How many songs for the next rehearsal is realistic?

[Downunderwonder]

Week after next implies 2 weeks to learn 10 tunes. If everyone has been around the block and they are 'standards' then I think it's ambitious but doable.

 

I went to a gig where the bass player had been given the sheet music to a show of high falutin' original jazz a couple of weeks ahead. One rehearsal. Boom, nailed it. I don't think he is in too many pub cover bands.

[gjones]

It depends on how many hours you rehearse and on the complexity of the songs you're learning.

 

I play in a Blues band and have played that type of music for 30 years. As long as I know the key and the feel, then I don't need a rehearsal. I played in one particular Blues band for 10 years and we never ever had a rehearsal.

 

On the other hand I've played with bands where the complexity of the songs were such that we'd need multiple rehearsals to get just one song right.

 

But for standard cover songs I wouldn't want to rehearse more that one per hour of practice booked. Which may give you some time, at the end, to go through the songs you've (hopefully) learned.

Edited January 14 by gjones

[warwickhunt]

2 hours ago, SamIAm said:

Would you be prepared to share these?

Sam x

 

I suppose many of these revolve around learning the major and relative minor scale(s), quickly identifying what key a song is in and then knowing the various permutations of the I / IV / V / VI (minor) progression (often used in pop/rock/blues).  I'm not saying this is the be and end all but if you are familiar with enough songs (learn as many as you can, even if you don't need to learn them), then you can easier identify songs with shared progressions.  There are many songs that don't fit with a 'regular' progression / note choice but that frees up your brain to work out those.  

 

I personally don't look for bass tab for songs as imho you get reliant on just learning that song and not the general way a song is constructed.  What I will do is Google the overall chord structure of songs I'm not familiar with and I can generally figure out what the bass is 'likely' to do to link together the chords... but as mentioned earlier you do have to be aware of a couple of basic scales and be aware that in certain instances things like 7ths may be flattened.  

 

All of this is a very brief summary of me trying to distil what it is I do, lots comes from playing music and trying to create your own music; you tend to learn what works together if you have to write your own. 

[TimR]

If you only learn 3 songs every 2 weeks it's going to take months to get a set list together. It's unlikely that every one of those 3 songs will work, and then the next 2 weeks after what will you work on?

 

Honestly, having a big list of songs for everyone to try, and keeping in communication over those 2 weeks as to how you're progressing, takes away a lot of pain and disappointment. 

 

I can't tell you how many times bands I've been in have agreed to learn 3 songs and none of them have worked. And you're 2 weeks on...

 

Picking and learning tunes as a band is one of the most frustrating aspects of being in a band. Making it simple and quick, and recognising when a tune isnt going to work is key.

[Baloney Balderdash]

6 minutes ago, TimR said:

If you only learn 3 songs every 2 weeks it's going to take months to get a set list together. It's unlikely that every one of those 3 songs will work, and then the next 2 weeks after what will you work on?

They will if they have been rehearsed properly by everyone (that is everyone actually getting the time needed to learn their individual parts properly) and the band is taking the time to make them work together as a band.

 

Also the band needs to get each other to know as musicians and how to play together as a band properly if this is going to be a serious and longer lasting endeavour.

 

Rushing through 10 song, only haven been given time to learn the individual parts needed haphazradly, on the 2nd band rehearsal ever is not the right answer, as far as I am concerned.

 

 

Edited January 14 by Baloney Balderdash

[Lozz196]

A few weeks back I was asked, with four other mates to play some songs for a mates 40th birthday. We decided on 8 classic rock songs. We had less than 2 weeks til the gig, one rehearsal without the drummer, one with. Gig went fine. It can be done.

[Baloney Balderdash]

2 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

A few weeks back I was asked, with four other mates to play some songs for a mates 40th birthday. We decided on 8 classic rock songs. We had less than 2 weeks til the gig, one rehearsal without the drummer, one with. Gig went fine. It can be done.

The keyword here is "fine", not "great".

 

Also I assumed by your wording that you actually played together before and knew each other fairly well as musicians, and that this wasn't the 2nd time ever you played together?

 

Edited January 14 by Baloney Balderdash

[TimR]

4 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

They will if they have been rehearsed properly by everyone (that is everyone actually getting the time needed to learn their individual parts properly) and the band is taking the time to make them work together as a band.

 

Also the band needs to get each other to know as musicians and how to play together as a band properly if this is going to be a serious and longer lasting endeavour.

 

 

How do you learn your parts if you don't know the arrangement until everyone is together?

 

Being generous 2 tunes every 2 weeks, sometimes all 3 will work, sometimes none of them will work, that's 6 months to get a set together, that's without revising previous tunes as you go. 

