Nord User Forum

Per week:
On learning new songs/ Practicing old ones?
On tweaking and learning new gear/New Apps/ new whatever you have just acquired or you don't know very well?

When I see all the posts about how to do this, do solve that, I wonder how they could spend so much time when I have two practice four hours per week, plus two other ones with a second band, and we add on both band 1 or 2 new songs every two weeks...
Plus preparing the Ipad for Setlist maker, printing/finding the score/right sounds/right gimmick for the songs etc...

I'm like in "Sultans of Swing", I have a day time job for 40 hours per week....

So, just to know
Sincerely

I now play in 3 bands and since I don't work anymore spend about 3 hrs a day during 5 days a week.

I play in 3 bands but luckily all 3 repertoires are quite consolidated. So I spend little or no time on that, usually I do some adjustments at rehearsals to make a certain patch sound better, and then I check it at home to make sure everything is OK, save it, backup etc.

When we set up new songs it depends, sometimes it's just a few minutes for the easy ones, like the standard rock'n'roll where I just need to throw a simple piano background.

But usually it's much more, I need to listen to the new song multiple times (I usually look for both album and live versions), transcribe lyrics/chords/instrumental parts/riffs, and then program the appropriate sounds and learn it.
I guess on average it's anywhere between 2 and 6 hours work for a complete new song, from "Never heard it" to "90% gig-ready".

EDIT: I realized I didn't really answer the question. I'd say for me it's normally 6 to 10 hours per week, including both rehearsals and private practice, where I fine-tune songs and programs, but most of all I practice and experiment with my toys (right now I'm neglecting piano and bit and concentrating on synthesis and learning Hammond).

And yes, I have a day job, so these hours are usually late at night or weekends

I try to spend a minimum 1 hour per evening practicing hard pieces, fingering, working on new songs. With the Nord, I have spent 12 hours thus far programming 40 programs for the setlist I do with a Top 40 band. The 12 hours included studying the architecture and manual as I am new to Nord. I am not done yet. I have about 40 more songs to program. Some are simple, some are complicated with samples and I can't do those until the Sample Editor is finished/released. I won't be able to take this keyboard to a job UNTIL THE SE IS FINISHED!!!!

For other bands, I just use bread and butter sounds and programs. Once I learn the Nord and get all my songs converted/programmed I will only spend an hour or two a week learning/programming as necessary.

Doing this stuff *is* my job.

As much time as I can I love sitting with my rig and tinkering.

DH

Hey Quai34.

I work 40 hours a week too, and often wish I have more time for music, but it’s a deliberate choice not to make of music my income source -other topic.

What I do:

I play in three bands, with various profiles, but all original compositions, no covers. No virtuosity (rock between grunge to filmscore-ish going through energic electronics), but some coordination issues sometimes.


I’m the founder of one of them so the difficulty of learning the songs is up to my mate and I: the more difficult the longer to make it good. In this one, I have to program a MachineDrum (I owe you some links ), a Moog synth for bass parts and a Clavia G2. For the later, I don’t patch anymore, I rather use a handful of patches I’ve been enhancing through years (architectures of NordLead, Juno 6, RS-09 for instance). We rehearse once a week; sometimes it’s just for maintaining the existing songs, sometimes hard composition work. Being only two means songs have to be arranged so that they sound cool with only two voices, four hands and four feet (pedal boards inside…). That’s a couple of hours a week.

The second band is one I joined. So I had to learn the songs, then rearrange them for my gear and we are now composing music in band. What has been a real benefit for fixing interpretation is a “residence” we had last year. I’m not sure how to say it in English, but it consists in renting a venue and play, re-play etc the set with some professional throwing us criticism and advice. Very nice experience. The ambitions of this bands are quite high even if not professional: half of us as pro musicians, but the other half does not want to give up on their jobs to do this full time. Now that we have approximately one hour of material, we rehearse more or less we needed, that is before gigs and once in a while. Demoing at home is another activity we sometimes have, and recording sessions are in the pipe. All in all, that’s 3 hours a week when a rehearsal occurs.

The third band I play in is my teenage band; been playing together ten years, been off ten more years, and back to business for two years now. This is the easiest part: we totally understand each other in one look, there is a main author composer and we play arrange songs. Sometimes another one brings something, and we always end setting a the 80-90% of a new song in two-three 30 minutes sessions. The remains percentage is done along the sessions, things have to get mature.
This represents 3 hours a week when rehearsal occur.

Besides, I play at home to maintain that, to find my sounds, parts, settings. Not on a regular basis, maybe 2 hours a week in average.
And finally, I happen to wander between synths and pedals, pretending to search my settings for bands

So basically, when none band rehearse, I play a couple of hours during the week end. And heaviest weeks have me playing 7-8 hours out of the office hours.


What I’d like to do:
Work a bit more of basic technic: left hand, simple jazz piano exercises,… Learn piano tracks as I used to do at one point.
Learn bass for funk in particular. Resume making my own FX pedals too… Compose and record my own songs – that happens once in a while, actually.

Voilà

This is a hobby and purely for my own enjoyment. I have a full-time job. I do have the luxury of working from home, so I spend about the first 90 minutes of my day practicing.

I play in two traditional big bands, occasionally sit in with a third, have a jazz fusion band and play small combo stuff with various other musicians. I went back to taking lessons about a year ago after more than 30 years, and have gotten serious about my practice regime.

- Scales: majors, various minors, diminished, altered in various meters (to play better solos)
- Diatonic motion practice: only major modes right now, but in various meters and styles (improve soloing skills)
- Classical pieces: I'm currently working on Bach Inventions #4, #6, #8 and Clair de Lune (to develop touch, timing and better regimented playing)
- Improvisation: Usually done with iRealPro over standard jazz tunes or ii-V-I variations
- Transcribing: The is a first for me. I'm currently transcribing a recording of A Sleeping' Bee done by Ellis Marsalis
- Popular songs: currently working on Maple Lead Rag and Linus and Lucy
- Working on specific band tunes as required. I'll always practice our standard fusion book the few days leading up to a gig (which are not that often)

I don't do all of these at every sitting, but do try to tackle the respective development objectives of each. It's never been easy for me to perfectly emulate playing a song; I've always improvised, so learning how play something exact is a significant challenge.

Big band is mostly reading, so I get my reading practice there. I also get a solid 2-3 hour block of time a few times a month on a weekend or evening, which helps me bang stuff out.

I spend a whole lot more time practicing than I do tinkering with instruments. I will do some programming on the Stage to prepare for a new fusion tune, as well as some tweaking of sounds when I hear something on a gig I don't like. But I'm much more focused on improving as a player right now.

Good point Rusty Mike: improvisation is what I aim to, actually.

Thanks a lot for your inputs, very interesting, I thought I would get no or very few responses...
@Analogika:
I knew you were going to say that, I've been to your website....Great Collection of analog gear by the way...