Band Practice Options

[lefthandman]

Hey guys i have a few band practices, four to be exact, over the three day weekend coming up and in the past they havent been very succesful. I was wondering if anyone on the site had any tips as to how to conduct a good practice/writing session with a band. Thanks!
P.S. Srry if this is in the wrong forum if it is ill happily move it i wasnt quite sure where to put it

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[SLASH91]

First off, I would recomend having a meeting with the guys in the band. Find out if they're actually serious about playing for real, and not just screwing around. Make sure that every one is 100 % committed to focusing and learning their parts.

Secondly, as to writing, have your rythem guitarist come up with a riff then have your drummer start putting a beat to it. Start adding the other elements down as it gets smoother and smoother.

I'm not really sure about the kind of problems that your having exactly, but hope this helps

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[Nemanja Filipovi...]

First off, I would recomend having a meeting with the guys in the band. Find out if they're actually serious about playing for real, and not just screwing around. Make sure that every one is 100 % committed to focusing and learning their parts.

first thing you shoud do...so it woud not be time waisting....
And I think that there is not some special recepy for wrighting songs all together...it just hapends...no matter who it starts...or one of you shoud come on practise with riff or any kind of melody...and then try to build a song trough consoltation of each other...it is impoortant that every body haw some thing to say
or elese strange things might hapend to you in band mamber to band mamber relations(trst me been there)

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[Iron King]

one problem with young bands or inexperienced bands is that nobody seems to know what to do during practices. If the practice isn't flowing take charge and suggest something. By the way, when I say take charges, it does not mean giving order, it means motivating the band to do something.

in order to make the practice efficiently, it is important to have a meeting the members (Slash already said this). Establish what your goals are.
if your goal is to write original songs, there is no concrete way to do it... it seems that every band has a different method. Here is what I do (or did, between bands now).

I sit down with the band to determine what kind of song we want to make. We divide the song into segments. Say we wanted to do a high energy rock song. We would write down something like:

Drum Intro -> Bass enters -> Lead Guitar opening riff -> Entire band enter with main riff -> yada yada

I find it helps to have a plan so you have a goal to work towards instead of trying to just write a whole song at once. Obviously you change the plan if you figure something better out

remember, you're first songs dont have to be masterpieces. You get better at writing as you write more songs. Just focus on having songs that are fun to play.

Also remember that sometimes simple songs with energy are the best. Like I said before, just write stuff that is fun to play

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[Bogdan Radovic]

Well for the next band practice make a list at home which songs you want to practice ...Just write 1,2,3,4, ...etc..Let one man in band read whats the next song to play and don't fool around between songs, just play them as you would on stage in that particular order..Later on you can repeat songs that need more practice..For writing songs , well there is no exact way for it..Often one member will bring the groove,riff ,vocal line or whatever and than you will be developing that idea together..Key on practices is not to fool around much and be in focus..Its not ok to between songs, everybody is showing what they can do with their instrument..Thats not the place for it, its place is in songs ...

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This post has been edited by Bogdan: Feb 14 2008, 01:34 PM

[lefthandman]

thanks a lot for the help guys all the practices went real well b/c of it even had the other guitarist compliment on how much more organized they were

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[MickeM]

come prepared

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