We always had closed practices as well... no one was allowed in the practice area at all... until we invited them in to listen or otherwise... This keeps it to a band atmosphere and dismisses certain distractions.
Get into a routine in band practice where you have a certain amount of jam time and a certain amount of song practice time... It's important to work on old songs AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE because nothing's worse than playing a song that you haven't played in awhile and realizing how badly out of sync the band is.... Jam time will help with band timing and syncronization.
When it comes to making decisions about setlists, songs to learn, ways to play things, etc etc.... be open minded but be honest. Like was said before... That's a pretty important one. I've been in a couple bands where the kind of music just didn't fit my taste and I tried so hard to veer them away from the stuff that they were playing to suit me better... in the end it was just best for me to bow out... Since they were doing what they wanted... and I was the only one that wasn't into it.... Just be honest with yourself and theband members.
Have fun... I think that's the biggest thing. Keep it about the music. Make sure that everyone in the band is in it for the music and not just something to do or not just to get a girlfriend... That will come later. haha..... try as much as possible to keep the atmosphere loose...
One of the best things that my band and I did was go watch a lot of concerts... We went to as many concerts together as we could and we would always discuss things that we could do better after going to them... Watching professional bands play really opens eyes to little things that you don't notice... Like the way a drummer counts in or the way a lead singer interacts with the crowd... or even what gear and setups the guys are using... I'm the kind of guy that barely ever takes pictures of the actual artists... I'm always snapping shots of their pedal boards and taking notice to how they get their tones....... Also watching bands gives you a first hand look at how important it is to be in sync with each other... If at anypoint you ever get to chat with pro musicians try to get past the whole nervousness thing and pick their brain.... The best advice I'd ever had was when i talked with Eric Sardinas and his band after a show at the House of Blues in Chicago... I asked him if his band did anythign special to work on syncronization to clean up sloppy songs... and he told me "well... I guess let's put it this way, we're going to get all kinds of messed up tonight... head to our hotel room... get up in the morning... drive to where ever the (f bomb) we're going and we're going to start practicing the set list... Then we're going to play the show... and do it all over again... Pretty much when we're not playing for people or drunk.... we're playing for ourselves... Just gotta play man." Good advice. haha.