 

If you're starting out as a band, you need to flood a setlist and bare-bones the songs and experiment. 

[Lozz196]

3 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

The keyword here is "fine", not "great".

 

Also I assumed by your wording that you actually played together before and knew each other fairly well as musicians, and that this wasn't the 2nd time ever you played together?

 

Well although we’ve all played in various formats between us we hadn’t all played together before, plus the guy on vocals had never done lead vocals before. When I said fine I meant it went very well, only a couple of minor mistakes but all being seasoned musicians we worked around those easy enough. A lot of the audience said they didn’t know we were in a band together and when we said we weren’t they said we should keep it going as it was really good. I’m hoping that happens. With a bit of work and a lot of willingness a lot can be accomplished but have to admit some songs we had thought of just didn’t gel properly so again, being seasoned musicians plus not having much time to say the least we cut them.

[fretmeister]

18 minutes ago, TimR said:

 

How do you learn your parts if you don't know the arrangement until everyone is together?

 

Being generous 2 tunes every 2 weeks, sometimes all 3 will work, sometimes none of them will work, that's 6 months to get a set together, that's without revising previous tunes as you go. 

 

If you're starting out as a band, you need to flood a setlist and bare-bones the songs and experiment. 

If they are all covers you agree which album version it is. 

 

After that, depends on the songs. If it’s a bunch of 4 chord chart songs then 10 in 2 weeks is more than doable. If it’s trying to play Master of Puppets properly like Metallica still did in 1991 then it won’t be. 
 

 

[Jamesemt]

Sorry way too many posts to quote each one. 

I'm newish back to playing so I'm not some jazz god who can bash the songs out. I've been out of the game a long time, and especially so playing with others. I made this clear before meeting up, and I think everyone was pleased with my playing. 

I think the next rehearsal will be a week on Tuesday, so nine days (I got the list today), but not next week lol. We already have one song the guitarist didn't learn for the first rehearsal but I did, and we didn't play it, so we have four new songs as I said I could learn three new. 

Regarding learning songs you might have invested time in and then drop, that is part of the beauty of playing in a band - it's forcing me to learn stuff and pull up my playing. Whether the song gets used or not doesn't bother me. 

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, TimR said:

How do you learn your parts if you don't know the arrangement until everyone is together?

 

Share youtube video links of the arrangements you will play. Note any variations. This is what I do.

Edited January 14 by Stub Mandrel

[SumOne]

My previous band was from start up so we tried to learn 3 new songs a week with a weekly practice session to go through them and most of the rest of the setlist, so it was only a couple of run-throughs of each song before it went on the setlist. That was alright but felt quite high pressure - but got us from zero to a full set of 30 songs in about 3 months. 

 

The current band learns one new song a week with a weekly practice to go through that and most of the rest the set. That's much more relaxed but we do already have a full set and gig every couple of weeks. 

 

In the deep end though - I've been asked to dep for a gig in a month with about 30 songs on the setlist and only one band practice session a few days before, so I'll soon find out if I can learn about one song a day (on top of stuff from the other band)... It seems a bit much to memorise so I think I'll be relying on written notes at the gig and probably a fair bit of just playing in the right key at the right time rather than note for note perfection. 

Edited January 14 by SumOne

[Stub Mandrel]

The ability to learn fast is a skill to be learned. Now I have experience of jam nights (playing things blind with modest expectations) and depping (learning or refreshing 25-35 songs, with limited time, maybe no rehearsal with expectation of a quality performance)  my attitude to bands learning songs has changed.

 

I left a band after a year of honing things forever...

 

The blues rock band I'm in, we will try and rehearse a song once or twice before playing it, but sometimes we will just jam something. This is largely down to knowing each others' style and habits so we can react on the fly; somee of our well rehearsed stuff is often different every time, although things like Radar Love are pretty much note for note every time.

 

For more standard covers stuff, I think four or five new songs is perfectly reasonable for anyone, assuming a modest period to prepare.

 

Ten is doable, if people are willing and able to put in the time, but some will struggle.

 

Just two or three is barely worth the effort.

 

As for number of rehearsals, just make sure they are for getting polished and used to playing together, not learning (the exception is if you all agree a new song and gave a shot at busking it).

[fretmeister]

Yup. Rehearsal is not the place to learn parts. That should be nailed before turning up.

[Bassfinger]

If I were familiar with the songs then maybe, but if I hadn't heard some or any of them then nah.  It's really pushing it.

[Franticsmurf]

20 hours ago, chris_b said:

Put 10 songs on the list, start at #1 and work your way through. You might have 3 or 5 or all of them under your belt by the end of the day.

