Cover bands: How much time do you spend rehearsing?

[Bullitt5135]

This has become an issue in my band as of late. The singer and I are OK with practicing weekly -- we just like to play, and generally have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. Drummer has a little kid at home, so his free time is harder to come by. If we schedule a practice, he can usually make it. The problem is with the lead guitar player. He has an irregular work schedule, and practices are scheduled around his availability. He also needs the most work getting/staying up to speed. His retention just sucks (he's recently returned to playing/gigging after 20+ years off), even after we think we have a song down cold. Drummer is getting fed up. He's got better things to do than get together once a week to see if the guitar player has his act together. I'm afraid if we don't have weekly band practice, the guitar player will slip. Drummer doesn't want to practice at all unless everybody has the material down cold. It's a matter of setting expectations and holding people accountable. I'm lucky to be in a band where we're all really good friends. Hopefully we can get this sorted out before it becomes a fatal problem.

 

[bikeplate]

I'm in four cover bands and a worship band that plays Sunday and some Wednesday's. The worship band never rehearses. We just get there early and run the set once. Two of my cover bands never rehearse. The other two rehearse when we learn new songs.

 

[pbass6811]

Count me in with the "We only rehearse if we're learning new stuff" crowd. I'll take it a bit further and say we only rehearse if it's a song that NONE of us has played before. If a couple of us know it, we just tell the others to learn it and be ready. For a gigging band, rehearsals are a semi-necessary evil, LOL!

From what I've seen in this area, the bands that spend the most time rehearsing are the ones that don't gig very often or bands that have one or two weak members. In both cases, rehearsing a bunch is probably a good idea...

 

[obimark]

Any cover band (not tribute band) that I am asked to join, that doesn't have gigs lined up after 2-3 rehearsals- I walk. Period.

I can spot the signs of basement/ego bands. Usually it is either the singer or guitard who says "It just ain't ready. Needs to be perfect. Etc..." Translation: THEY are not ready and REALLY ONLY want to JAM in their basement. ForEVER.

I wasted 3 months with a guitard/singer who only played the same 10 songs we went through on the first rehearsal. He was NEVER ready for any of the other new songs we needed to fill out our setlist. Just the first 10, over and over. I quit as soon as I found this out (as did the rest of the band).

 

[mb94952]

Like you said, rehearsals in cover bands are for either auditioning purpose or new material. We have 50% covers and we rehearse once a week for cobweb purposes but the drummer, sax player, and I have steel trap memories, so playing on the fly is not only ok, but fun.

We rehearsed "Stir It Up" last week and it was a total waste of time. It's such an easy song and kinda boring (to me) so it was a waste of 10 minutes. I'd rather work on new material.

Sounds like a dream job as long as you guys gig a lot. I like rehearsal for the sake of playing off of other living humans as opposed to practicing at home alone. I love playing in a band, so rehearsal is fun for that reason alone BUT it HAS to lead to gigs, and fortunately we gig a lot. Not gigging is like having sex without "finishing" to be nice. I never understood players who don't like to gig (off topic sentence).

 

[trevcda]

Drummer is getting fed up. He's got better things to do than get together once a week to see if the guitar player has his act together...Drummer doesn't want to practice at all unless everybody has the material down cold. It's a matter of setting expectations and holding people accountable. I'm lucky to be in a band where we're all really good friends. Hopefully we can get this sorted out before it becomes a fatal problem.

I'm totally with your drummer on this one. I usually don't have anything better to do, but I refuse to waste my time waiting for someone to learn a song in rehearsal that they should have practiced at home. One of the horn sections in the band I'm in was getting pissy about the material and wanted something new and exciting to play. They were told to make a list and email it out. So they came up with a great list of EW&F, ToP, etc. I loved it and put in some serious woodshed time over the next two weeks before the next rehearsal. Come rehearsal day, nothing. The hours I and others had spent were all wasted and despite prodding, never made it to the stage. That's one example I'm still pissed about that many years later. Now I learn songs in two stages; a rough run so that I know the arrangement, my vocal parts and basic bass lines and a finish run where everyone has learned the song and it's actually going to happen and I pull it back into personal practice and note for note it.

And unchecked, it will become a serious problem. I've got some friends that are serious f-ups. While I have concerns for them, it doesn't necessarily affect me directly on a daily basis. I can walk away. If we were in a band together, I'd probably kill them.

 

[Bassamatic]

Our Classic Rock cover band rehearses 90% new songs only - usually 5 or 6 at a session, a couple of times after we have had a week to 2 to learn them on our own. Almost never the older stuff. It seems weird that during a show, the BL can pull an oldie out of our 250 or so and we just play it. After enough time and plays I guess that's the way it should be. It also involves good communication between the players - I always help the drummer with breaks and fills, etc.

