TimR

What do people do in a 3 hour rehearsal? Probably time to remind everyone what a practice is and what a rehearsal is. Practice takes two forms. Learning the material at home, or going over tricky bits together. Rehearsal is playing songs from beginning to end to make sure you can all play them. Normally just before a gig. If songs aren’t gig ready and assuming you have practiced the arrangements and they work, then the people who can’t play the tunes need to practice their parts at home. No amount of rehearsing the whole band together is going to fix people who haven’t practiced their parts. Band practice should be limited to targeting only the parts of the songs that need practicing. Tell him to record a rehearsal on his phone, take it home and listen to them, identify where the problems are and make a hit-list for the next practice.

My brother was in a band like that. He asked me to pop down and record a few tunes for a demo. After 2 hours we had recorded 2 songs, each with three different versions and the songwriter still wanted to change some bits.

I’d be wary of getting hung up on one person’s view. Take a wider opinion from close friends to identify whether it’s true and which members are guilty. (It’ll always be the guitarist 😉) One of the band members didn’t understand the difference between having a style and having a uniform. It was either all wearing polo shoes with the band logo on or all wearing the same colour shirts with black trousers and shoes. I’m all for having a homogenous style tailored by each individual, but uniforms are just completely cheesy.

Lots of bands suffer from mission creep. There are also musicians who make the right noises but don’t come up with the goods. I now have no issue looking for another band to play in if my current band are showing a lack of commitment. Even if it’s just for a few gigs.

The endless discussions about what to wear at gigs. But not actually having any gigs. The endless discussions about what new tunes to learn to play at gigs. But not actually having any gigs. Essentially too much inaction. In the end after one practice where no one had bothered even listening to the new tunes, lest alone practicing them, I expressed my dissatisfaction. The next morning an email went round from the drummer to the rest of the band basically a complete character assassination. Obviously he didn’t realise he’d sent it to ‘the band’ instead of everyone in the band apart from me*. I replied immediately to all with my resignation. Best thing I ever did. Stepped straight into 3 bands with gigs lined up and no discussions about what to wear. 😂 *or maybe he did?

You beat me to it. I joined a band that had some Bob Marley in the setlist. I found some MP3s to download and set about learning them. Reggae is one of the hardest genres to learn. All those swung 8th/ triplet feel fills and syncopation. Thought I had nailed the tunes quite well, until I turned up ready to play them only to find the rest of the band couldn’t get the feel at all.

Mainly into off topic... 😂

Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4. Jamiraquai - Black Devil Car. Cake - Short Skirt, Long Jacket

Thought it sounded familiar. 😂

I thought they were created by a guitar with a volume pedal.

Paul Weller doesn’t do them live. I’d create a sample and trigger it from a midi foot switch. We play it in our drums/bass/guitar band setup. We leave it out. Considering he has keys and a second guitar it’s still a pretty strong song without all the padding.

Sounds like a plan. Doesn’t sound a lot more than I take although I take lights and smoke machine rather than any PA gear. I used to be in a band where I owned all the PA, that was a lot of carrying and setting up. And all I generally got was certain members of the band wanting to sound like <insert music hero>. Getting to bed at 3am knowing that the singer had already been home asleep for two hours got old fairly quickly. Find a hobby away from music and work that you can do that takes your mind off all those things.

Wonder why he’s only using one of them? Unless he’s got them all slaved through the FX loops?

What else do you do apart from play bass and work? Can you off-load the associated activities; lemon rock, Facebook, posters and emails? What are you unloading after a gig that’s such a chore?

Photographic backdrop stand. Ours is lightweight. Also google ‘backdrop stand’. Plenty around quite cheaply.

I assumed novelty records were automatically included/excluded from the list. 😂

Blame the drummer. I would. If he’s not keeping time you probably find that there’s a lot of interplay going on between the two of you and you’re probably normally carrying him when you play together. As soon as you’re not playing together it’ll be impossible to lock in to each other. If he’s not even playing to click and you’re trying to follow him then you have absolutely nothing to go on.

It’s a bit of a Curates egg. I’ve played originals in a pub that when we started there was just one man and a dog. And by the time we finished the dog had gone home.

One day I’ll write a list of the thousand plus songs I’ve ever had to play in any band. Narrowing it down to three of those will be a hard task. Each one will remind me of some battle with a drummer/guitarist/keyboard player/singer over some completely irrelevant minutia of detail that one of them has spotted and insist we replicate, ignoring that the rest of the band hasn’t captured the feel and in some cases failed to even get the basic chords right. The curse of the musician. Just listening to Sultans of Swing in a pub right now. I’d forgotten how subtle the playing is in Dire Straits. Great band. Apart for Money for Nothing - I played that in a band in 1986. That’s going first on my list. Gold - Spandau Ballet. Played with a drummer who couldn’t play a triplet feel and stamped all over the vocal line with his right foot and 5 beat bar fills. Moon River - ruined for me by a drunk guitarist who played it in 4/4 for a first dance at a golden wedding anniversary gig and the drummer just followed him in. I don’t think any songs are particularly bad, but many take a horrible life of their own once you’ve tried to gig them 😂

@warwickhunt the problem is often audiences don’t show their appreciation until the end. Not everyone wants to dance. I’ve had gigs where nothing we play seems to get anyone moving. But at the end there’s a queue of people waiting to shake our hands and thank us for an entertaining night. Go figure.

Life is too short to play with bad drummers. Dep gigs or auditioning, if the drummer can’t keep time and/or doesn’t have feel, I’m out.

I got paid £70 for a dep gig last week. Maybe 2 hours to run through set at home. 2 hours travelling, 3 hours at the gig. That’s about £10 an hour for a gig. My regular band seem to want to practice 2 hours every week, I’m not sure why. We don’t get £70 a gig and don’t play more than once a month and we don’t play music I’d ever listen to. I’m pretty sure I’m playing to play in that band even with a free rehearsal space. Rehearsal is starting to be a waste of my time, gigging though I see as the end game and we usually have a decent and appreciative crowd.

They’d have to aggressively pursue anyone dressing up as Kiss and playing Kiss songs. It would be very hard to do.

Performing other people’s music is easy. Composing other people’s music is impossible.