How often does your band practice?

We know all those persons are you only, Chris. :wink:

You can slowly develop your one man band. The formula is - Post less, play more.

You can slowly develop your one man band. The formula is - Post less, play more.

Sigh....

You're so right Rahul. The more practice the better, for any band. :wink:

Off to practice now - honestly...

Oh yeah, those early Sleutelbos days were hell. By the time we managed to keep the guitarist sober the day before and were ready to record some hot tracks the pianist would be out in the clubs and the singer would be with friends he ran into on the way. Hopeless. Had to kick out atleast three of my personalities before anything really started to happen.

On a sidenote, I truly believe you can judge a musician's prowess by his or her postcount. More is always better ofcourse. :D

Oh yeah, those early Sleutelbos days were hell. By the time we managed to keep the guitarist sober the day before and were ready to record some hot tracks the pianist would be out in the clubs and the singer would be with friends he ran into on the way. Hopeless. Had to kick out atleast three of my personalities before anything really started to happen.

Thanks for the tip. Lesson taken on board. :wink:

Now I just have to decide which heads should roll.... :twisted:

Trying to herd cats

LOL! I never heard that one. Gotta add it to my list.

To answer the question, we all pretty much have a say in what to bring in; but it only takes one dissenting opinion for a song not to make the cut. I just wish we mixed things up more. At a recent gig, an audience member told our drummer that we are really good, but just do the same thing over and over. He was pissed, but she was right.

I used to be in a band that had a dictatorship-style government. It was this one guy's show, and you will do his songlist, in his order. He did all the bookings and basically all the legwork. He never told us how to play, just asked that we nail it as close to the record as possible.

To be honest, that was kind of refreshing. I just had to show up, hit my mark, and play my parts. No voting or ego-sharing. And after the gig, I packed my own stuff and went home.

Twice a week for an hour and a half to two hours.

But we only practice about 3 times a year.

You think you've got problems. You should try being in my band! :shock:

We never manage to all practice at the same time. :( The Drummer has only the most basic grasp of drumming, the Bass player means well but has only had 3 lessons on the bass, the Lead Guitarist is also enthusiastic but is new to the job. The Rhythm player is quite reasonable but can never settle on which song(s) to play. We also have a Clarinet player, a Sax player and a Keyboard player who are all only beginners so aren't sure how to fit their contributions into the mix. :roll:

On top of all this the Recording Engineer still hasn't read the manual for the recorder/drum machine all the way through (despite numerous promises to do so), and the Manager spends too much time on internet forums and other projects. :(

It's like trying to herd cats. If it wasn't for the fact that it's a One Man Band, and they're all actually me, I would sack the lot of them - disorganised bunch of amateurs!! :roll:

I wonder if Smokindog and the Bluezers, or Sleutelbos, had this trouble when they started out....???

Cheers,

Chris (all 9 of me....)

I have similar problems. So I've written this new song - next thing I have to decide is how to do it. What instruments do I want to use? Well first of all, I've only got a few very basic drum tracks - I do have the capability to play them via my Yamaha keyboard (manually) but I've got all the natural rhythm of a traffic accident when it comes to drums. So the first instrument I'll record is the rhythm guitar. Acoustic or electric? doesn't really matter, I'll do it on acoustic first. I'll try and use all six strings wherever possible, and have a busy strumming pattern. Then if I'm using electric I'll record that next - probably use more staccato strums, one or two strums to each four strums of the acoustic. Then bass. Then vocals. Then lastly the guitar solo, before I move on to keyboard. I only use a few of the many keyboard voices available - usually either piano or organ. I prefer organ mostly, my keyboard skills are pretty rudimentary - I can just about manage a chord and a bass note.

So I'll have, maximum....

Acoustic guitar (rhythm)
Electric guitar (rhythm)
Electric guitar (lead)
Bass Guitar
Organ/Piano
Drums
Vocals

That's 7 tracks - each of which has to be worked out from scratch, practised, played and recorded. Not to mention writing the lyrics in the first place!

Each of those tracks is then copied - I don't record stereo tracks, I record a mono track and cut-and-paste it. With the vocals, I usually use the time-shift button so the two tracks don't quite line up - only a fraction of second, though. I sometimes do the same with acoustic guitar tracks - get a nice 12 string effect.

And they say musicians have it easy?

One song can take me a couple of days to get right - and I'm not looking for professional quality sound. God knows how professional - real - musicians cope!

So altogether, on my own songs I've played.....

