OK, I said "fire the drummer," but it was a cheap shot. My current band actually has some problems with part density, and we're hopefully developing the listening and playing skills to deal with it. If you can't hear the problem, then there's no way you an address it!
The current line-up is 5-piece, and everybody is in their late- 50's or older with substantial gigging under their belt, although for two of the guys a lot of that has been at a semi-pro level, and for me my gig years were mostly on a different instrument and over by 1990, albeit at a high level, including 4.5 years of stadium/arena/theater tours with platinum-selling acts…between that and studio work, I've had the most experience in well-polished productions. The material is largely original, drawing on a range of latin, caribbean, americana and rock forms - I'd call it pan-american, and we're finding our own niche - even when we do covers, we do a lot of re-arranging. The vibe is good, people feel free to offer ideas in rehearsal, and the material is getting better. But slowly; we still have a lot of overplaying.
Part of the problem is not having doubles locked in - we have a lead guitarist who plays killer mandolin and some fiddle, and two rhythm guitarists, one on 12-string and is the primary singer/songwriter, and the other on electric, acoustic or an assortment of small folklorical string things, including some mandolin. This is not fatal - it's helped us develop some different approaches, and the spirit of open innovation has facilitated my gravitating toward fretless, which works really well with this band - but it's sometimes haphazard, although we agree beforehand on who's gonna play what whenever we gig.
But we are having density and dynamics issues. I sometimes think that the problem emanates from each of the guitarists having a lot of folk music (American or otherwise) in their past, and a lot of experience of providing guitar density while singing in solo or small acoustic settings, so that they feel naked or exposed if they are not banging away. Early on, one of them (who also plays bass well) was really emphasizing the low-guitar range and invading my space, but we now have that sorted out.
Recording rehearsals and gigs certainly helps, but I think we may need to listen to playbacks together (we don't currently) and talk about what works and what doesn't. I've been asking the others to pay attention to what's on the radio and to dig on how much air there is around and within parts in most pop music. I've talked about the guitarists making sure they stay out of each other's way, including the classic Motown "three guitar" model, and using tighter, three and four-string chord voiceings like Nile Rodgers and so many of the great funk and R&B guitarists. But it's not yet penetrating. Also, it's not a reading band - which is frustrating to me, but then I'd probably get stuck doing the charts and my day-gig means no time for any such thing, and they'd be Motown-style lead sheets in any event...
Truthfully, things may never completely clean up, which will limit the band's prospects, which is a shame. Our singer/songwriter's material is often excellent - he's made his living as an actor, songwriter and performer, with other bands doing some of his tunes, and I wish we were presenting the material with more polish. But here's the list of what we are or should be doing…
** Recording rehearsals regularly (pretty good at that)
** Folks listening to the recordings on their own (mixed)
** Folks listening to the recordings together (we should start this)
** Periodic "let's all turn it way down" admonitions in rehearsals (it works for a while, then we creep up again)
** Periodic "let's just have two or three play together for a while and refine their parts" (should do more of this)
** Don't be afraid to pull the plug on a tune in rehearsal if there is a problem - like the Japanese-style assembly lines where any number of workers can halt production due to a problem (I do this a bit, and wish the others did more of it, but we're short on rehearsal time and often seeking to ensure we have the entire form and structure of a given tune)
** Be prepared to offer solutions, but also be prepared to do so gracefully or by some degree of indirection so as not to dictate.
** Be willing to work small tune segments over and over again until they feel right, and are right.
** Adjust the instrumentation - for example, one of the guitarists going to hand percussion on certain tunes, rather than all guitar, all the time.
** Build break-downs or build-ups into the arrangements, including segments where not everyone is playing
** Become a more active listener in general - when listening in the car or wherever, dig into what's going on - analyze song forms, tone, rhythmic patterns, space, how the parts fit to ether and how to build direction - in whatever you're listening to. Listening is a 24/7 essential life skill!
This is very much a work in progress but in writing this out for TB, and in reading this thread, I'm getting some ideas and hopeful that we can progress and do justice to a fine body of tunes.
But at the end of the day, listening skills are as critical as playing skills - heck, it IS a playing skill - I'd posit that the more thorough your listening skills, the better your playing will be, by yourself and with others.
