Rehearsals +Cover Bands (not equal) Success?

[LiquidMidnight]

I definitely agree with he inverse law, at least in my experience. Lots of rehearsing starts to cut into your bottom line, too, if the players don't all live in the same town.

I don't mind rehearsing. However, I feel the rehearsal should be used to actually work on material that would benefit from rehearsing. If you're covering Song for America by Kansas or some Eagles's songs with difficult hamonies or writing original material, then a rehearsal will be beneficial. Don't waste my time, though, to rehearse because you want to run Johnny B. Goode, I Wanna Be Sedated, or Roadhouse Blues. Competent musicians should be able to do their homework on that type of material and put it together on stage without an ensemble rehearsal. If not, then they need to hit the woodshed.

 

[D.M.N.]

Yeah, same here. I play in a three piece cover band, and it seems like the less we practice, the better we sound (if we are gigging consistently). It reaches a point where if you're rehearsing a bum load, it seems, to me anyways, that you start over analyzing, and that's never good. If we haven't played in a while, (more than a week and a half), we will do a practice (probably 2 hours), just doing the first verse or so of the songs, making sure we remember them. Most of the time the practices are just to get new songs down.

 

[MNAirHead]

I'm now starting a project

I'm a team with the drummer.. backing a singing guitarist.

We receive 10 songs.. learn them on our own.. I get together with the drummer to lock in the grooves.. we then meet the singer/guitar to assemble it.. we have gigs booked in a month or so -- will have a full 60 song set ready.

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I do tons of acoustic duo material... for this genre, it seems that the more we practice the less folks get into it..

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The cool thing about more experience is that our mistakes are more blendable and our faces more transparent when a clam is hit.

 

[dalkowski]

We rehearse to learn new tunes. Playing songs all the way through on stage twice a week is enough to keep them polished.

We have an inside joke about "We'd like to thank you all for coming to our open rehearsal."

 

[brianrost]

My experience squares with the OP.

Ditto.

And not just rehearsal...seems like the more casually the band is put together the more successful it is. I have had mostly bad results with bands I joined via wantads and mostly good results when I joined through word of mouth.

 

[hrodbert696]

I hear you. I'd be out of that band, pronto, though, and joining a gigging band that needed a bass player.

I wonder if those who are making the determination of "tight" have a fair benchmark of what tight is? Aside from sounding (and I do mean EXACTLY) exactly like the record, are those individuals recognizing demonstrated ability, proper preparation, and execellent execution for what it is, and when it is present? I wonder if some of these individuals have in their minds some sonic goal, bar or gold standard in a recording which will never be achieved in even the most capable musicians, simply as it's a live context. Do they have any pragmatic sensibilities?

I was in a band that rehearsed for more than six months, solid. Never played a gig. That was 1995. I have not repeated that scenario.

I would say that while rehearsals are important, I would say choosing of the songs is also very important. To do everything else right, and to have an awesome Electric Light Orchestra tribute band that had all the music and sonic goods, but no meaningful audience is perhaps a good idea, but as a viable, giggable unit, possibly dead in the water even in the conceptualization stages.

Thanks for the affirmation, thumbs. The only thing is that the drummer, who is most often the one calling for further rehearsal, is also the most experienced member of the band and, frankly, is very reliable, always prepared, and all in all a really good cornerstone for the group. I, on the other hand, am the least experienced of the group -- picked up the instrument less than a year ago -- and don't have band experience since tenth grade. Still, I've been a fast learner and I'm probably up there with the drummer in terms of coming prepared to practice - way more so than our singer/rhythm guitarist. We're a casual band and this isn't something I'm going to quit over, but if I were trying to make a career of this, yes, I'd be out the door.

 

[KillerQuebec]

Thanks for the affirmation, thumbs. The only thing is that the drummer, who is most often the one calling for further rehearsal, is also the most experienced member of the band and, frankly, is very reliable, always prepared, and all in all a really good cornerstone for the group. I, on the other hand, am the least experienced of the group -- picked up the instrument less than a year ago -- and don't have band experience since tenth grade. Still, I've been a fast learner and I'm probably up there with the drummer in terms of coming prepared to practice - way more so than our singer/rhythm guitarist. We're a casual band and this isn't something I'm going to quit over, but if I were trying to make a career of this, yes, I'd be out the door.

Even worse, guys with chops who won't play out. I swear there are people who just can't play out. They got talent, and don't appear shy, but just can't go out and play. I'm tellin ya, open mics are the only way to audition anybody.

 

[Audiophage]

There isn't much of a need for rehearsals in cover bands. If you get your sets together and play out regularly then the shows are like rehearsals in front of an audience. You can do most of your practicing by yourself since all of the material already exists in the original recordings.

 

[Bob Rock]

When I joined the band I'm with now I got together with them for a couple hour jam. At the end of the session I said hey I'm in. I was handed a set list and told we had a gig next Saturday nite. Been gig'n with these guys ever since. We practice when we can but gigs are priority.

I've done my time in basements and garages, I need to be on stage!!!

 

[guitarjam6]

I think rehearsals spark creativity in the original song writing. I tell everyone in my band to learn their parts independently and when we get to practice... we play the songs, not sit around listening to someone learn a specific lick. If someone doesn't have the lick down, I call them out on it, and tell him we're moving on to another song, and to have it down for next gig/rehearsal. Everyone else doesn't have time for that crap, especially if you're learning cover songs. Use an FTP file sharing site or something to get everyone in the band a copy of the music you're going to play. This has helped us immensely.

I really think that playing a gig has the equivalence of 5-8 practices, as far as making the band sound like a more cohesive unit. Having a weekly guaranteed gig is like getting paid to practice, even if you're only making $30 and free food/beer, it's totally worth it.