Acoustic guitar - rhythm
Acoustic guitar - lead
Acoustic guitar in open G tuning
Acoustic slide guitar in open G
Electric rhythm guitar
Electric rhythm guitar in open G
Electric guitar - lead
Electric slide guitar - lead - open G
Electric slide guitar - lead - standard tuning
Bass Guitar
Organ
Piano
Harmonica
Drums
Vocals - lead
Vocals - backing

Good job I don't play live - I'd have a hell of a job remembering all that!

I'm not blowing my own trumpet here by the way - that'd be another instrument to learn! - just wanted to show how much hard work goes into one song. Of all the instruments above, there's only one I'd feel comfortable playing live - that'd be rhythm guitar on the electric. I suppose I could get away with playing bass, but there's no way I can play bass and sing at the same time.

One of these days I'll have to write a song I can play recorder on! And maybe get the grandkids together - one plays violin, one plays clarinet, one plays cello and another is learning guitar. Now that'd be fun!

What I need is a band - but a band to play my songs the way I want to hear them. One of these days they may relax the rules on human cloning. "I'll have five of me, please - and if you can find a couple of stray talent genes to splice into the DNA, I'm first!"

Trouble is, then there'd be six of us all arguing over who's going to play rhythm.......

:D :D :D

Vic

My formula has always been, if the entire band actually shows up for practice twice a week, the band will be playing gigs within a few months. If there is always someone missing, or you only get together once every week, you will stay in the garage.

It all depends on what the band wants to do and how dependable everyone is.

It's alot like getting a degree. It's not only about how good you are (or how smart your are), it mainly depends on how determined you are to achieve your goal.

Now if I could only rise my personal determination level to get off my bottom and start playing solo gigs, I might start doing something more than what I'm doing now.

Feel free to yell at me. I need the "proper motivation."

Good job I don't play live - I'd have a hell of a job remembering all that!

Don't mention it man. :cry: Your list make me wonder myself and it actually seems to have gotten way out of hand. The sounds I used so far: Electric/accoustic guitars, electric/accoustic/upright bass, electric/accoustic piano, pipe organ, electric organ, harp, dulcimer, bluesharp, synths, english horn, clarinet, bassoon, french horn, trumpet, tuba, trombone, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, saxaphone, electric/accoustic drums and vocals. Might have forgotten some. At first it sounds rather cool but on second thought it makes it absolutely impossible to do any kind of solo gig. :evil:

On a sidenote, I truly believe you can judge a musician's prowess by his or her postcount. More is always better ofcourse.

So where did I go wrong then?

:D :D :D

Vic

Who said you went wrong? :D

or you only get together once every week, you will stay in the garage.

I have to disagree with you there, Oenyaw! Every band I've ever played in practiced once a week (with most players showing up all the time), and all bands have gigged (or currently are gigging) regularly. You're absolutely right in that it all depends on how determined you all are. Maybe I've just been lucky enough to fall in with the right bunches of musicians, because practicing once a week has worked well over the years!

:D

oops, I meant once every other week. HONEST!!!! :shock:

ROFL! That sounds much better and I won't disagree with you this time!! :D

Our band practices once a week and we are pretty serious about it, you better have a legit reason to miss practice. We usually break the practice into two sessions, first we work on new material. In my band I seem to introduce most of the new material simply because I will make the effort of getting the lyrics off the web (we mostly play covers), and I will also write out all the chord changes for each player. I will also usually bring along a recording that we listen to a couple of times to get the feel and form of the song. We can usually get a new song down in 20 minutes or so. But I am not the boss or leader whatsover, if the drummer or other player wants to learn a certain song, I will learn it during the week and bring the lyrics and music to practice.

So, we spend maybe one hour working on new songs. The rest of the practice we go through our set lists, we try to cover songs we haven't played in a while to stay fresh. We have about 60 songs, we get through maybe 20 per practice. So some songs you don't play for 3 weeks. So we try to make sure to cover all songs as often as possible.

I have been in many bands and one of the biggest problems has always been song selection. Everybody has their favorite songs and styles. Sometimes a player will complain that they hate a certain song, some players will refuse to play certain songs or artists. This is not a good thing at all. You need to compromise a little in a band and be willing to play songs that you might personally not care for. For me this is not a big problem, I'm open to almost everything, and it is always a challange to me to play any song well. Unfortunately, many musicians are Prima Donnas, they want everything their way. This is very harmful in a band situation.

You have to be organized to get the most out of your practice. Make sure everybody has a lyrics and music sheet for each song at first. Don't waste time noodling, move through your songs as fast as possible, although you should work out parts that give you difficulty. Sometimes you spend a little extra time on certain songs to work them out. But after that, move right through your set lists.

Find people that are willing to sacrifice one day per week and show up on time and you will be OK. :D