"Band Practice" More Beneficial Than "Sole Practice"?

[Jak Angelescu]

Hey guys and dolls. I have a big question. My time has gotten really restrained due to circumstances, and so I’ve had to alter my practice regimen. Normally I try to get in 3-4 hours a day in, with band practice being only once a week for two hours. My thoughts were that the more versed I am with my instrument, the better and more productive band practice would be. I clearly can’t do both for that long in one day. So we’ve been limited to only being able to do band practice, my singer and I realized we have so much work to do.
She practices on her own to karaoke tracks and tracks that Andrew gave us, but when we come together it’s like we haven’t practiced at all.
Her pitch is all over the place, she forgets the lyrics, I mess up constantly and also forget my parts and get off time.
The more though we’ve focused on band practice, we’re getting more cohesive and solid and we’re actually getting progress on our originals.
So my question is…
How important is sole practice in comparison to band practice and how should the time be spent on each?
Thank you all!!

 

[idssdi]

Being a solid band ALWAYS comes from spending time playing together. Playing along a backingtrack simply isn’t the same as playing with humans. Humans make mistake s and backingtrack don’t.
To answer your question neither is more beneficial than the other because their meant to practice different things. Band practice makes you practice playing with other people and solo practice makes you practice being able to play stuff in the first place. Once you’ve done your solo practice and have a setlist down when you play by yourself you should start focusing m on band practice. Band practice is effectively useless when people don’t have their shit together(didn’t practice solo)

 

[Guest]

i think when you pratice sole ,you work more your dexterity ans stuff like that … like everybody play guitare alone at home . play with other person in band or in a jam ,for me i think it’s more benefic for the musical comunication ! play with a drumer is one of the great thing i do with my band it’s like metronome but better ahah for the cas of your singer how forget the lyrics and thing like that , i thing i’ts just je stress to play in front of another person ! the fear of not sing good or something like that . she juste need to get trust inself and in she voice , im sure she a good singers my final word it’after all , i think play sole or with a band , it’s a good think in two case and when you can make the two together so , you win all oh and sorry for my amazing bad english xD im french ^^

 

[Gabriel Corso]

Well Jak, this is a very interesting topic.
Because both scenarios help you improve.
Let me explain:
Backingtracks give you the opportunity to learn and apply scales, feeling at home by yourself.
Band practice help you use what you have learnt at home with backingtracks. But in this case you have more people playing and sometimes they miss some chords or miss the tempo – and that is fine, it happens. But you can actually learn from this band mistakes and ty to know each other way more than before.
Dave Grohl once said that you actually know people by jamming with them.
The main point is that backing tracks help you to play with your friends. And playing with your friends help you to improve on your backing tracks because you know what works live.
Also, you start to know your bands style and there will be a time when there is no more errors!
I dont know if I was very clear haha. It is kind of hard to explain this feeling.
But it is very natural.

 

[Gabriel Corso]

MUSICAL COMUNICATION !!!!! That sums all of what i was trying to say hahaha.
Thanks @tevah !

 

[Guest]

ahah the best way to comunicat @gabriel

 

[Gabriel Corso]

For sure!!

 

[Ed Seith]

Lots of great stuff here. The only thing I would add is that if you don’t do band practice frequently (and you don’t – once a week is not frequent), then there are things you can do to help make band practice more productive.
Not judging, my band only practices once a week, as well. Less lately, because jobs n shit.
What I do, though, is I have a playlist of the setlist for the next show. That’s what we’re working on in band practice, right? Playing through the setlist for the next gig.
So I play through the playlist for the next practice. The night before is fine. I have practice tonight (hopefully). Last night, after my warmup, I played through the setlist, or at least as much of it as I felt I needed to (we have 18 tunes on the set right now). I focus on the ones with interesting or different arrangements, progressions, or chords, to get everything fresh under my fingers before practice.
At practice, if we fuck up, we back up. Some mistakes are tiny and you just plow forward. Anything that causes a ruckus in the group (more than one person’s mistake), we start the song over. Several times, if we need to, to get it right and tight.
That refresher can help with remembering arrangements and staying on track. It’s better to know the number of repetitions of something than it is to count on a certain embellishment (unless you work out beforehand that the embellishment is a cue). You can write out a map.
Intro (2x)
Verse (4x)
Bridge (1x)
Chorus (2x)
Intro (1x)
Verse 2 (6x)
etc. Follow the map.
For your singer, if she’s in pitch during warmup but not in practice, there may be an audible difference she’s just not recognizing – maybe she can hear herself better at home than at practice? Maybe the introduction of earplugs at practice is messing with her? Study the differences.
She should work to shorten her lyric “cheat sheet.” Start with a full sheet. As she gets comfy, only the first few words of each line. Then the first two. Then only the first word of each line. Finally, the first word of each section (verse, chorus) etc. as a prompt.
Hope some of these tips are helpful! Good luck!

 

[Jake Arnold]

I may be repeating someone, I apologize if so because I just jumped down to the bottom to give my personal experience with this.
I do the same, playing on my own for a few hours everyday and then once a week get together with the band and play. I had to change practice to assembly of songs only, because we were not making any progress and we were just arguing because one person needed to learn this, another learn that and it was all over the place. Also some members were waiting a week until practice to even play again (which in my book is a no no lol). Since we have switched to practice being for assembly and tightening down songs only and everyone has to work on there own through out the week, we have been making great progress and actually having fun and not fighting about what the song is/isnt doing.
So I would say personally, Sole practice is super super important, the better everyone knows how to play their parts alone and on time, the easier it is to assemble the songs as a group. Band practice is important for making sure everything is tightened down and sounding good. (In my own personal experience with the current band)
I response to you messing up while playing at practice, Do you get nervous at all that you are playing with other people and just want to do 100 and when you mess up you kinda get anxious and it makes you keep messing up? My main thing when I play live is making sure to ignore any nervousness, because that will make me destroy solo’s and make my singing go off pitch. I used to get nervous at practice too (I didn’t like singing in front of people), even though its just friends and that would make me go off pitch, maybe your friend has the same thing? I can’t look at anyone while singing a new song at practice bc Ill mess it up if I can see eyes on me.
You can always message me if anything I said stuck out to you!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

You guys deliver the goods as ALWAYS!! I’m so sorry I am just now responding to all these wonderful tips and points. I wish I could truly extend my gratitude as this all has helped SO much! I’m going to start balancing out my practice regimen a little more to incorporate more band time, as we are still in the process of writing our album as well as recording it.
You guys rock. Seriously.