Simplify simplify simplify

[Charlie Bernstein]

Our motto is: "Every performance is a practice, and every practice is a performance."

'Zackly! It's like a late friend used to say: We're all teachers, we're all learners, and class is always in session.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

And they always think their own stuff is genius!

That'd be me!

=O]

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

That sounds like a nightmare - everyone standing around with their instruments with one person taking notes, arguing about what to play and when to play it.

I haven't ever run into an argument about set list. There are so many other things to get bent out of shape about! My own experience: The thing most likely to bog down a practice is having a member who'd rather talk than play.

This particular quartet has one guy with no email and another guy with no cell phone. That means that agreeing on a list beforehand involves email, texts, and phone calls. And time.

Making a list in person takes us five minutes. We just pick tunes everyone wants to play. How hard could it be? (Well. I do have a friend who was real excited about getting together with three other hot players. They even came up with a name right off the bat. The band broke up at their first rehearsal because they couldn't agree on a single tune. Just not meant to be.)

I just make the list and give people a few days to ask for changes. . . .

Yup, that works! I think what got me stewing about this is that our set list is ten songs, and the list I got emaile to me had twenty songs on it. So it was more of a buffet than a menu.

Making a set list beforehand also works with band that doesn't get together practice. That's what a couple of groups I've been in did.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . with today's smart phones, it's just too easy to have your band in a group text thread. . . .

See post 43.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

Our motto is: "Every performance is a practice, and every practice is a performance."

Reminds me of a line from I Claudius. Drusus to Tiberius "They say that your drills were bloodless battles... and your battles were bloody drills".