Practice Structure

A rehearsal of four to eight men with chord charts, beer within reach, and twenty songs in the book will drift into a pub night within fifteen minutes if nobody runs it. This chapter is how to keep a rehearsal moving — what to do, in what order, for how long.

A 90-minute rehearsal

Ninety minutes is the sweet spot for a weekly band practice. Long enough to actually move songs forward; short enough that everyone's voice and concentration last. Structure:

0:00 — 0:15 · Warm-up

Non-negotiable. Five minutes of vocal warm-up (see Voice as Instrument) plus ten minutes of band warm-up — the three exercises at the end of Singing Together:

Single-note blend (2 min)
Unison melody check on a chorus everyone knows (3 min)
Lead/chorus simulation on one song the band already has (5 min)

While the singers are warming up, instrumentalists tune to a shared reference pitch (usually the guitar). Everyone agrees on the same A. Yes, every rehearsal — instruments drift, and a band that starts out of tune stays out of tune.

0:15 — 0:45 · Work session 1 (the hard thing)

Pick one song that needs real work — a new song, a tricky harmony arrangement, a tempo that's been wandering. Work it for 30 minutes. This is where actual progress happens, and it has to come early when ears and voices are fresh.

Discipline for the work session:

Identify the specific problem out loud before you start. "The chorus drags on the third repeat" or "Mike and Dave's harmony parts collide on the word 'sailor'." Vague work = no progress.
Slow it down to fix it. If something isn't working at performance tempo, drop to half-speed, fix the mechanics, then bring tempo back up.
Loop the trouble bar. Don't restart from the top every time — work the bar that broke, ten times in a row, then build outward.
Resist the urge to "just run it once more." If you've nailed the fix, move on. Re-running the whole song after a fix has been made is how you re-introduce the old mistake.

0:45 — 1:00 · Break

Actual break. Drink water. Stand up. Let voices rest five minutes before pushing them again. Talk about anything except the song you just worked on.

1:00 — 1:25 · Work session 2 (the lighter thing)

Pick a second song. This one can be lighter — a song that's mostly there but needs polish, a brand-new song the band wants to sight-read together, or a song someone wants to try leading for the first time.

Same discipline as session 1, but shorter — 25 minutes is enough at this point in the rehearsal because voices are starting to fatigue.

1:25 — 1:30 · Set run-through (cool-down)

End on a high. Pick one song the band already nails and run it full energy, no stopping, no notes. This is what the rehearsal felt like on the way out — make sure the last thing you remember is the band sounding good.

Then announce next week's two work-session songs so everyone can pre-listen and arrive ready.

When you have less than 90 minutes

60 minutes: keep the 15-minute warm-up, do one 30-minute work session, skip the second, end on a 5-minute cool-down run-through.

30 minutes: 5 min warm-up, 20 min on one specific problem, 5 min cool-down. This is enough if it's focused — it's not enough if anyone wanders.

When you have more than 90 minutes

Don't. After 90 minutes, voices are tired, ears are tired, and you start training in mistakes. If the band wants to spend three hours together, do 90 minutes of rehearsal, then play a casual unplugged set for fun — different mindset, different vocal demand. Don't extend the work portion.

Recording yourselves

The single most useful thing a band can do once a quarter: record one full run-through of a known song on someone's phone. Listen back together a week later.

You will hear, immediately:

Where the tempo drags or rushes.
Which choruses don't blend.
Which singer is consistently a beat behind.
That the bodhrán is way louder than anyone realised in the moment.
That the instrumentation drops out of the chorus when everyone gets excited.

None of this is audible while you're playing. The phone is brutal and honest.

Rotating the shantyman

If you're a band of 4–8, no single person should be the shantyman for every song forever. Rotate. Reasons:

Variety. Audiences (and the band) get bored of the same voice for an hour.
Resilience. If your only shantyman gets sick or moves, the band still functions.
Buy-in. A band where everyone gets to lead some songs is a band where everyone feels ownership.
Voice rest. Leading a song is more vocally demanding than chorus singing. Spread the load.

The practical move: track in a shared note (or a spreadsheet, or a whiteboard) who's leading which song this week. Rotate. Don't be precious about whose "version" a song is — the song belongs to the band.

Working on a new song

When someone brings in a new song they want the band to learn:

They lead the first run-through alone. Voice only, no instruments. Everyone listens.
They sing it again; the band sings the chorus only. Verses still solo.
Add the lead instrument (usually guitar). Same structure: chorus together, verses solo.
Try to land the chorus together — full band, full energy.
Don't expect more than one song's worth of new repertoire per rehearsal. Adding two new songs per week burns everyone out and nothing actually gets learned.

A new song typically needs three rehearsals to become a "set" song. Plan for that, not for "we'll learn it tonight."

What not to do

Don't tune mid-song. Tune between songs, even if it takes a minute.
Don't critique another singer's part during the song. Note it, bring it up at the next break.
Don't let one person dominate the song selection. A band that only plays the songs one person likes will lose the other members.
Don't end the rehearsal on a song that fell apart. Always re-run a known-good song at the end, even if it's just the chorus.
Don't skip the warm-up because you're "just rehearsing, not performing." Untrained voices are most vulnerable in casual settings precisely because nobody's being careful.

The band logbook

One shared document — a Google Doc, a wiki page, a printed binder, whatever the band will actually use — with:

Each song's agreed key for this band (often different from the printed key in the songbook).
Each song's agreed capo position for the guitar.
Who leads it.
Last rehearsal date.
Specific notes ("Mike sings the high harmony from chorus 2 onward only" or "Skip the third verse — too long").

This is not bureaucracy. It's how you stop having the same conversation about the same song every six weeks.