Getting irritated with building a song list

[Mo'Phat]

So, you suggested All Star by Smashmouth? If the other members are suggesting songs like "Skewered from Ear to Eye" by Cannibal Corpse...you might be barking up the wrong tree.



Best of luck. What works for me, after some years of trying, learn the guitar parts and how to sing it and have your drummer (your rhythm section comrade, with whom you should have a very tight relationship) learn the beat...then break into the spontaneous jam of YOUR song. When the guitarists look totally lost, you tell them how the guitars are supposed to go and you sing the song. Then you tell the guitarists how great they sounded and that the singer would do a much better job than you could, and that you're 75% done with that song already.

 

[hrodbert696]

Hey y'all, update. Due to some scheduling conflicts, we went four weeks without a rehearsal. The conflicts were mostly mine, I emailed them all to say we should call 3/4 a quorum but they still didn't rehearse. We did get together last night, three out of four -- me, the drummer, and the singer/rhythm guitar. Before the four-week break, we did do more to plan out what we were going to work on next and it's been better, though the singer still shows up with some of the songs on the list yet-unlearned.

Last night it was more of a jam session since we were a man down and getting used to playing together again, which was ok. We did go over some of hte tunes on the list and then the singer started his thing. However, I had asked him a few weeks ago for hte list of whatever he had in his back pocket and worked on them on my own, so when he started I could jump in, so that part wasn't so bad.

Along the way, it finally clicked for me why he can do it. The combination of singing and guitar, he's practically a solo performer (he does play solo at open mics sometimes). So whatever he starts to do just takes on the aura of "the song" that everybody either jumps in on, or not. But I can pull out whatever riff I've been nailing down and it's just the bassist noodling in his corner, unless I decide to hijack the rehearsal and say, "you play this, you play that... 1 2 3 go!"

Oh and on All Star -- we actually did (finally) play it last night (he pulled out a printoff sheet in rehearsal and learned it on the fly). It was the last thing we did. The part that was actually fun about it was that it wound up in this more folk-rock kind of sound, took the ska out of it, and it still worked. I like the original but it was an interesting moment of making a tune our own (if only because the singer doesn't know how to do a ska guitar).

Going to keep working on the set list dynamics, hopefully this saturday. Thanks for all the advice!