How Are Songs and Setlists Chosen in a Band?

You do not turn up to a band and get handed a setlist with no say in it. At BetheBand, every member has direct input into what the band plays.

The process

Each musician suggests 5 songs at the start of the term. Your band director takes those suggestions from all 4 or 5 members and builds a setlist that works across the whole group, aiming to include at least one pick from every person.

That means your favourite track has a real chance of making the set, alongside songs your bandmates chose too.

Who assigns the parts

Once the setlist is set, your band director assigns parts to each player, working from the arrangement and each member's strengths. They take ideas and input from the band wherever it makes the song better. Feeling like you shaped how a song came together is, for most members, one of the best parts of the whole term.

What happens between rehearsals

Every session ends with a rough audio take of what you worked on, uploaded to a shared drive. That means you can keep practising your actual parts at home during the week, rather than trying to remember what happened last Tuesday.

Why it works better this way

A setlist built entirely by one person rarely satisfies a full band. A setlist with zero structure never gets finished. Combining both, real input from every member with one director shaping the final arrangement, is what gets a band from first rehearsal to a tight, ready set in 12 weeks.