extra hour of rehearsal
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
About six weeks ago at our church I asked the band who were playing on a given night to turn up an hour earlier than they had previously. I was nervous about this because I didn't want to be taking up too much of the guys time. I thought that as everyone only plays 2 in 6 weeks, they could afford the arvo. The purpose of it was to look at the bible together, chat, and to think more creatively about the music they played rather than just rushing through each song.
I was reflecting yesterday how this has been really successful.
Each week one or two songs have new arrangements that I get feedback about. Most people find the new arrangements realy helpful in re-thinking about what they are singing. I also think that a sense of team has developed amongst the bands and they are working well together. All in all I think it was a good move. If you are a muso or a member at our church let me know what you think. If you are from elsewhere let us know how your rehearsals run.
Posted byDan at 8:00 AM
How long are your rehearsals now, Dan?
4-6:30 so two and a half hours. That only happens twice every six weeks though.
An extra hour?!? Gosh, I thought I was pushing my luck moving our rehearsal back by an extra 15 minutes!
I go to a morning church where most people are families with young kids, so its hard work getting the musos (me included, in fact me especially!) to turn up to church too early to practice.
Anyway, we've now decided to arrive at 9.15am to set up and rehearse for a 10.00am service. In an ideal world, we'd have more time than that, but it's not an ideal world really is it!
I will, though, be trying to have separate jam sessions more regularly to muck around and try out new songs. We had one a few weeks ago that seemed to work quite well (except for the fact that half the new songs I tried to give a run got the Thumbs Down from substantial portions of the team!!).