Munch's Corner

Rehearsals to Performances

Why should people come to see you? They want something refreshing when they come to your shows. With some preemptive thought, you can give it to them. The goal of practicing is to perform, and to perform you must practice. First you practice to rehearse; then rehearse to perform; then you perform. Another goal could be to play so often that your practices and rehearsals are traded for performances. Then your sound checks become your rehearsals.

You should have individual and group practices. When you practice individually at home, spend a quarter of that time learning difficult parts to be played during group practices. Half of that time should be spent on rudiments and fundamentals. The other quarter you can spend learning and augmenting new techniques, challenging yourself personally. The group practice is for putting yourselves together in a group effort to work on the material you want to present in the live show. Put a friendly-reminder-sign to leave cell phones off, no phone lines in the room, and anything you can think of that would possibly disturb your practice. Have something like a rules list for your time together. People can and will rationalize anything. They key is treating yourself seriously enough and respecting others' time, to make judgment calls from a business frame of reference. If you take this time seriously, you'll basically live by these rules. If you practice at someone's house, try to have someone else in another area watching children; and no one, including spouses, are to interrupt. There should be no one in the room except band members and management. This should be treated just like a job. When you work a regular job, you're usually not allowed to have family and friends BS and keep you from doing what's expected of you. They know not to take it personally when you can't talk, because you're working. There should be absolutely no difference whatsoever. This is your business.

There is a huge difference between practicing and rehearsing. As you progress to the point where you're ready to start booking the band, you begin to prepare for those shows. At this stage it's assumed that, overall for the sake of this article, your group practice time has grown into the actual rehearsing of your show. Now when you get together, you have the goal of pulling these shows off as smoothly as possible. This requires you to set yourself up to pretending you're now at those shows live. You spend the time going through each song and the entire show without stopping for mistakes.

The next phase would be a production rehearsal. If you have crewmembers, pyro, trucks, gear, etc. this is the time before a string of shows begins, to practice packing and unpacking the trucks in a timely manner. Set the stop watches to see how long it takes to set up drums, backline, all phases of production, and setting off special effects (which could be a separate Pyro Rehearsal). Do the agents and road management have the proper stage plots, diagrams, input lists, merchandise, etc.?

We're now just about ready for the tour. The only thing missing so far has been the actual live feeling. Invite people to come to a free show or two. Run through the whole show. You're live, but still at a stage where some changes can be made before you get into the mass duplication of the show. This is your dress rehearsal. Everyone should pay attention to the audience. Realize their reactions to segments of the show. How well does the set work for everyone? Are there any minor or even major changes that should be discussed?

Take your show and present it to your fans for the next year or so. This is what they come to see you for. And this is what you've spent so much time and effort to give them.

The next step is to take time off. Maybe take a couple of months, or the winter. Towards the end of the tour you've usually come up with new ideas for the show. Don't incorporate them into the present run. Wait until this period of time off. Now is where you throw all your new ideas together to develop a whole new show. Give some of the money back to the fans by giving them a new experience or product. Put a new CD out, or new merchandise, or whatever. Change your show often enough that no one gets bored with you, including yourselves. You probably couldn't count the number of bands you've personally seen in clubs who do the same thing year after year after year. There are many great poets out there, but most of them only get credit long after they're dead.

Change your set list around each night. Have a different list for each night of the week if you have to. Keep yourselves on your toes so you don't get bored doing a routine every night.

To map this out, set about a certain time period for practices. Everyone get together and schedule group practices as well as commit to the group specific times when you'll individually practice at home. Put this on a wall- or desk-calendar. Then set a time period for rehearsals. Then production-rehearsals and dress-rehearsals (free shows). Now map out the touring schedule. As soon as dates come up that you can't book shows for, get them on the calendar. Try to have a guestimate on when you'd like the tour to end. This way you can look forward to scheduled time-off, as well as prepare for your next tour, or leg of shows.

-Munch
www.lanissa-marx.com.

To order "Is Your Band Organized?"
Munch Marx Publishing
1544 A Ave. E.
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-5141
319-247-2472
Fax: 319-369-0309
email: munch@lanissa-marx.com
www.lanissa-marx.com

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