Motivating band members to practice ?

hywelg

I'm afraid its par for the course. Everybody wants it to be fun, but fail to realise its only fun when you're good at it. My band has just folded, indeed I pulled the plug on it because we were never going to be able to gig often enough to get to the stage where we were good enough to make it enjoyable. Mostly down to everyone in the band had other commitments.

I used to prepare song sheets so that we all knew the chord structure, the song structure, the intros and outros and where the solos were . If we ammended an outro I ammended the song sheet. We also had a Dropbox share and we tried to limit songs to one version only so we all knew what to be listening to. Thats the only way IMO to make it simple so that you're not argueing about what and when.

In previous bands there were always members who (usually those who had the least to learn) wanted to be out gigging before we were ready. Not a good plan, if you f**k up it'll knock you back. Be ready. And do aim for perfection, there's nowt worse than going to see a band who are happy with mediocre. If you find songs difficult to learn drop 'em quick, there are plenty of easy ones around.

John_P

I just spent an hour typing my notes on a bunch of songs we're learning for next week, into an email to make it easy for everyone else.   Send a txt to remind them we're rehearsing and get a reply - from the bassist. He hadn't put it in his diary and is busy,  and do we need to rehearse we don't have a gig next week.    Glad I bothered lol   

hotpickups

Drives you mad doesn't it? Exact situation with my old line up. Makes you want to form a band only from disgruntled band leaders. Then all will work equally hard and have all seen/experienced the frustrations of a band full of lazy wankers . That's better now I've said that out loud

John_P;538700" said:

I just spent an hour typing my notes on a bunch of songs we're learning for next week, into an email to make it easy for everyone else.   Send a txt to remind them we're rehearsing and get a reply - from the bassist. He hadn't put it in his diary and is busy,  and do we need to rehearse we don't have a gig next week.    Glad I bothered lol   

EricTheWeary

By special request :ar! of @Close2u. I'm going with least cringeworthy clip we got from rehearsal.The young woman with the camera isn't part of the act BTW

DulcetJones

I'm with the "dump 'em" group.  I was like you in a cover band years ago, except I was lucky enough to have band mates who appreciated that I recorded and duplicated copies for each member.  I refined the process by bringing a small chalkboard to rehearsals so I could chart each songs arrangement where we could all see it.  We would then play it accordingly and I would make a copy of that for each of us to work with at home.  It worked great, and all it took was simple charts like this:  Intro - V - V - C - V - V - C - B- V - Ending, where V = verse, C = chorus, and B= bridge.  Instead of trying to perfect each song then and there we could arrange each song, go home and work on our part and then nail it next rehearsal.  Of course, this only works if you've got dedicated people.

thomasross20

I mailed out bassist (the band leader) just to say that I can't keep doing one song per week and that it's also unsustainable. We need to have a target! I might be going for a directorship role (fingers crossed!) and it means I'll be working ALL the time, so if there's any chance of me keeping on playing, we have to cut the pace. If it goes t!ts up, I still have my personal recordings which keeps me (very) busy.

lloyd

One song a week isn't that much mate, I know people have other commitments but......

hotpickups

I guess it depends on what genre were talking about but otherwise I agree one song a week wouldn't be too taxing for me

lloyd;548208" said:

One song a week isn't that much mate, I know people have other commitments but......

Emp_Fab

We're doing three a week!

Admittedly there may be a fortnight's gap between practices...  

kin

depends on the song, depends on the week..

if for instance the song was Zappa's The black page and the week was the one where I was filling in for Rick Jones, Host of 70's childrens tv show Fingerbobs , then I might have struggled to get it learnt by the Wednesday.

thomasross20

I was learning 3-4 a week for 12 weeks straight. Maybe it's burnout!

Other than learning band song(s) I have an album I'm producing (lots of work), I've three big-time projects on at work with patents to apply for and international travel to prep for, I do hours of research at night (career development), spend time with the girlfriend / have a life.. one song might not sound like much but they're not always easy (and I class myself as a decent player) and I transcribe by ear - I want to do a good job.. but as well as learning a new song... there's the other 40-odd to remember! I don't write anything down so it's all from memory. Maybe I'm just overloaded!

IvisonGuitars

Having only read the first page of this my advice is get rid pronto, sounds like you're wasting your time and theirs.

Get an ad in the classifieds/Facebook/local music shop and find some decent, reliable and keen people, might take a while but there are plenty out there.

Ive been in this situation many times over the years with hobbyists masquerading as pros...until the time for the hard work comes. It's pointless and frustrating.

Move on my man.

monquixote

lloyd said:

One song a week isn't that much mate, I know people have other commitments but......

Yep I'm doing 3 a week with 2 small kids taking most of my time.

digitalscream

monquixote said:

Yep I'm doing 3 a week with 2 small kids taking most of my time.

Indeed...it bugs the hell out of me. When I'm pulling 60+ hours a week, dealing with family tragedies, building the band website, organising the launch etc and still get everything done, it's a bit frustrating when somebody turns up at a gig and says, "Yeah, did anyone print off the lyrics to <that song we've been playing live for 3 months>? I haven't learned them yet...". Especially when they're living with their parents, have a strict 9-5 job and nothing else to do but sit in front of Netflix every night.

</rant>

hotpickups

This is sooo much like my last band line up. I did all the work but as mentioned I pulled the plug and now I'm in the process of re recruiting the line up. It's not worth the hassle trying to deal with people like that.

Probably not what you wanted to hear but if you've asked for their help and they still don't act then they never will

thomasross20

monquixote said:

lloyd said:

One song a week isn't that much mate, I know people have other commitments but......

Yep I'm doing 3 a week with 2 small kids taking most of my time.

Well I certainly don't have that excuse!

chrispy108

hywelg said:

I'm afraid its par for the course. Everybody wants it to be fun, but fail to realise its only fun when you're good at it.

Spot on.

The issue I have (and the reason I've not been in a band for years), is that I don't want it to be my career, I don't want to "practice" 3 times a week, or take a day off work to "practice", I don't want to "tour", or spend every spare penny I have on adverts, websites and paying to play "battle of the bands", but it's not fun unless it's good.

There's a pretty small gap I guess between what I want, and I never found other people who had similar aims. Found people who said they did, but then a few weeks later we're apparently filming a video on a weekday, and I'm a problem for not being "serious", and we need to practice more as we aren't progressing, then they're showing up an hour late into a 3 hour practice when you've left family stuff early to be there.

*sigh*

I'm perfectly willing

lloyd

thomasross20 said:

I was learning 3-4 a week for 12 weeks straight. Maybe it's burnout!

Other than learning band song(s) I have an album I'm producing (lots of work), I've three big-time projects on at work with patents to apply for and international travel to prep for, I do hours of research at night (career development), spend time with the girlfriend / have a life.. one song might not sound like much but they're not always easy (and I class myself as a decent player) and I transcribe by ear - I want to do a good job.. but as well as learning a new song... there's the other 40-odd to remember! I don't write anything down so it's all from memory. Maybe I'm just overloaded!

Write stuff down! Why make things harder for yourself? You could smash a few songs a week if you were making notes and even, god forbid, using a music stand at rehearsals, no shame in that.

p90fool

It always amuses me that some of the most prolific Fretboard contributors can find ten minutes to bang through a pop song once a week.