Structure!!

Alright, alright! I hear you!! It has been brought to my attention that the band needs to start getting some structure in meetings so that we can work towards our goal of playing for more people than can fit in my bedroom.

This is what we are going to do.

The next full band meeting we have... where everyone can make it:

We will play every single song we have written so far (even songs we played once then wandered away from). Everyone will have paper and pens and will take notes. Everyone get all your songs and song ideas together and bring them to rehearsal.

After that meeting everyone will go on their own and make a list of their ideal setlist. Pick 10 original songs that we have and type them on this blog. These are not the songs that you necessarily like the best or think are the best... they are the songs that you think would make the best set. We will need a mix of slow, fast, happy, sad, etc, etc....

Obviously we have more than 10 songs that we are working on so some songs will be left out. We just all need to agree not to get defensive or hurt if a song we write doesn't make the cut. This is business time so no feelings!! (Yes, I am talking to myself.)

We can then take the lists and cross-reference them. The songs that get the least number of votes get eliminated. I figure we will probably end up with a list of 10-15 songs. These will be the songs we need to work on.

Other band rehearsals:

Each band rehearsal we will pick 2 songs that we really focus on but we will play all the songs that we have worked on so far at least once.

Band Rehearsal Schedule:

1. Everyone show any new material they are working on. New chord progressions or lyrics. We can discuss new stuff as a band and see what's going on.

2. Play one - three songs that we have worked on so far.

3. Rehearse last week's focus song. This should be the song that we worked on at the end of the last band meeting. We can work on getting all the timing smoothed out and making sure we can play it together flawlessly.

4. Play one - 3 songs

5. Work on this week's focus song. Now we will work on getting everyone parts to a song that we haven't focused on yet. This will be the most creative part as we try to get a song together. We can also take this time to record the parts that we have down and email them to everyone so we can practice. Then everyone can individually work on their part at home and be ready for working on playing it together at the next band meeting....

5. Play the rest of the songs we haven't played yet.

6. Go hang out and act stupid.

This would be the schedule for each week's main band meeting... as long as everyone is there. If there is a week when someone can't make it than we can just work on individual parts to which ever songs.

Once we create our 'set list' I can make a schedule of when we will work on which song and post it on this blog. The set list we make isn't set in stone... but I think it will be a good starting point to make sure that we get songs going.

Is everyone in agreement about this? Please post a comment and let me know if you agree to this... have any modifications... hate it... love it... whatever...

An addendum:

Noah pointed out in the comments that I forgot to mention covers. He has a great idea.

We need to schedule a band meeting where we get together and everyone brings 5 cover songs that they would like to put in for consideration. We can take some time and listen to them all and discuss. This way we can choose which songs we are going to cover as an informed group. Start looking around for songs that we can cover and get them on a CD.

Try to pick songs that are widely known, that we can actually pull off playing, and that I can actually sing. LOL. Obviously we can take songs and modify them to suit us but let's not get too ambitious just yet.

Oh, and bonus points if you bring a Coldplay song. =P~