Bands that never rehearse

[mambo4]

This Corey Wong (guitarist of Vulfpeck) interview clip popped up in my feed.
I found it interesting , but unsurprising.
I have You Tubed the Madison Square Garden show referred to, and found it excellent.


One of the best local cover bands I knew (and sat in with) also never rehearsed.
Run through new material at sound check and rely on ears, skill, experience.
But I have also been in bands with weekly or more rehearsals, also to good result.
The width of experience is too broad for me to claim one way is better than another.

But I am interested in what criteria need to be met before a band can be a 'no rehearsal' band.
like I mentioned above, one way to put it is: ears, skill, and experience.

More practical criteria might be:
- each player individually knows the material, individual practice > rehearsals
- The material is well defined: covers or a style with clear criteria. this allows for happy accidents that don't become train wrecks.
- the players have a level of chops that allows them to navigate the unexpected

What other criteria do you think sperate bands that 'never rehearse' from those which do so regularly ?

 

[Jefenator]

Cueing.

 

[Markmann]

IME, If you know the songs well and the band has been together for a while you only need to practice new stuff.

 

[mrcbass]

I play in a no rehearse band and sub for another that I don't think have rehearsed since I started playing with them. Here's my take on why it works for each group.

1. For both groups, all musicians are solid and well versed.
2. My main band has been around since mid nineties in various formations. I think BL is the only original member left, but a couple others have been with him for many years (I'm a newb with less than 2 years with them.) They've played essentially the same songs this entire time. No real need to rehearse when everything is so ingrained. And they play close enough to original recordings that a newb can master his part at home and fit right in.
3. My sub band plays so many gigs (they're on target to do about 100 gigs this year!) that they don't have time to rehearse. I auditioned with them a couple of years ago, was not selected but was called to sub for the busy guy they hired. I did play one rehearsal with them before my first sub gig. They're now comfortable that I can do what I say I can and will let me know when they're adding a couple new songs.
4. Both bands have added new songs along the way during my tenure. We're all good enough to know if we can pull it off and we just play them for the first time together live. In both bands, we've done new songs without even any dedicated prep time - usually based on a request. Call it on stage, everyone nods and go. It's not always pretty, but usually very passable.

Essentially it requires confidence in yourself and your bandmates to do their own work and to know how to work with each other onstage. And confidence that if someone is not comfortable with a new song that they'll say so before it gets kicked off on stage.

I tend to like rehearsals when something new is getting done, but absolutely hate the dredging of known material. My main band would really benefit from a few occasional vocal rehearsals (we have 4 voices and we all just kind of find somewhere to sing - it's not always ideal). But the thought of having regular rehearsals on our classic rock material would make me quit the band - it's hard enough to keep motivated to keep my parts fresh (over 100 possible songs) I just couldn't sit through a couple hours of group disinterest.

 

[bass12]

The majority of the gigs I play are unrehearsed. It definitely helps when you're playing with musicians you've spent a lot of time on stage with - even if the material is different/unfamiliar.

 

[Killing Floor]

Practice.

Practice is different from rehearsal. If every member does their work it doesn’t take very much to combine them.

 

[acid bass]

I think your practical criteria are spot on. What defines whether a band can go rehearsal vs no-rehearsal is where each band member lands on those items. Almost every time a band tries to go no-rehearsal and fails it's because folks aren't working individually at home. Sooooo many musicians only practice in group settings and don't do any work on their own. These are the guys that NEED weekly rehearsal; they won't practice otherwise.

On the other hand, I've been in a cover band that had all their songs down yet insisted on weekly rehearsal. For them it was because they were a friend group that wanted to have a dedicated hangout time every week. I hung in for a while but I started to pull back from those after a while because it was a waste of time.

My current outfit is a busy GB band that does no rehearsals. All quality musicians that do their homework. We show up for gigs/weddings and maybe discuss how to handle a song with a fade ending. No problems so far.

 

[WG Plum]

Well, I'm in a free-improv trio, so...

 

[mambo4]

Well, I'm in a free-improv trio, so...

I wonder if there is any kind of prep you do for that? Are there ways to be better -as a band - at free improv?

 

[WG Plum]

I wonder if there is any kind of prep you do for that? Are there ways to be better -as a band - at free improv?

We record every session. Can't speak for the other two, but I go back and listen for things I liked and that I want to play again given the particular flow when we're playing.

 

[portpc]

My busy cover trio hasn't "rehearsed" since April. We may next month?
We pretty much lay out the next batch of songs we want to cover - learn them & get together and hammer them out. Most of the time is spent on the vocal parts.
It's Rock, Pop & some standards - Not rocket science.
My drummer decided he was creating a studio in his home a few years ago. He did & it's all well and good but it's a 45 min drive each way for me. That solidified my opinion about getting together more often

 

[Holdsg]

just covering the Tribute band scene.
my Queen band has been together 2 years now, we gig a lot, set list rarely varies (we have 60 minute and 90 minute versions) and so we haven't rehearsed in at least a year.
my Zeppelin band, on the other hand, is still tweaking the songs into a polished "show", gigs rarely (2 or 3 a year) and has a band leader that is a perfectionist, so we rehearse about once a month, and 2-3x before a show.

every situation is different, is what I'm trying to say.

