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Music Rehearsal: A Userʼs Guide
By David JolleyEvery musician, no matter what facet of the industry, will inevitably face the daunting specter of rehearsal. Below you will find a set of guidelines to (hopefully) ease this process that to many can become the bane of the very existence of any working musician. A lot of this probably seems pretty common sense, but this author remarkably lacks in such things and has had to learn some of it the hard way.
1.) Be prepared
Get your music as early as possible and actually look at it a little bit. Score study can make all the difference when preparing for a rehearsal process. I know that if you’re like me, procrastination can be your enemy when it comes to looking over your part. The more face time you spend with the music, the more familiar you will be with the notes, rhythms, and road map of any musical endeavor. If there is limited or no written music to learn, try to familiarize yourself with the style and intent of whatever you are going to rehearse. You can do this by listening to recordings of the band you will be playing with, bands with similar styles, or the actual tune, piece, or score when possible.
ARTICLE
Tales From the Pit: My Career as a Professional Drummer
By David JolleySo. I’m going to assume that you’ve been trying to eke out a living doing what you love to do, while holding on to the last vestiges of your confidence and pride. You have come to a point where anything, ANYTHING, will be helpful to get you out of that next shift at the Burger Hut. Chet, your 19 year old boss, frequently complains that the rhythm of your patty flipping is slowing the “line flow” to an extent that your 16 year old peers are messing up the order of condiments. Chet knows rhythm. In fact, his emo-nerd-prog-zydeco-funk explosion recently broke up because the lead singer’s girlfriend “managed the band’s finances” to the point of extinction and he’s chosen to take it out on lucky you. Maybe you are waiting for Stevie Wonder to hear a clip of you on You Tube and say to himself, “Stevie, I gotta have that guy in my band and pay him ten million dollars a show!” Or perhaps, you are like me and a great deal of my musician friends stuck here in the middle, trying to make things happen and having decent success, but at a loss as to what the next step may be or how to make the most of opportunities at hand.
Fear not, dear reader. There are thousands of us out here. But there is work, Some of it rewarding. Anyone who has the skills, personality, and ambition to take the necessary steps to shed that scratchy, polyester Burger Hut uniform and invest the time and energy can make a go as (dare I say) a professional musician.
