Play music only when it has to be played during rehearse.

It annoys me when guitarist is trying some riffs during discussion.

Your brilliant drum fills, however good or not, in the middle of conversation could drive others nuts.

This drives me crazy and it will be the first thing I bring up next week.

All good advice guys, thank you very much! As far as drinking goes, we did that 30 years ago. These guys are my old band from the 80's and we partied hard back then. Now, one is totaly dry and the rest of us will have one or two beers, maybe. We all excited to get good and were having a blast. Thanks so much for chiming in, its great to get advice from guys that have been doing this for a long time. THe other guys are thinking we can do a gig at a party on OCtober 25th. I think they are nuts but I guess we will just see how it goes. Their plan is to learn three songs in August, three in Sept. and three in Oct. We would be the "warm up band" at a friends party. Our audience will be our other friends so its not like a general public gig at a bar or something.

Thanks again!

Jeff C

Pabst Blue Ribbon and amps turned up to 11...

Those three songs are great to start with! especially Sunshine... always loved that song! Never played it in a live band setting though... one day, maybe.

Anyhow, good advice so far. I really likes Tnsquint's reply. I'm not sure how many times a week you guys are playing. Say, if for instance, one song is proving difficult to play as a group, set aside one practice to work exclusively on that song.. it's ok to maybe run through one of the others to break up the monotony... but focus mainly on one song that needs the most attention. Play it over and over again until everyone is really comfortable with it, then move to the next one. And like Tnsquint said, don't worry about playing the song note for note as you hear it on the recording. Don't be afraid to improvise some and play things that sound good, fit the song, and that you are comfortable with.

Creedence Clearwater Revival tunes are always a crowd favorite. Great songs and some are pretty basic. Proud Mary, Green River, Have you ever seen the rain, etc... Oh! and Marshall Tucker's "Cant you see"

Ok, ill stop before I continue to ramble on.

Have fun buddy!

Mind BlowiThat too.........whatever works to get the point across...............

I've found this to be the most important advice I've ever gotten about bands:

You PRACTICE by yourself at home, you REHEARSE with your bandmates.

This means you learn the song, key, tempo, grooves, fills, breaks, etc. at home by yourself, so you come to REHEARSAL prepared to rehearse. Then your band rehearsals will be more productive and less frustrating.

I usually create a note sheet for a new song. I don't assume that I'll remember everything. If it's a cover song I time it so I have the BPM and bring my metronome so I can get used to counting it at the right tempo. I make notes of fills or bridge groove etc.

Everyone needs to do their work!

The when you get to rehearsal you fine tune, make adjustments, endings, and work out the bugs.

I have played with numorous bands (especially jazz) that have never seen eachother outside of a gig. Show up prepared to play and do the job.

I don't recommend this but my point is if you do the work everyone's job is easier and it can actually be fun.

We have gotten through as many as 15 songs in one 3 hr. rehearsal session, but we've been playing out for a while.

One other piece of advice. Record your rehearsals. Play them back at a later time, you'll hear your mistakes and you'll hear your improvements, and cut short a lot of arguments. "I was playing the changes, you missed the que, No you missed the que, no you were in the wrong key"- listen to the tape!!

Great advice. I mentioned recording our sessions like we used to with a casset recorder. The question was asked if we could record off a computer but I think the old casset tapes would be better, its just harder to find a paticular place in the recording. How do you guys record?

My band practices twice monthly for three hours. Each song get about 15 minutes. We start with working out problems with songs on our current song lists. Then we work on polishing new songs, getting them ready to go onto the song list. Finally, we start working on brand new songs.

As far as ending songs, there are many ways. Try different things and you’ll see which fits the song best.

A Digital Audio Recorder is a nice little tool for rehearsals.. most handheld ones can be stand mounted in a central position, Take a look at the Tascam 4ch version.. easy to share copies via thumb drives or burn to cd's..

Cheers

Very good advice! I totally agree with everything you said! In most of the bands I’ve been in the practicing has usually been the same. We usually run through a song a few times and the move on to the next. We’ll come back to it once we’ve practiced all the tunes we planned to. It’s good to play a song enough times through to get the starts, stops and transitions but not enough that you “burn out” and start making dumb mistakes. We always try to come practiced and prepared because playing as a group is much different that practicing at home. This works for us but everyone has their own way that works for them.