This episode is part 5 of the Building a Band Program series on the Rock School Proprietor podcast, hosted by John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com).
In this episode John shares how to plan, structure, and execute productive band rehearsals. From setting up expectations with students to creating a predictable routine that gets band members working together effectively, John share things to do as well as things to avoid.
Included:
- The structure of an effective band rehearsal session
- Essential rules and expectations for students
- Techniques for mixing and listening skills development
- Chunking songs into sections for focused practice
- Communication strategies between coaches, students, and private instructors
- The importance of room maintenance and professionalism
- Setting and reinforcing rehearsal agendas
- Managing student behavior and engagement in rehearsals
If you’re interested in starting a band program in your music teaching studio or looking for ideas to enhance or grow an existing program, this series is for you! In it we will cover how a band program can create a strong community in your studio, increase profit margins, and lead to greater student retention.
Interested in the Building a Band Program webinar?
We’re planning a free live webinar to accompany this series on Friday, July 24, 2026. John will go deeper on these topics and answer your questions directly. If you’re interested, send an email to info@rockschoolproprietor.com with the subject line Webinar and we will be in touch with details.
Rock School Proprietor is a podcast for independent music school owners and lesson studio operators. New episodes drop Wednesdays at RockSchoolProprietor.com and on all podcast streaming platforms.
——————————————
Your ratings and reviews on Apple Podcast and Spotify are always appreciated!
Join our private Facebook group, “The Modern Music School,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
Looking for a simple and effective guitar curriculum that includes FREE instructor training and support? Consider John’s book, Complete Guitar Strumming.
Episode Transcript:
(Please note: This transcript was generated by robots. There may be errors. For the best experience, please listen to the podcast episode.)
John Kozicki (00:01.192)
Welcome back to the building a band program series of episodes on Rock School Proprietor podcast. My name is John Kozicki. And if you’ve been following along with this series so far, you know that the goal here is to provide as much information as I can to our listeners about building a band program. Maybe you want to compete with School of Rock and offer something similar in your studio.
Maybe you’ve got one of the other big franchises like Bach Tarak moving in and you’re a little worried and thinking like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to offer an ensemble program? Maybe you even have parents and students asking you, is this something that you’ll ever do? This series of podcast episodes is for you. This is what I do at Michigan Rock School, my studio, and I’m sharing
details about what we do and how I’ve built the band program over the course of over a decade at my school at this point. So today’s topic is what does a band class look like? A common question I hear, especially in the online groups, is how do you teach a group of kids who are all playing different instruments to play a song together? And most of the time you actually aren’t
teaching them how to play the song. The expectation is that, at least in my school, the students are learning the songs in their private lessons and practicing those at home so that they are coming prepared to band rehearsals, knowing what they need to know in order to then put it all together. So what we’re doing, what my band coaches are doing, what I’m doing when I’m in a group with
with students and a band is we’re learning how to put the song together. We’re working on getting repetitions in on those parts. We’re focusing on dynamics. We’re learning how to listen properly. All of those aspects of preparing these kids, these groups of students to perform properly. I suppose in a sense, you could think about it like what happens in
John Kozicki (02:24.134)
a large choir or a middle school band class or high school band class. Yes, there’s a little bit of teaching the parts in those examples, in those large ensembles, but a big part of those classes is really focusing on how do you play it together? And that’s exactly what we’re doing in our band program. So on this episode,
I’m going to walk through what a rehearsal looks like at my studio, Michigan Rock School, and provide just a clear understanding what we do in a student band rehearsal. So I’m going to share what I do in each of the rehearsals and what I train my band coaches to do in their band rehearsals so that they’ve got a smoothly run, smoothly run session week after week.
So number one, number one thing I always do in band rehearsals is I explain the rehearsal rules and I set up a plan for the day. So rehearsal rules in my school, the big ones are, we call it noodling, no noodling, no playing your instrument when the band coach is talking.
