indie music: April 2010 Archives

So, yeah, these band posts are going to come in a fairly random order as we're half way through the steps I outlined in post one.

I just had a great rehearsal. It was a perfect mix of getting the work done and enjoying the moment. Let me go through it.

Firstly. We use Juju rehearsal studios on Huaihai Road/Huashan Road in the basement of Huashan Gardens (1635 Huashan Lu). Their number is 6280 1415.

They have two rooms and we tend to go for the large one. Today we had the large room for 2 hours at the cheaper daytime rate and paid 80 Yuan in total. That's just 20 yuan each (about 3 USA dollars).

Shanghai's studios generally supply all the main equipment. In this case the room came with a drum kit, two guitar amps, a bass amp and a PA with mics. All this was included in the price.

During the two hours we worked on 6 out of our 8 current songs. The average song is around 4 minutes and we did a straight practice-play through of each one 2 or 3 times. This accounted for about an hour and ten minutes. There was some setting up time of course, for a full band maybe 15 mins. After all that we went back and worked on some problem areas or newer parts. We fixed the pacing of our song Paris 68 and worked on parts of the newest song The Rainbow Warrior. 

While clearing up we decided to make a rehearsal tape of The Rainbow Warrior next week as a priority so that our singer could work at home on melodies.

All in all i'd say that out of 2 hours about 85-90 minutes (about 75%) was actual playing. In my view that's pretty good.

I have a band. This is also a project dear to my heart that has a kind of plan. The plan went something like this:

1) write some songs

2) establish a band page online

3) with help, record demos of the songs

4) find other band members for a permanent line up

5) rehearse together

6) play a show

I'm at stage five now and there are many helpful practical pointers to blog about so watch this category I will post a lot here, starting back at stage one.

There are two important premises to these posts though and they both come before the start of the project.

Firstly, I've been playing guitar since I was 13 and am very familiar with the workings of songwriting and being in a band. If you are not, then you have to add a few stages on the front of my plan. Secondly, I live downtown and in the area that houses most of the music scene. 

The final consideration is that me and this blog are based in Shanghai. The scene is underground and developing. These posts are not reinventing the wheel, they illustrate the practical realities of having a band here. OK, see you soon.