how the hell did you get 8hours of practice time a day in highschool! im at school from 9 till 4......an hr and a half kit practice, then study from 7 until 10...then maybe half an hr or so on the pad on my legs , something like that....oh, when i leave school in the summer i'm doing an 8hour a day job on the kit! Then off doing music in college so should have good time there, i have to to make up for the lost time, but i try and make it efficiant
I forsee this thread developing into a "playing" vs. "practicing" debate. The title of this thread led me to think of playing as performing, or at least playing with other humans, not just practicing for 27 hours a day.
Well, if you read the first post, it's not about playing out or just jamming with people. With that said, I think that all performances are practices, and all practices with other people are performances.
Ha! I couldn't agree more - nothing worse than just holding it all down so that everyone else can trade solo's until hell freezes over. Speaking of hell, that's just what I imagine it's like!"Jamming" is even more boring than practice! : P
Jamming is and important part of band development. We now set aside about a half hour of practice time for the whole band to just jam together.
It is a little boring for me sometimes, But the benefits outweigh the tediousness.
I'm fortunate that I had teachers who understood that I had talent, and didn't care if I skipped out of some classes to play, as long as I maintained an A average, which I could do with my eyes shut. My day basically went like this:
5 AM - Wake Up
6 AM - Go to school, sit behind the kit and practice (1 hour of playing in)
7 AM - Some of the guys from the jazz band would show up and we'd jam (2 hours in)
8 AM - Homeroom was spent in the band room rehearsing (2 hours 20 minutes in)
8:20 AM - Either band or orchestra, alternating every day (3 hours in)
At least one class a day was skipped (with permission) to practice (4 hours in)
12 PM - Lunch in the band room jamming with same guys from morning (4.5 hours in)
After school, if we had marching band practice or jazz practice, that was three hours right there. If not, I would spend that time practicing at home. (7.5 hours in)
When I got home, I would spend a half hour or hour behind the drums, just blowing off steam (that was probably the least "practicing" part of the whole day, just me tearing into the kit and clearing my head), and then start on homework, which usually took about an hour. Then it was either working on a pad, or being on the internet, talking to friends, etc. I would be asleep around midnight, get five hours of sleep, and repeat.
Okay, fair enough. When I was a teenager and playing with my brother and his friends, that was all we did was jam. Later in high school with another set of musician buddies, that was still all I was ever doing. But it was great from a musical development perspective. We were doing jam versions of songs from Santana, Jeff Beck (Freeway Jam, Lead Boots), Larry Coryell, etc., and some originals jams.Jamming is and important part of band development. ...But the benefits outweigh the tediousness.
I was agreeing with you Mike. Jamming can be torture sometimes. I was like you, I spent years jamming. It still is a necessary means to an end sometimes. It also does have its great moments!
I don't get it. What's torturous about jamming? Improv (in any area of life) is the funnest [sic] thing ever!
If the musos are competent and unselfish and you're being a slave to the rhythm it can't go wrong. Especially fun if you have a vocalist who can make up words on the fly. Is it the lack of structure and the danger of doing some seriously stinky work?
Sorry about that Bob, I misread the intent of your post.I was agreeing with you Mike. Jamming can be torture sometimes. I was like you, I spent years jamming. It still is a necessary means to an end sometimes. It also does have its great moments!
i gotta start getting up early! pitty though i can only play behind a kit for an hour and a half a day, at most, if i got up early it would just be me playing stuff on my knee
When you have jammed for many years you look forward to set structure with a slight bit of improv.I don't get it. What's torturous about jamming? Improv (in any area of life) is the funnest [sic] thing ever!
If the musos are competent and unselfish and you're being a slave to the rhythm it can't go wrong. Especially fun if you have a vocalist who can make up words on the fly. Is it the lack of structure and the danger of doing some seriously stinky work?
When you have jammed for many years you look forward to set structure with a slight bit of improv.
Don't forget I played in numerous Grateful Dead/Phish like jam bands. It gets old after a while.
The band is jamming and everything is going fine, Then the band comes to a point in the song and everyone looks at each other for direction while I smash cymbals to hide the train wreak! LOL
MikeM said:Unlike Neil Peart, though, I never play the same song the same way twice. I just like to know where I am in a song. Maybe within a song, there's room for open sections that aren't quite worked out all the way, so that getting through is more like surfing a wave where you're just rolling with it, but you can pretty closely guess how much time you have before that wave crashes into the beach.
Last thing is that I'm thoroughly burned out on the idea of everyone taking solos. It used to be every song had to have at least one. It's just a form that I'm not terribly fond of anymore, maybe never really was. My favorite feature of the grunge movement was the near extinction of the solo.