 

[Smallmouth_Bass]

I agree with the comment that a show is worth ten rehearsals. Part of that is because when you bring it to the stage, that's when (most) people get serious about really learning the material. Nobody wants to look foolish in front of a crowd. Many people are just procrastinators and there has to be that underlying deadline to get any progress.

 

[20db pad]

If the individual band members really do their homework and are all experienced/accomplished players, excessive rehearsal isn't necessary. This is simply a known and accepted thing for musicians who work a lot.

There's literally thousands of recordings where studio musicians recorded the benchmarks of what "tight" is doing tunes that they never heard before the day they were in the studio. Lots of them were done before DAW technology so they really couldn't be "fixed" in post-production. How'd they do that if they didn't rehearse it for months? They were experienced musicians who did their homework and performed at very high levels. Banging away endlessly in a garage, basement, or den wasn't required.

 

[DWBass]

IMHO, a band that needs a LOT of rehearsals is not a very good band! Especially if it's the same frikkin' songs! Amateur at best. Also musicians who have very low recall do not make good band members. You should be able to pull songs out of a hat when needed. I hate when someone says "I don't remember that one"! Drives me up the wall! Had that issue with my last steady band. Keyboardist/BL would gloss over songs because he just could not remember them! I had to quit that band or go nuts!

 

[Squierbassjake]

I guess I'm in a minority...my cover band rehearses 1-2 times a week. Like everyone else, it's usually covering new material and such, but we also sit and listen to music. We discuss music. And we drink tons of Wild Turkey! I don't think rehearsal needs to be 100% focused on the "playing", but the camaraderie.

 

[Humbled]

I don't think rehearsal needs to be 100% focused on the "playing", but the camaraderie.

Amen brother.

I probably shouldn't even post in this thread, but my one "regular (usually weekly) rehearsal" is more like a boy's night, similar to what some guys do for a weekly poker game. About 5:00 pm every Thursday, I plug in the crock pot full of cheezy/meaty dip that my wife prepared. "The guys", mostly people I've played with on-and-off since the 1980s, with the addition of guests (often horn players), show up about 7:00 pm. We have an hors d'oeuvre platter and nuts, sometimes pizza, open some adult beverages, and shoot the bull. Around 45 minutes later, we start playing mostly Real Book Jazz. We take turns calling the tunes, some familiar, some we've never played together before. If we have guest musicians, we encourage them to call the tunes. We just have a lot of fun. We eat, laugh, play a lot of cool tunes, and break up around 11:00 pm. This core of old regulars almost never leaves "the doghouse" to play in front of people. We've all had pretty much enough of that.

When I do play out, it's usually with people I don't know too well, playing songs I'm often unfamiliar with. I'm happy if they'll email me charts and mp3 or YouTube links, and I don't care if they're in the same key or the key I'll be performing the tunes in. I enjoy woodshedding the tunes, I will convert the charts to Nashville numbers because it helps me internalize the changes, go do usually one rehearsal with them, and then go play the gig.

This is how I like it now.

 

[pickles]

Cover band rehearsals are just an excuse to drink beer, catch up with friends, play a couple familiar songs to get loose then work on something new. Something challenging, something that will surprise and delight your other friends, who are the only ones that come to your gigs. I dont make my living playing music, why would I try to act like I do?

Its just important that everybody in your band is on the same page about this stuff.

 

[PauFerro]

It varies depending on the group. In the jazz trio I'm in, we never rehearse. We often pull out charts on the gig and play them there. With the smooth jazz quartet, we rehearse normally to orient new players for 4 hour gigs when our first call guy isn't available. In the new group I started, we are having rehearsals that lead up to a gig to build new repertoire probably weekly.

Each group is different -- in the trio, the keyboard player is a veteran jazz player and doesn't need rehearsal of any kind, so I don't want to waste his time. He does it for money and I feel we are lucky to have him and want to keep him happy and efficient with this time and money. He suggested rehearsal once too, which was nice, but it hasn't been necessary. In the smooth jazz group, the sax player just brings us "custom" charts and we learn them at rehearsal, and then shed on the parts we need work on individually before the next gig. For the new band, the players are new to jazz -- competent in their own styles, but they need the rehearsal. they are still learning to watch and listen and to play songs without structure -- only eye contact and non-verbal signals.

So, I guess it depends on the group. I personally like gigging without rehearsal. it's a good use of my time. Sometimes I sit down with new players and rehearse them for the upcoming gig so I don't waste the other players' time.

