OK so how often do you practice a week with the band and how many songs are in your repetoire?
We are at the point now where we have way to many songs to go over in practice which at the moment is once a week for 2-3 hours.
What seems to be happening is that if we don't play a song for a few weeks it's a little rough when we go back to it. Not all of the songs but many. Now that may just be a sign that we really don't know them well enough but most sound good the second time we play it.
At the moment it's not a big issue since we don't have any actual gigs booked but we do want to stay tight as a band and continue to improve so I don't like blowing off, an off night as if it were no big deal and not address the issue.
So guys that are new players in bands or bands that are relatively new I would like to hear from. Guys/gals that have been playing in bands for years probably don't have this issue.
I know the key is to practice in between band practice which i do but some of the songs don't get played for weeks and I don't necessarily know which ones to go over each week.
Do you guys have any type of pre-determined schedule on what you will cover during practice or do you just go through your songs in order etc?
I'd be interested to hear.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Our practice has kind of evolved with the band. The first few practices, we played the same 2 or 3 songs over and over again because that's all we knew. As we added songs, we just played them all. Like you, we got to a point where it was too much. As we added a new song, we would stop playing one of the old ones. Whenever we have a show coming up, we play just the set list over and over (we change our set list at least a little for each show). We may spend the last 10 minutes of practice playing one of our old ones just in case we need to pull it out for the show.
We haven't practice regularly in a couple of months because our drummer can't do it. We knew when he joined us that he was trying to put his own band together and couldn't commit to a set weekly practice, but he fit us so well and we had so many issues trying to find someone else that we accept it. Now, we practice 2 or 3 times before a show and just run through the set list. We've been writing and will need to schedule a practice to just go through the new songs because we've never played them together. We are recording a song right now for a compilation CD that we've never played together at all. I recorded the demo at my house and sent it to everyone. Our guitarist is re-recording the guitars at his house, I'll re-do the bass and combine those two and send it to our drummer. He will record drums at his house and we'll send all that to the guy producing the CD. Our singer will go to his studio to record vocals.
hey Cnev,
My band hit the same problem as you. We only practiced once a week and had 40+ songs. On top of the new songs to learn, we would also have 8-12 songs to "brush up" on every week, just to make sure that we were doing well. Some songs ended up being on the list EVERY week (ex. Metallica - Sad But True, annoying transitions that are slightly different each time, before we dropped it because the crowd really doesn't get into it).
Something I've done personally is just burnt a few cds of all my band's music and stick it in the car. Listening to the music all the time definitely helps me remember the flow of the song and the transitions. It does get old listening to it all the time though
Thanks guys, phoange I do the same thing I usually add the new songs we are working on to the ones we already play but since that would take up several CD's I don't have all of them but man they are getting old to listen to.
What we have been trying to do is get in a Wednesday practice to work on new material so we can just play on Friday's without having to go over changes etc with everyone. The couple times we have done it it seems to work well at least for the new songs.
We have two songs that have not been our best, one is Call me the Breeze and the other is Crossroads. These aren't hard songs per se but the few times we've played these they weren't great. I think par of the problem is no one is really ga ga over these songs. I know I don't particulary like either of them so they aren't the first thing I practice each night and because no one really is in love with them we haven't played them very often either. I know the simple answer is drop them which at some point we may do but I didn't want to do that for 2 reasons. 1 is that we didn't have a lot of songs at the time and I didn't want to dropping songs until we had enough for 3-4 sets. The 2nd reason is that it feels like failure to give up on a song and these aren't that hard.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Hi cnev
i think we are in a simialr position as well. we have about 45 songs at the minute - and we dont try to cover them all in rehersal.
what we do is have a list of "no brainer" songs for the set list - popular ones which we leave in for every gig - sex on fire, mr brightside, dont stop me now etc. then we rotate the other songs about a bit. we also have a different band member write the set list for each gig, that keeps us all happy, but as we all have our own favourites, it ensures we dont go more than 4 weeks without playing any particular song live.
"I like to play that guitar. I have to stare at it while I'm playing it because I'm not very good at playing it."
Noel Gallagher (who took the words right out of my mouth)
45 songs, Wow!
The guys I'm practicing with, have been together for about 2 years, I'm with 'em for about 6 mos. (and I don't always make practice because of distance), but we got 7 or 8 songs down pat (as a 4 piece, I'm 2nd guitar. ) If we don't practice a song for say 3 weeks, it starts to get green and moldy like stale bread. Repitition is surely the key.
Pat