 

[pygmygrizzly]

its good to have a balance. thats why I had my band "Babona" that would do krazy punk shows and a cover band that played once a week. I loved that on a friday I wound be wearing nothing at all covered in sharpie with my bass up against my amp playing feed back while I snorted into a mic for kids drinking PBR, and saturday I would be ether dressed nice playing tunes like "all the things you are" for old people drinking wine, or dressed casual playing tunes like "I wish" and sublime for drunken collage girls.

 

[BassyBill]

Turning up and just playing without rehearsal usually makes for a fun gig. Sure, I'll learn the stuff before at home and practice it, but that's not rehearsing.

What bugs me is when a band insists on calling a rehearsal and some of the guys use that as their only practice time. Rehearsals are not the time for learning and practicing stuff that you should have nailed on your own. Neither are they for looking at dots for the first time when you've had them in your possession for three weeks before the band gets together.

 

[City]

We play out 1-2 times a month, but we practice new songs and song endings. You can tell a band that doesn't rehearse from the cheesy endings they have. About half our songs have fade outs on the original, so we have to develop those ourselves. And, we always are trying new material, throwing it against the wall see if it sticks. Newest being R. L. Burnside's version of Chain of Fools.

 

[MNAirHead]

Even worse, guys with chops who won't play out. I swear there are people who just can't play out. They got talent, and don't appear shy, but just can't go out and play. I'm tellin ya, open mics are the only way to audition anybody.

most of these nut balls forget they're in the beer/slot machine/desert sales business and refuse to do cover material that the paying audience is willing to pay for.

I've played with some great guys that won't under any circumstance play Margaritaville --- the difference in our bank accounts is a good measure of their true entertainment industry knowledge.

 

[ERIC31]

With my band we practice once a week for 2 hours. We've played one gig so far and have another one in two weeks. If/when we start gigging regularly I don't see a need to practice unless we're adding new songs just to get them tight.

I live for the live show! I want to be on stage!

 

[mboogiemanusa]

My cover band started out a couple years ago as just a couple of guys jamming in the garage once a week. Basically we started from scratch after long musical sabbaticals. After the project gained a few new members to flesh out drums and vocals, we would learn songs on our own and practice them together a couple times a month. Once we started consistently gigging, we only practice to work in new material or to freshen up stuff we have moved off the set lists into the band song library. If we were better musicians, we probably would not practice at all and just do shows but we have found out that we sometimes learn some parts of new songs in different keys so we need to get together to straighten out those passages. Practicing more than once a week is probably too much for most bands. It's probably better to get in the habit of preparing on your own then get together to work on any issues. Back in the day when I was in bands that played 2 or 3 times a week, I would just learn the songs from the guitar player at practice and never practice much on my own. Now I come fully prepared to practice because we don't do it that often and I don't want to be the weak link in the group.

 

[JimmyM]

its good to have a balance. thats why I had my band "Babona" that would do krazy punk shows and a cover band that played once a week. I loved that on a friday I wound be wearing nothing at all covered in sharpie with my bass up against my amp playing feed back while I snorted into a mic for kids drinking PBR

so people actually like to watch naked male bass players covered in sharpie ink? i don't even think gay dudes would like to see that. put some damn clothes on, hippie!

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

I don't see how practice hurts?

In no particular order:

1) When rehearsal becomes a goal onto itself.

2) When you go through the motions of the same old tired songs without bothering to learn new songs.

3) When rehearsal is used to learn the songs (learn stuff on your own time, dammit! I know I do).

My current main band is like that. I have actually started using the rehearsals to learn new songs because at least that way we get some new stuff added to the set.

 

[intheory]

very interesting topic-I joined a cover band about 4 months ago, first as a sub, then as the full-time bass player in mid-June. We play 15-20 gigs per month, and the only time we rehearse is when the lead guitarist and I get together to nail down new tunes.
It's worked very well, even with having a revolving-door with drummers (have had a hard time finding a full-time drummer-too many flakes for some reason).
Our front man (the lead guitarist) often says we need to rehearse more, but with this many gigs, we rarely get one in, and we've never had a full-band rehearsal.

It seems to be working!

 

[Raymeous]

Probably my favorite band that I've been involved with was an originals hard rock band. We practiced a lot and played what I would consider a "medium" amount of gigs. It broke up due to life issues outside of the band. Kinda bummed by that one.

The cover band I was in rehearsed (though never efficiently) and most of our gigs sucked. The set list was blah to zzzzzzzzz and the "lead" guitard couldn't play a chord to save his life, although he did have a good ear and was a nice enough guy. Then again with every song in your basic G, C, D format who couldn't follow along?

For me I do prefer to go onstage knowing my material and knowing that the band can pull it off, but I think the inherent flaw in rehearsing too much is that it's usually based on the concept of the perfect gig. Sorry folks there's no such thing as a perfect gig. The closest thing you're ever gonna get to a perfect gig is the one where everyone shows up on time, nobody falls off the stage and breaks an arm, your amp doesn't contribute to the light show, nothing is missing at load out, and the bar/club actually pays you the amount of money you agreed on prior to the show without an arguement.

There will always be mistakes made at EVERY show you ever play. There will be gear issues at EVERY gig you ever have. It's just part of the whole "being in a gigging band" package.

As for rehearsal time, this depends greatly on what the material is and the caliber of musicians involved. There is nothing better for a band than gigging. I mean isn't that the whole point for being in a band in the first place? Gigging! If you want your band to get "tight" there is no better way than to knuckledown and play in front of an audience that doesn't know or care who the hell you are. I agree that any gig, even a bad one, is worth at least 10 rehearsals in regards to your bands playing and performance both as a unit and individually.