 

[mb94952]

I keep forgetting about my pickup band ! We NEVER rehearse. We each do our homework and the show is the rehearsal. The songs are not too difficult, but we are all pro players, so it always sounds good. We know when to improvise and when to take a solo just by a look or the feel of the song.

The most important thing is that there is TRUST ! We all trust each other. That goes a long way. Miles Davis said trust is the biggest asset in a band and he didn't allow his mates to practice ! He wanted the audience to experience the full improv deal.

 

[Dluxe]

We played every Friday and Saturday night. I was in the band 10 years and we only rehearsed when auditioning new members.

 

[biobass]

I play in two cover bands (banquet/corporate/bar) and sub for a third. There is overlap with some of the personnel and material amongst the three bands. Most of the players are very experienced and pro level caliber. The two bands that I am a member, rehearse infrequently, maybe once every couple of months. Everyone is expected to do their homework, know the tunes and their parts. We use rehearsals for tightening up new material especially vocals. On the gig we are all expected to use our ears and eyes to communicate. While we typically stay fairly close to recorded arrangements, we will also do arrangements on the fly. I've been told that we tend to be among the tightest bands around locally (whatever that means).

The first time I subbed with the third band, I got a call the afternoon of the gig, got the set list. There were seven tunes that I had never played before that I learned. The show went well, with only one major hiccup when I started Brick House in Am when the keyboard player was expecting Mustang Sally in C. We just stopped, laughed and started again.

I have written notation and chords for almost all of the tunes that aren't real standard so that I can use them to refresh my memory or give them to a sub.

I also do a lot of musical theater pit work. I have been enjoying doing this for 35 years. I am expected, and can usually deliver, professional level performance with one rehearsal (sitzprobe) and dress rehearsal, then play the run. Something like West Side Story or some of the more complicated newer shows like Songs for a New World, Rent, City of Angels, etc. might get an additional paid rehearsal. The hardest gigs are when I get called to sub, that is usually without benefit of rehearsal, but I do try and get the score beforehand so I can at least give it a once over. However, that doesn't always happen. There was one time that I subbed for a production of Pippin. I had played the show before, so I wasn't too concerned. I got to the theater an hour early to look through the score. I failed to notice the penciled in instruction to memorize the first sixty measures of the Overture, which was done in complete blackout. Yikes! That's when you depend on your ears to get you through.

 

[FretNoMore]

"Cover band" is maybe not the same thing to all of us ... I would find it boring, and rather impossible too given we're not the original band, if what we did was learn a song exactly as the recording on our own at home and then get together only for gigs to play it on stage ... rehearsals for us is also when we try what works for our band, change what don't sound good when we play it, decide who plays what solo, add something new to make it interesting etc.

But I can see how the mindset would be different if playing covers is a job where you're bassically interchangeable and you just want to do it with as little time spent as possible.

 

[jive1]

I would love to be able to jam every night of the week, but I have other responsibilities, so I really can't. Gigs happen after the family is asleep, but rehearsals usually do not. Gigs put money back into the family, but rehearsals usually do not.

For my wedding band, we rehearse about once a month. But, we'll go for longer stretches if we don't have work. We all play in other bands, so there's no pressure to keep people busy. It's mainly a review to see how prepared we are for the gig. We do a lot of non-standard material or remixes, so a rehearsal is helpful.
For the Dixie Chicks tribute, since we're a startup, we rehearse about every other week. I want to dial it back to once a month, but it seems that everyone else wants to rehearse. There's a lot of harmonies, and the singers work on their parts separately. Since some of the players come from a Bluegrass background, they are not accustomed to rock band amplification, so we'll do a rehearsal to get the in-ear monitors set up and figure out all the instrument switching and mixer settings.

When I do fill-in work, I usually don't rehearse with the band.
For church stuff, we usually rehearse before the service.

And, like others have said, a gig is worth 10 rehearsals. The reason being is that you are playing at game speed with something at stake. Sometimes that troublesome spot becomes simplified or altered to make it through the gig, and over time it becomes the way your band does the song. You may pull out a song that you all know as filler, and it winds up becoming one of your best tunes. You may play a tune that you thought you had down cold, and trainwrecked it a gig causing you to focus on it the next time. You may play a tune that you thought the audience would love, but it empties the dance floor while the song the drummer has been nagging you to play keeps the cash register ringing. You just never know until you try it at a gig.

 

[jamro217]

Bands are like kids, some need more attention/discipline than others. One band I was in never rehearsed because we had good communication and each member was diligent in their responsibilities. (Don't you wish that was always the case?) Another band I was unfortunately part of (briefly)thought that rehearsal meant getting together at least once a week to make jokes about how terrible we were at our last gig. If you're motivated enough to understand what is expected of you and spend the time to learn your parts, face to face rehearsals aren't really necessary very often.