they’ll be drained spending a ton of time and energy trying to fix the problems at the rehearsal, making them less energetic for the show.

Happy flying!

Thu, 2016 03 17 at 10:00 AM |Permalink for this entry

How to Prep a Band for a Gig

It ain’t that hard, really.

1. Hire good musicians and an interesting front person
2. Pick the songs. Send them to everyone. If they’re originals, provide recordings and charts. For covers, make sure to send adequate info regarding which version. Don’t just say, “it’s on YouTube,” provide a link to the right version, dammit
3. Give everyone a reasonable amount of time to learn the songs, then
4. Rehearse once a week for a month to solidify
5. Play the gig. Have fun
6. Repeat as necessary

Mon, 2016 03 14 at 10:00 AM |Permalink for this entry

Wastin’ Time

Recently when I said I couldn’t make a rehearsal, I had a band member perhaps jokingly admonish me saying, “you have something better to do???”

Mind you, this is a band I have had problems with unproductive rehearsals. Later, I started thinking about it and remembered my last “square” job. The boss was a micromanager, and nothing I was working on would get approved until he got around to it. Since it was a small company and he was also the lead programmer, this led to a lot of downtime. Some might suggest that it was up to me to find something to do. Trust me, I did. But after a while I ran out of things to find and got burnt out trying to do things and having him eventually nix them or make me wait forever.

Anyway, the frustration that came from that situation became painful and one of the reasons I left. Yes, I was getting paid, but getting paid to do nothing was really annoying. If I had to do nothing, I would rather it be my nothing.

Coming back to these frustrating, unproductive rehearsals. do I have something better to do? I don’t know, but if I’m going to waste my time, I’d rather it be my choice of what I waste my time on, like writing blog posts such as this one.

Thu, 2016 03 10 at 10:00 AM |Permalink for this entry

Signs You’re in a Rehearsal or Hobby Band

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s what you want to do

• There aren’t any gigs booked. Or if there are, they don’t pay or pay enough.
• Gigs don’t get booked because “we aren’t ready. We will gig when we are ready.”
• There’s no set list and thus no one works on the material at home.
• The set list or itinerary isn’t followed at rehearsal.
• People don’t practice their parts at home and aren’t ready for rehearsal. (“Practice separately, rehearse together” - say it over and over)
• People don’t show up on time for rehearsal or worse, cancel at the last minute leaving other band members there high and dry.
• Rehearsals expand instead of contract. In other words, people want to have more rehearsals as the gig approaches instead of getting better and needing less. Or, they keep having rehearsals but that’s all the band ever does.
• Replacing a member starts the whole process over. Instead of the new member learning the songs on their own and jumping in with maybe a couple of rehearsals (“Practice separately, rehearse together”), it’s like the whole band has to learn everything again.
• Someone describes the band as “pro’s” [sic]. Could you imagine someone in another field (plumbing, dentistry) saying, “I’m a pro [plumber or dentist]”? Or, “I’m Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, and we’re a pro band with over 20 years of experience and we’re looking for a pro drummer with his own gear”?

Disclaimer: I don’t have anything against any type of band people want to do. My old band started out as a hobby band, never intending to play out. Some bands do want to play out a little, others more, and some hope to make a career of it or nearly so. As one friend of mine put it, “The beauty of music is that there are lanes for all types of musicians i.e. full-time, semi-pro, weekend warriors, hobbyists, etc. It’s really just a matter of finding the right lane.” Another friend replied, “Sometimes it’s difficult to find the right lane because what people say doesn’t necessarily match what they really want or do.” That’s the point of this post. I have had struggles “finding the right lane” for what I want to do as far as a matching (not marching) band. After discussing it with some musician friends, I came up with this list.

Tue, 2016 03 08 at 12:03 PM |Permalink for this entry