 

[juancaminos]

My band of 15 years arrived at a solid set list by listening to what people want. We maintained a spread sheet of requests mixed with songs that made each one of us happy to play. So thru the years our set list/show was very much contrived. We would rehearse five or six new songs every quarter then replace the least favorite songs on the set list al the while adding to or extras/well of back up songs. Other that that we were too busy to rehearse the entire band.

 

[Killing Floor]

Or you could start a Lumineers tribute band. Learn 1 easy song and play it 20 times in a row. Then there’s no prep work except sound check.

 

[pbass2]

Or you could start a Lumineers tribute band. Learn 1 easy song and play it 20 times in a row. Then there’s no prep work except sound check.

Just cover the Spotify top 10. There's only 3 different options for chord changes to remember (and even those are interchangeable). None of that silly nonsense with bridges, different chords in Verses vs Chorus, etc etc. And you just play whole notes on a synth bass patch.

 

[Plain Old Barry]

One of my current cover bands never sees each other except at gigs. Sometimes we go months between. We add new material here and there, but have never had a formal rehearsal. We do not claim to play anything exactly like anyone's recorded version.

The key in those situations is to stay flexible, act like you meant to do everything to the audience , and visually communicate. It really helps to have a solid drum / bass foundation, as we can keep vamping if necessary as the other players come in and out. A guitar player sitting out for a few bars is hardly noticeable, while either of us stopping sounds like the power failed.

If we miss a transition or change, we just complete the entire phrase we're in and then make the change. Most rock and roll is all in 2 or 4 bar phrases. A side benefit of playing off the cuff is the ability to adjust song lengths based on audience participation. If the place is rocking, or paying a lot of attention to a mellower piece, we can stretch it a bit and it seems to go over well. If it's dying, we may even shorten it a tad and move on.

I'm in another band that rehearses weekly, and the first one is actually a lot more fun to gig with for me.

 

[brianrost]

I've been working recently with a BL who just gives everyone recordings of the material, both the original recordings and live recordings of himself from years past. He simply expects that the players will learn the material. After a gig, if there was something off, he will mention it but not bother to tell the player he needs to study more...it's implied.

At a recent gig, the sub guitarist was woefully under-prepared. I tried to cue him on stuff but there were train wrecks. The BL didn't say anything to him on the gig but I'm sure he will never hire him again.

 

[Matt Dean]

This Corey Wong (guitarist of Vulfpeck) interview clip popped up in my feed.
I found it interesting , but unsurprising.
I have You Tubed the Madison Square Garden show referred to, and found it excellent.


One of the best local cover bands I knew (and sat in with) also never rehearsed.
Run through new material at sound check and rely on ears, skill, experience.
But I have also been in bands with weekly or more rehearsals, also to good result.
The width of experience is too broad for me to claim one way is better than another.

But I am interested in what criteria need to be met before a band can be a 'no rehearsal' band.
like I mentioned above, one way to put it is: ears, skill, and experience.

More practical criteria might be:
- each player individually knows the material, individual practice > rehearsals
- The material is well defined: covers or a style with clear criteria. this allows for happy accidents that don't become train wrecks.
- the players have a level of chops that allows them to navigate the unexpected

What other criteria do you think sperate bands that 'never rehearse' from those which do so regularly ?

I don't believe Corey Wong when he say's Vulfpeck never rehearses. No one is reading charts; the breakdowns have to be rehearsed (IMO).

 

[Freight Train]

I'm fortunate enough to play with highly seasoned (and marinated) players in a blues band that is 40% originals, 60% our own arrangements of blues obsurica covers. We were at a medium-ish sized club, no foh, just pa for vocal and harp, and were right at the wire setting up. We just fired right up and started playing, no sound check other than a 'check one, two' on the vocal mic. At the first break this kid comes up who is dumbstruck - how did we do that with no sound check? It was perfectly balanced! I told we'd all been playing for so long we could pretty well judge the volume each of us needs to be at given the size of room, plus more importantly we listen to each other. He was then lauding over our arrangements and asked me what rehearsal was like, and when I told him we never rehearse, I kinda felt sorry for him. He looked so dejected.
It's no brag and no trick, it just means everyone's an experienced player.

 

[_Tay_]

I'm in a band that doesn't rehearse and plays covers. The key is everyone learning the same version of the song. Really that simple.. and if everyone knows how to play along to the recording, then we can play it live.