Play It With Moxie had our best ever performance at GAFilk at the beginning of this year! Not only was it the most rocking set list we have ever put together, but also we were more confident, rehearsed, and unstressed than we have ever been. Much of this success comes from lessons learned during past rehearsals and performances over the last 9 years. These are some things I have learned over the years as Play It With Moxie grew from a trio to a nine-piece jazz band with horn section.
1. Feed the band. I know I am absolutely useless without food. And, I think we all benefit from well-maintained blood sugar. We always start our Moxie practices with a dinner out or occasionally food brought in. Yes, dairy does make one’s voice all milky for a little while afterward. But, not only does having fuel make a huge difference in the energy level of the band as a whole, but eating together subtly binds people together and gets them more entrained for when they actually are trying coordinate musical timing. Maybe it’s a comfort association. Food=friendship=better music.
2. Four songs on/5 minutes off. Part of the fun of making music with your friends is that they are your friends. Rather than having to politely (or not) ask everyone to please stop talking, or tuning, or beating drum sticks up the wall, or blowing really loud into their horn, or whatever, so that you can go on to song number 13 without a break; consider, taking a short break after every four songs. I set a timer, just like I do when I’m giving my son a short break from his homework. We seem to work more efficiently if we’re given reliable and regular breaks. This was a new strategy this year, and it’s a keeper.
3. Mix up the types of songs you practice just like you would mix them up on a set list. Make sure there are fast and slow, easy and difficult, and familiar and unfamiliar. Don’t save all the new difficult stuff for the end of the practice. And if you have more than one singer, try to make sure more than one of them gets to sing during your four song ‘practice set.’ That way your singers are less likely to blow their voices out.
4. Mic your singers during practice, so they don’t hurt themselves. We have a horn section, amplified, guitar, amplified, bass, and drum kit. Singers need the love too. Back when the band was much smaller, this did not seem as necessary, but I think this is helpful in smaller ensembles too. It allows the singer to get used to working with a microphone during practice. It allows the rest of the band to know where they need to calm down a bit so they don’t play over the singers.
5. If you have personnel playing more than one instrument in the set, arrange your set list accordingly. We had talked about doing that for years, as one of our bass players also plays tenor sax. Now almost half of us double or even triple up on instruments. So this year, we arranged the set list, so that people had as few instrument changes as possible. Wow! We were so much less stressed on stage. We had a better time and played more songs than we have ever gotten to perform at this engagement. Twenty-five! Normally, we would get through 21 and just barely at that.
6. Run the set list in order if possible at least once before your bigger performances—particularly if you don’t get to perform often as an ensemble. We have a two hour 15 minute dinner/dance set we do at GAFilk every year. When we ran the set list this year we called it an ‘undressed rehearsal,’ because we wore comfy clothes: sweatpants, tee shirts, and big old over-sized pajamas while we rehearsed. (We had the advantage of having a practice in the basement of the hotel we were going to be performing in.)
7. Wear some of your more unusual performance apparel at your practice. I wasn’t really going to discuss practicing in your performance clothes, because that is covered in so many other performance tip sheets. But, if you are going to be wearing things you do not normally wear (constricting sleeves or high-heeled shoes,) you should at least test them out in company. You never know if your sleeves may attack your fellow horn players! That clarinet neck strap may not actually work when going from piano to clarinet and back. I have learned that, since I always wear a long prom-style gown at Moxie performances and usually sit on a piano bench, there is no need for me to wear high-heeled shoes. They are uncomfortable, and no one sees my feet. I go bare-footed as soon as I can.
8. Have a ‘band factotum’ as Dave Rood calls him. We have a Wesley. I recommend highly having a Wesley at your practices that loves your band, makes coffee and tea, helps lift things, or goes and finds them for you so you can keep rehearsing, arranges things with the hotel staff (and knows them all by name) so you don’t pull your hair out, and makes sure you stop to eat. But you can’t have our Wesley. Go find your own!
Dr. Mary Crowell is the band leader of Play It With Moxie , a mostly Atlanta-based swing jazz band that “performs ballroom banquet music in the glorious tradition of the early 20th century. Here you’ll find swing, Latin, ballads, vocal harmonies and a horn section, all delivered with class… with style… with Moxie.” (Quoted from website. )
