5 Simple Steps to a Great Rehearsal

[ Guest post by Justin Nava. ]

Think about your last rehearsal. Was it your best? Worst? Did you accomplish everything you set out to do?

If your rehearsal isn’t perfect, then you’re on the right track. The first step to a quality rehearsal is to make mistakes.

Once you’ve accepted this fact, begin to internalize and communicate the following concepts to the band. When the entire band acts as one ensemble following one vision, rehearsals change from a time of learning to a time of improvement.

1. Rehearsal is like a potluck.

A successful potluck is made up of everyone bringing their best meals to share. No one brings ingredients to the event and starts cooking it during the prayer for blessing. Everyone cooks at home and brings a completed dish to the potluck, and you build a delicious plate of food.

It’s the same concept with rehearsal. Rehearsal is not a place for band members to start learning their part. Learning music takes place at home, and everyone brings their complete “dish” to the rehearsal. In rehearsal, we learn how the parts fit together and we build the song. You and your musicians need to engrave this in your minds.

Have the band commit to learning their music at home, and your rehearsal time will cut in half.

2. It’s all about you.

This is going to be scary to hear…you as the leader need to know every part of the song, and you need to know how to teach it.

If your drummer can’t nail his part, you need to be able to sing it for him and direct him on which drums to hit. You need to know how the electric guitarist should finger his part, and what each harmony the praise team will sing.

In classical music, we call this “score study”. It’s difficult to navigate a ship without knowing what direction you should go, and it’s difficult to lead a rehearsal if you don’t know what you want the music to sound like.

You need to be the leader and a teacher, learn the parts.

3. It’s not all about you.

The rehearsal time is not about you, how well you play, and what you can play. Same goes for your musicians.

It’s great your guitarist can play the intro to Sweet Child of Mine, but at no point during rehearsal should they be rockin’ it when you’re talking to the drummer or anyone else. And it’s great that you can improv a 30 second vocal tag, but unless you need to rehearse it for Sunday, don’t waste rehearsal time on it.

Keep the band focused on the task at hand: rehearsing.

4. To play the right notes, you have to take notes.

Unless you have professional musicians, your band is probably playing off of sheet music or chord charts. Everyone needs to have a pencil on their stands or the capability to take notes on their digital sheet music.

When your bassist plays the wrong note, tell them to mark on the sheet music what the correct note/fret is, or simply circle it on the page. If the drummer misses an entrance, they need to mark on the sheet music where it is. If the guitarist has trouble remembering the fingering of a lick, take 30 seconds and write a TAB on the chord chart.

Most of the time you won’t remember the right note on Sunday, but if you write it down you don’t have to remember! I’ve included one of my own pieces of music as an example below.

Rehearse smart and take notes.

5. Teach Musicianship

This goes along same line as “teach a man to fish”. If you teach your guitarist the intro to Fierce by Jesus Culture, he’ll be able to play that one song. But if you teach him how to listen for parts, fingering, and music theory, you won’t have to spend rehearsal time teaching him parts for every other song.

This doesn’t mean you take 10 minutes out of every rehearsal to teach passing tones or chordal theory, but when you have to teach something, also explain why that is. Why does the an Asus chord lead into an A chord? Why should the piano and guitar not play in the same octave? Why should the bass play up the neck sometimes and not stay in the comfortable low octave?

Musical independence is the key to having an excellent rehearsal and building excellent musicians.

About Justin Nava
Justin Nava holds a bachelor’s degree in Church Music from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and currently serves as the Media Director for Memorial Baptist Church in Killeen, TX. You can find him on Twitter at @justinnava.