No yelling, no talking when the band coach is talking. These are really basic things, but they’re worth explaining and worth laying out in a very clear way because kids have poor impulse control, right? They want to play and it just kind of happens. So we name it. We name that behavior, noodling. Just don’t play your instrument. It’s respectful. So that’s the number one thing. We also say, be prepared.
show up in band rehearsal prepared, bring your notes, bring a tuner, tune before you get into the band room, everything that you need to be accountable. And then we really stress like focus on yourself and at the end of it, you’re going to clean up after yourself. So these rules, I repeat them a lot, especially with a new band or when we have new
John Kozicki (04:48.066)
band members joining groups. what we’re really doing, we’re setting very clear expectations about how band rehearsal is gonna work and how it’s gonna flow. And I think especially with kids, they need those clear guidelines and they need those clear expectations. So maybe as bands progress and they understand what the rules are, we don’t have to go over the rules at every rehearsal.
But definitely at the beginning of sessions, we go over those rules to make sure that they’re very crystal clear. The other thing I do at the beginning of every rehearsal is I set a plan for the day, a plan for that rehearsal. We have a whiteboard in our rehearsal room and I always write the agenda down on the whiteboard because that gives the students a visual reminder of what we’re working on.
that day as well as giving them the verbal agenda at the beginning of every rehearsal. I am a strong proponent of three things, right? I try and focus on three things in every rehearsal. that might be the first thing is we’re going to run through the song that we finished working on last week. The second thing is we may work on, the
verse and chorus of the new song for the week. And then the third thing might be something as simple as like, we’re gonna talk about band names, we’re gonna brainstorm on band names, or maybe something, you know, keep it social and fun. Maybe give everyone the chance to share something that they did that was interesting over the weekend, or we just finished spring break here, so maybe over spring break.
But just generally three things that students can count on for that day. And so that they understand, again, setting clear expectations, what we’re going to be focusing on in that 45 minutes or that 60 minutes or however long that rehearsal is. So that’s the first thing. I am setting clear expectations, giving the plan for the day. Number two, I mix the band before we start playing. I do this.
John Kozicki (07:10.79)
every single rehearsal. I do it at the beginning of every rehearsal. I have been doing it at every rehearsal for literally as long as I’ve been running rehearsals. In part because I need to make sure that I’m hearing all of the band members properly and I’m hearing them well. I need a good mix so that I can hear what’s going on. I can hear what needs to be addressed, but also the band members.
need to be able to hear everything well. Most of the times, students don’t know how to properly mix their volumes. Case in point, and to put it in context, when kids are practicing at home or when anyone’s practicing at home, what they’re used to hearing is they’re used to hearing their own instrument.
their own instrument is the loudest thing that they hear in their mix when they are practicing. So then when they go into a band rehearsal, their ears are just sort of accustomed to hearing their instrument most prominently. But that’s not really how it should be in a band rehearsal. Yes, kids should hear themselves, but they also need to be able to hear everyone else. And if they are left to mix their own instruments, well, then it’s going to be a weird, wonky mix.
That’s not going to be good for anyone but that individual band member. So I always mix the band before we start playing. And I’ll add that I am I’m also a proponent of a man of manageable volumes, lower volumes when I mix groups, because again, I need to be able to hear everything. And louder volumes tend to fatigue my ears. I think they fatigue.
the band members ears too, but I think a lower manageable volume is, it suits me better as the band coach and I do think it suits the band members better. So the last thing that I’ll say about the importance of a good mix is in these rehearsals, we’re also teaching the band members to listen properly.
John Kozicki (09:31.449)
They’re learning to listen. And again, going back to that idea of what they hear at home when they’re practicing, what they’re listening to is they’re largely listening to their own instrument. Important, yes. But listening is different when you’re in a band rehearsal. And we are teaching that. That is important. A little warning here, too. You want to watch out for volume wars. Volume wars are when, you know, like a
student on the sly after I’ve mixed everything will go over to an amp and like just bump up their volume a little bit and that’s gonna over over time over the course of that rehearsal if they bump up if a guitar player bumps up their volume then the other guitar player in the room might realize like I’m gonna bump up my volume next thing you know we’ve got a wonky mix where it’s very guitar heavy so I’m gonna have to go back and adjust those volumes
So watch out for volume wars, kids will get into it. Third thing that we’re gonna do in every rehearsal is we’re gonna play. And I’m gonna talk a little bit about how I run these rehearsals. I generally will focus on sections of a song first versus playing full songs. Sections are focusing on sections.
is it’s an educational technique called chunking, right? You’re taking small parts of that bigger picture, that song, and you’re just breaking them down into manageable parts that we’re going to focus on one at a time. In songs, it’s really simple to just focus on, like a chorus or a verse and dial that in and fine tune it and make sure that part sounds good before then going to another part of the song.
kind of contrary to maybe how when you have a piece of music, you will start at the beginning of that sheet music. And yes, you may take it in small chunks, in sections, but it’s starting from the very beginning. I don’t always do that when we’re working on songs. And the reason that I don’t do that is we may have songs that start with, say, just a drum intro.
