Music Industry Workshop

Rehearsal is a job. It is the part that nobody likes, but it is the key to all the rest. The fruits of rehearsal are exhibited on stage and in the recording studio, but the work itself often occurs in garages and basements. The attitude with which you approach rehearsal will reflect on your entire career. If you are serious about your career, you had better learn to be serious in rehearsal. It is important to leave your nonmusical problems outside the rehearsal space. While rehearsing, you have to focus your attention on the job at hand. Bands should set aside some time each week to discuss anything of a non-musical nature that relates to the group. If everyone knows that there will be time allotted to hear their gripes, they should be able to relax and devote their energy to the music throughout the week.

When you were first learning your instrument, you had to practice regularly if you were to make any improvement. After your fingers stopped hurting, it became obvious that the more seriously you practiced, the better you became. The same is true for a band in rehearsal, even though the difference may not be obvious on a daily basis. Bands tend to make jumps from one musical plateau to another, rather than slow, steady progress, but the better you rehearse, the less time between jumps.

How to Rehearse

Don’t waste time. Some bands rehearse five nights a week for five hours each night and get about as much done as they could in two evenings of real effort. Utilize your time in rehearsal. How many bands have you known whose rehearsal pattern goes something like this: Practice is set to start at 7:00 p.m., so the guitar player is the first to arrive at 7:15. Rehearsals are held at the keyboard player’s house and when the drummer arrives at 7:30, all three members start setting up their equipment. They have to set up every weekend so that the keyboard player can work on his boat between rehearsals. When the singer arrives at 8, he is uptight because nobody knows where the bass player is. Since the bass player has no phone, the singer leaves to go to his house in case he is sleeping again. The equipment is set up by 8:15, when the bass player arrives. Since the singer is still gone, the drummer decides to grab a burger at McDonald’s. When the drummer returns twenty minutes later, the singer and the bass player are arguing and the keyboard player is having a philosophical discussion with the guitarist. By ten minutes to nine, everybody is downstairs except the keyboard player, who had to go to the store for his wife. When he returns they decide to “loosen up” with a twenty-minute jam. After they take a joint break and work for half an hour on a new song, it’s time to quit. They have to stop at ten or the neighbors go crazy. Six months later when they break up, each one of them feels cheated because they “put so much work into the band.”

Obviously there are organizational problems that have to be solved for rehearsals to progress smoothly. You have to have a place where you can leave your equipment set up, so work towards that goal right away. Everyone must be on time and you have to get started as soon as possible. Loosening up is okay, but don’t jam all night. Try to get at least three hours of solid work in every time you rehearse.

The reason rehearsals become such a drudge is that all members are not thinking and working as a unit. They often get off the track as to why they are there. They seem to forget that they are not getting a paycheck at the end of the week for rehearsing, and they treat it as if they were punching a clock. Remember, you are rehearsing because of your own choosing, and the time you are wasting is time that you could spend in a much more enjoyable way. There is a definite amount of work to be done and you don’t get paid a cent until you do it.

Some people have the attitude that anything not done in a formalized job situation is meant to be a party. If you are using rehearsals as an excuse to party, you will make this business twice as tough as it needs to be. Remember that every hour you spend screwing around in rehearsal is time taken away from writing or polishing your individual chops. On the other hand, you don’t have to treat rehearsals like they are the coalmines of Pennsylvania either. You can get a lot done and enjoy yourself at the same time. You must enjoy working on music or you wouldn’t be pursuing it. Too many bands have the attitude that rehearsals are a drag by nature, so the best thing to do is party with the hope of making it as enjoyable as possible. Wrong