How was Your rehearsal last morning or night ?

[FretsOnFire]

Well tonight was a first for me as I've never jammed with a guitarist and a drummer before as we've had a challenge finding one to group up with (my brother in law is a drummer which is handy and together we've been practicing for about 5 months)

 

Think I held my own to be honest but I did have sheets for each song on my iPad in eyes view and had an issue with my clip on tuner but apart from that it went great and certainly something to work on.

 

9 full songs in the bank with Eyes of a Panther by Steel Panther a firm band favourite.

Edited Thursday at 23:53 by FretsOnFire

[Franticsmurf]

It was my third jam/rehearsal with a new line up last night. The Hulla band is still going strong but only do about 6-8 gigs a year and I want to play a bit more frequently. So I answered an ad at the beginning of Feb to join a local band and got the slot. The line up is drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and me on bass. We're all getting on well (a prime requisite for me) and we're all keen to avoid the standard pub set list as much as is possible given that we'll be out to entertain others. All three sing rather well (and I can sing a few simple songs) so the potential for vocal harmony is quite exciting. Last night we picked songs at random from the list we'd compiled in the previous two jams and it was sounding pretty good.

 

We practice in a room at the drummer's house and it's all through headphones (the drummer is using an electric kit), which is a great way to get the work done in a relaxed environment (there are cups of tea on hand 😀) and at an ear-friendly volume. It also means that we can record at the push of a button and get a decent record of the evening's work.

 

As the room is relatively small, I'm using my Ibanez SHB1000s into my Ampeg pre-amp/DI pedal which is sounding great. I can see a new small pedal board being created as the songs develop and I nail down the sounds I want for each song.

[colleya]

A bit of a schlep over to Liverpool last night for what seemed like the only available rehearsal room in the north west. 30 miles in 90 mins 🤢🤢

 

And it was totally worth it. We've got our first gig next month so there's some added focus. Plus we're finding our style and getting used to playing together more. 

 

Finally, the new songs we brought last night just seemed to fit. Silent (ish) practice with everything through the desk lets us record and listen back. I've never done that before and it's great to be able to be objective about what worked and what didn't.

 

For the gear spotters I took my Sandberg Cali VM5 into a HX stomp, then a GR one 350 head (I seem to get a better sound than just with the stomp straight to the desk). No cab.

 

Here are a couple of the new tracks we tried. Raye into Prince. Got to have a bit of fun with chorus & octaver towards the end. This was only the second or third time through so be gentle.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by colleya

[Richard R]

Just back from sitting in on band practice for this Sunday's service in church. I'm not playing then, but it's been a hard week and I really didn't feel like sitting at home alone this evening as the wife is away.

 

Several new songs, the drummer feeling rough, I kept stepping on the tuner mute button, everyone made mistakes and it was all a bit chaotic. However lots of laughter, lots of energy -  we got most of the way there in the end and it blew the cobwebs away.

Hooray for live music!

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Richard R
minor grammatical error

[Bluewine]

3 hours ago, colleya said:

A bit of a schlep over to Liverpool last night for what seemed like the only available rehearsal room in the north west. 30 miles in 90 mins 🤢🤢

 

And it was totally worth it. We've got our first gig next month so there's some added focus. Plus we're finding our style and getting used to playing together more. 

 

Finally, the new songs we brought last night just seemed to fit. Silent (ish) practice with everything through the desk lets us record and listen back. I've never done that before and it's great to be able to be objective what worked and what didn't.

 

For the gear spotters I took my Sandberg Cali VM5 into a HX stomp, then a GR one 350 head (I seem to get a better sound than just with the stomp straight to the desk). No cab.

 

Here are a couple of the new tracks we tried. Raye into Prince. This was only the second or third time through so be gentle.

 

 

 

Nice job!

 

Daryl

[solo4652]

Very first jam with potential new band last night. Line up: Myself on bass, drummer, lead guitar, rhythm guitar/keys, lead vocals. Nobody had played with anybody else before, so odds stacked against us. Lead vocals couldn't make it because of her husband's poor health. Maybe we shouldn't have met up, but drummer (who is self-appoointed band leader) decided we should. He pressurised/bullied lead guitarist into singing, and guitarist was pretty unhappy to do so, becoming visibly upset towards the end of the session. Guitarist's playing and singing were not good at all. I stood off to one side watching all this unfold. At one point I said to drummer - "I think we're asking an awful lot of [guitarist] - I have the 6 songs here on my laptop - why don't we play over the top of them and in that way have some lead vocals to guide us. That'll help [guitarist] to focus on his playing" Drummer: "No. I want to hear the instruments clearly, even if it means we have to imagine the vocals in our heads (sic)" In the car park afterwards, I told the drummer I wasn't happy and that I'd speak to him today.

I suppose the obvious way forward is for all five of us to meet up and see how we get on with the lead vocalist there. Take things from there. 

Edited 8 hours ago by solo4652

[nilorius]

15 minutes ago, solo4652 said:

Very first jam with potential new band last night. Line up: Myself on bass, drummer, lead guitar, rhythm guitar/keys, lead vocals. Nobody had played with anybody else before, so odds stacked against us. Lead vocals couldn't make it because of her husband's poor health. Maybe we shouldn't have met up, but drummer (who is self-appoointed band leader) decided we should. He pressurised/bullied lead guitarist into singing, and guitarist was pretty unhappy to do so, becoming visibly upset towards the end of the session. Guitarist's playing and singing were not good at all. I stood off to one side watching all this unfold. At one point I said to drummer - "I think we're asking an awful lot of [guitarist] - I have the 6 songs here on my laptop - why don't we play over the top of them and in that way have some lead vocals to guide us. That'll help [guitarist] to focus on his playing" Drummer: "No. I want to hear the instruments clearly, even if it means we have to imagine the vocals in our heads (sic)" In the car park afterwards, I told the drummer I wasn't happy and that I'd speak to him today.

I suppose the obvious way forward is for all five of us to meet up and see how we get on with the lead vocalist there. Take things from there. 

Hmm...looks like the drummer was guiding to the wrong side.

[Franticsmurf]

13 hours ago, Richard R said:

...it was all a bit chaotic. However lots of laughter, lots of energy...

Sometimes, when it's obviously not going right, the best thing is to make light of it and enjoy what there is. I'm sure we've all had rehearsals like that. Personally I like them, as long as they're not too frequent, as it helps to bring the band together - sharing adversity and the exact opposite of pointing fingers and laying blame. We had a similar session with the Hulla band a couple of weeks ago. Everyone was tired after busy and/or stressful days and while we were ok with the songs, there was no polish, plenty of little mistakes and missed cues. But we had a laugh (I got the keyboards player to play my bass on one song with only two notes to fret - she's never played any kind of guitar before and she did it well enough that the singer didn't know until the end).