This is the way I worked with a band I put together to play a one off gig last year.  We were all capable musicians and we needed to get 15-20 songs together over about 6 weeks. We agreed to work on 6-8 new songs per week in rehearsals that lasted about 2 hours. The format was that everyone worked out their parts in advance and the rehearsals were for taking the rough edges off, sorting the arrangements and working on vocals. We kept it loose and usually managed to do what we needed to do on as many of the songs each week. Sometimes we got 8, other times we only managed 3 or 4. Weeks 2, 3 & 4 started with playing through the previous week's songs and by week 5 we had the makings of a set. A couple of songs were dropped and new songs added along the way. We had an extra 'dress rehearsal' in week 6, by which time we'd sorted the set order. The gig went well. My only regret was that we didn't have more time to get to know each other so that we could include some improvisation along the way. 

[Rich]

I would far, far rather do three properly than 10 in a slapdash fashion. Obvs a lot depends on what the songs are, how familiar with them you all are, etc.

I'm in a fledgling prog project, we've agreed to work on 3 songs with the first rehearsal two weeks from today, one of the songs is ten minutes long. 

[geoham]

Trying to properly learn 10 songs is too much, although if it's mostly songs that you all already know and just need to get them together as a band then it might be feasible.

 

To use my own band as an example, when we formed a few years ago - some of us had played together before in other bands. We had to get it together quickly, as we already had gigs in the diary - inheriting the diary of two members' old band.

 

We came up with a list of about 30 songs as our initial setlist, and we did get through about 10 per week. However, we had a fair amount of standards in amongst that - Honkey Tonk Woman, All Right Now and nonsense like that. It got us out gigging if nothing else.

 

After that initial phase, we started adding some more interesting numbers - normally 3 to 5 at a fortnightly rehearsal. That's definitely the optimal number for us. Typically we'll know after one or two run throughs whether a song is going to work.

 

George

[acidbass]

It depends on the calibre of musicians but I would say 3 or 4 per rehearsal is plenty.

[TimR]

I think a lot of people are confusing what happens in theory and what happens in real life.

 

If everyone 'learned their parts' before 'rehearsal' then it should take no more than 15minutes of a rehearsal to play the songs perfectly. And you shouldn't need an entire rehearsal to work on them. 

 

So something is amis with what a lot of you are saying and what you're doing. 😁

 

In reality, everyone is altering the arrangements to suit the ability of the musicians and the instrumentation. If you don't have a keys player, any tunes with strings, brass, piano etc, someone will have to fill the sound somewhere. Same if you only have one guitarist. That doesn't factor in overdubs and solos where the recording has a rhythm parts added. This altering of arrangements will be happening during band practice. And there will be no guarantee the tune will work.

 

As per @Lozz196 comment above, they ended up with 8 songs fairly quickly but had to throw a bunch out because they didnt work.

 

Practice at home, band practice and band rehearsal all have different components and objectives. 

 

[Bassfinger]

It's not just a case of learning the part, certainly for myself and doubtless for ithers too. 

 

Not being hip and down with the yoof means that for me it's often a case of learning the song first. 

 

Once I know the tune and it's reasonably well wedged in my cranium then learning the part is generally straightforward, usually by music but sometimes by ear.

 

I'm OK at reading music but far from the best at it, and I'm not good enough to play along to a song I've never heard, but once I've heard the song a few times...

 

If its songs I know then ten in a week is, probably, doable.  If I don't know the songs then it simply ain't.  

 

 

Edited January 15 by Bassfinger
Awfud typong

[nilorius]

I think it really depends what kind of songs are You going to learn. There could be songs very difficult for bass, the next ones - for vocal or for all the band members. I remember situations that my band just considered to take 2 for the next rehearsal, because everybody understood that those will be hard to manage for all members. We just talked over to be ready to play and have a good paper notes. It always ended successfully.

[tauzero]

8 hours ago, geoham said:

However, we had a fair amount of standards in amongst that - Honkey Tonk Woman, All Right Now and nonsense like that.

 

Was the next one "When doves cry"?

 

We've got enough songs for two sets plus maybe another 10 songs so we're not under any pressure to bring more in, we just like to learn new stuff. We generally have three or four being brought on at any one time - we'll decide what to do, run through them at the next rehearsal to make sure we're OK with them and think they'll work, and to work out endings, then run through them again at the following rehearsal to get them firmly in place.

[Rosie C]

On 14/01/2024 at 20:13, SumOne said:

The current band learns one new song a week with a weekly practice to go through that and most of the rest the set. That's much more relaxed but we do already have a full set and gig every couple of weeks. 

 

That's about the rate our band have been working at. When you add in holidays, Christmas, sickness, etc. it's taken us about six months to get a decent range of songs to suit a range of situations.