Texting before every Band Rehearsal...why?

[ToddB1963]

With respect, if you spent as much time practising your instrument as do raising frivolous subject material in this forum, you and your band would be a lot better off. I count six threads authored by you on the first page alone, and you've canvassed this topic before...

(Mods, please delete if my response is inappropriate, but it had to be said).

 

[Renaissance]

Block him.

 

[51PRI]

...Believe it or not, we are very popular and in-demand. We make good money each week.
I wonder what we could accomplish if we actually got organised and focused.
Musicians . . . .

i think the same thing about my ,"real" band.

.....I figure I have to accept people as they are, warts and all, or keep them out of my life. Keeping them out of my life would cost me some great gigs with some excellent players if I'd gone that route with every person I know who has flaked on a rehearsal date and forgotten to mention it. It takes up very little of my time and energy to prod them to provide their intentions for the day. No harm, no foul, everybody is happy except for you, I guess

Good points. Thanks for the clarity.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

If someone texting once per week genuinely annoys you, then you may want to have a chat with a therapist that can help you with some life skills to make things easier for yourself. Getting a positive thumbs up from a group is not an unusual thing to ask. I'd be more worried with a group that didn't communicate.

 

[51PRI]

If someone texting once per week genuinely annoys you, then you may want to have a chat with a therapist that can help you with some life skills to make things easier for yourself. Getting a positive thumbs up from a group is not an unusual thing to ask. I'd be more worried with a group that didn't communicate.

That's certainly just as bad.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

That's certainly just as bad.

Look at everyone's posts, it's not. Your perceptions are out of whack. But don't believe me. Look back through TB post history and you'll see a pattern of complaints of relatively minor things.

 

[Barticus]

Maybe the texter knows they are in a band with a guy who seems to never be happy with anything and is kveching all the time...

You may be onto something here, seems there are some repeating themes.

 

[ewarren88]

Sometimes, offering “are we still on for tonight?” is a very passive way to remind OTHERS that there is an event. It sounds less nagging and more accommodating than “hey pea-brain, don’t forget again, we have rehearsal, like we always do on Monday, be sure to wear pants this time,” but it serves the same purpose.

Your bandmate may be keeping you (or others) in line with these texts. Maybe that’s why you hate receiving them, because of the implication that you might have forgotten the rehearsal, which, if forgotten, would have made you a bad adult (by your own reasoning).

 

[kev451]

Our start-up band has been rehearsing on the same night of the week since we started it. We all know it and we discuss it at the end of each rehearsal. Even so, one member of the band will always text on the day of practice "Are we still practicing tonight?" We're all adults and all should know and remember about band practice. It bugs me that he keeps doing this. Why does it bug me so much and how can I get him to stop doing it?

(I know a lot of you don't rehearse but that isn't the topic here, okay?)

Of all the things to be upset about, a text which you could silence is what is upsetting you…

 

[_One//Man//Mutiny_]

I like good communication skills!

I actually had somebody in a band not check in about practice. He didn’t text, we didn’t text, never heard from him again, still haven’t! It’s been years! Sometimes I wonder what happened and think of texting him, then I say nah, don’t want to bother him.

 

[Thegreatzambini]

With respect, if you spent as much time practising your instrument as do raising frivolous subject material in this forum, you and your band would be a lot better off. I count six threads authored by you on the first page alone, and you've canvassed this topic before...

(Mods, please delete if my response is inappropriate, but it had to be said).

Thank you good sir…. for reasons you mentioned above I am looking at this forum less and less every week. Repeat, offenders, repeat threads subjects, silly questions that could be easily answered by Google, but it seems people are lonely and want to discuss it.

 

[Eric Swaim]

I find nothing wrong with a person double checking.

At least he is not double checking to see if everyone learned their part. That way he's not wasting his time coming to a rehearsal when everyone else doesn't have a clue how to play what they agreed to learn.

 

[6Bass101]

Some people like to confirm. Other people like to complain about some people confirming.

Also, for the number of characters you typed in your original post, you could have replied “yes” once a week for over three years.
So it seems we all do odd things for reasons only we understand.

 

[Wilmingtonian]

So, things still on for tonight or what?

 

[Michael Stanley 2112]

I think it might have to do with one of two things:

A) He has a tight schedule and doesn't want to "waste time" on his schedule if a rehearsal isn't going to happen.

2) It could be a matter of how far a drive he has and doesn't want to get cancelled on at the last minute/after he's already gotten there.

For most situations, I live by the rule: "If I'm not fifteen minutes early, I'm late." With "set up" being an issue, for band situations, I expanded that time to thirty-forty minutes, depending on how far I have to lug my gear, help others with their load-in, etc.

 

[superheavyfunk]

Our start-up band has been rehearsing on the same night of the week since we started it. We all know it and we discuss it at the end of each rehearsal. Even so, one member of the band will always text on the day of practice "Are we still practicing tonight?" We're all adults and all should know and remember about band practice. It bugs me that he keeps doing this. Why does it bug me so much and how can I get him to stop doing it?

(I know a lot of you don't rehearse but that isn't the topic here, okay?)

Please don’t take this the wrong way but you seem to have a lot of complaints about every band that you play with. Maybe I’m not seeing a lot of your posts but it seems like every thread of yours that ends up on the front page is about something that annoys you about a band that you play with or a musician that you’ve interacted with.

At some point, it might be worth considering if the problem is you…? Just my $0.05.

 

[badinage]

OP asks a question. We aren't his band and don't know their thoughts so can't answer his question, only tell what we do and to what extent it works for us. I'm in two bands, one is "text if you can't", the other is an 'email the morning of' to which everyone responds yea or nay... (and we only do that because once the drummer didn't show and so he made a big stink about what 'someone else' should have done notification-wise). Arguing with him about what's stupid or not wouldn't have solved a thing, so FINE, we do the email, it's no big whoop.

I think the bottom line here is that cooperativeness is not in the nature of one or more of the OP's bandmates. Everybody wants to be somebody, and too many folks can apparently only distinguish themselves by being combative. I have an Evil Stepmother like that: She doesn't really want anything other than for everyone to acquiesce, back-down about 'what ever "IT" is', and acknowledge that she's the boss.

 

[Artman]

Sounds like a cat who has his act together.

He knows before packing and driving that he isn’t wasting his time, you know for certain that he’s on the way, and if he doesn’t show up, you know that something bad has probably happened to him.

He’s being professional by confirming the rehearsal when he does.
You should be grateful.

 

[jtg]

As much as I want to join the pile on here, can you imagine a job where your co workers text every morning to ask if there's work today? I know the analogy is imperfect, but really, can't a group of adults make a standing schedule and stick to it without asking for reassurance every time? I get it.

That said, standing band practice is a special level of hell.

 

[LBS-bass]

I like good communication skills!

In my real world career, part of my job was to coordinate research project meetings and conference calls with teams of MDs and PhDs, sometimes quite large (40+) groups.

These were certainly "mature adults" but they were also very busy people and what I learned through this is that you do have to remind people to participate in things they have agreed to participate in, otherwise they may not remember or they may let other things play through.

I was well known and respected for my ability to corral and herd these various cats; it was a skill that was seen and appreciated by the investigators and co-editors that I worked with in that capacity. This is why I find it a bit on the absurd side that someone IN A BAND is displaying exceptional organizational skills - skills that I was awarded for - and someone is complaining about it.

The OP does not understand how fortunate he is to have someone stepping up to this plate. Maybe he thinks everyone is fully responsible on their own, but maybe the reason they show up every week is because this person takes a moment to do this organizational task. I know that if I failed to issue appropriate reminders, attendance was always low.