Rehearsal time is precious. You’re getting a whole group of people together and if your time slot is 60 minutes, you need to take that times the number of people in your group. If you have a tech person and six band members, you’re not just investing one hour, your team is investing seven hours!
So here are two very small tricks for maximizing your time together:
Talk Through The Song
Taking 90 seconds to talk through the song flow will provide some benefit. It will help people follow you, allow you to share any thing unique like a solo time or other specific thing, and will help get everyone mentally engaged in the song, with the right key before you begin.
Start With The End
Another way to save time is to begin with a quick plan to end the song. Nothing derails a song more quickly then a bad ending during rehearsal. Go ahead and determine how you want to end, how it will sound, who will be playing, and then run through it before you begin the whole song.
Adding these two things to your flow and your rehearsal habits will save you time in the long run.
A few years back, I recorded a video about the Five Ground Rules For Rehearsals – take a look here!