John Kozicki (11:51.727)
Or we may have songs that start with an intro that that stacks and layers the different instruments as the song progresses. And I would much rather start a new song in a section where everyone’s playing. So maybe I’ll choose the chorus to start as the beginning section, because, again, everyone’s playing. We can always go back and work on the intro later.
But yeah, I take the songs in small sections, verses, choruses, maybe a bridge, solo section, focus on those and then start to string the song together. Once we’re able to play those songs from beginning to end, those songs become, I put them in like the warmup rotation, right? So going back to that idea of the agenda at the beginning of each rehearsal.
my agenda might be, okay, last week’s song, we’re good on that one. That’s our warmup song now. And then we’re gonna start working on these sections of the new song. doing a lot of playing, we’re doing a lot of repetition when it comes to these songs, but we’re being smart about it. Okay, now, concurrently, so this is the fourth thing that I do every rehearsal. It’s while the band is playing.
I’m also taking notes on the rehearsal. I’m taking not just mental notes, but also written notes. I’ll grab my laptop and put notes in the notes app of my laptop. Things like the progress of each song. If there are specific areas of focus for individual band members that I notice like, hmm, a guitar player’s timing not so good in the verse, that’s something I’ll take note of.
If there are areas for the entire band that are not coming together, I’ll take note of those. Man, it’s a really rough transition going from, the end of the bridge into the chorus after the bridge. That’s that needs focus. That needs attention. I’m putting all of these things in notes. And what this is going to do is this is going to create my agenda for the next
John Kozicki (14:17.612)
next rehearsal, going back again to that first point about the agenda. But then also, I’m going to take those notes and I’m going to send them to all of the private instructors that work with each of those individual band members. So that then frames what they need to work on in their private lessons.
I will share and I’m going to get to this in kind of my last point. I will share all of these things with the band members, but the chances that they’re going to remember them, the chances that they’re going to bring those up to their private instructors as things that they need to work on, they might forget pretty good chance, right? So we have clear lines of communication between band coaches and private instructors. So I’m sharing all of those notes because then students will come back to rehearsal.
prepared and ready to play so we don’t teach those songs, but we’re just fine tuning everything. So last thing we do every rehearsal. I mentioned this is part of our rehearsal rules. We’re cleaning up the room. Now at my studio, ultimately band coaches are making are responsible for making sure that the room is cleaned up and in good shape for the next person to use it. But I also say teach the students.
how to properly care for this equipment, how to clean up the room, clean up things after themselves. We’re talking wrapping guitar cables, microphone cables, putting away mics, putting away stands. If the guitar players are using pedal boards, if the drummer is using a double bass pedal, all that stuff needs to be put away. Train your students to do this. It’s part of the expectation in my studio. While they’re doing that,
I will recap my notes again and I’ll share the areas of focus again. We’re setting expectations for what we’re going to do next week, what they’re going to do in their private lessons. All again, framing what band members need to work on so that they come back prepared. And finally, I’m explaining what our agenda is going to be in that next rehearsal. So.
John Kozicki (16:39.756)
I set those expectations early on in every rehearsal about what we’re going to do with the agenda and the rehearsal rules. And then I reinforced again at the end of every rehearsal during that cleanup section. So they show up prepared and they know what to do. All right. So that’s going to wrap it up here for this special edition Building a Band program and what a band class
or band rehearsal actually looks like. Future episode, I think it’s going to be the next one, is we’re going to talk a little bit more in detail about how to manage the students in band rehearsals, because as much as I think it’s important to set those expectations and that helps smooth things out, sometimes we run into some issues and some behavior stuff. So we’ll cover that next time on building a band program.
All right, we’ll see you next time.
