Rating rounds explained

Most bands know which songs are dead and keep playing them, because nobody wants to be the one who says it in the rehearsal room. A rating round takes the conversation out of the room: everyone rates every song on their own, the results show the averages, and the numbers do the talking.

This is the feature in detail: the three scales, how a round is run, what members see, what the results show, and how to read them.

The three scales

Every song in the repertoire can be rated by each member on three scales from one to five stars:

• Audience appeal: how well the song goes down with the crowd.
• Performance ("how well we play it"): how well the band plays it right now.
• Enjoyment ("how much we enjoy it"): how much you like playing it.

Three scales matter because the answers differ. A song can be an audience favourite the band plays badly (rehearse it), a song the band loves that clears the floor (keep one per set, no more), or a song nobody enjoys, nobody plays well and nobody dances to (retire it). One overall score would hide all of that.

Members can rate any song at any time from the repertoire, and the repertoire shows the band average per scale. A round is the way to get everyone's ratings on everything at once.

Starting a round

The band leader or a manager creates a round with a name (Spring 2026, After the wedding season), picks the members to invite (all, or a subset), and chooses the channels: email, SMS or both. Each invited member receives a personal link. The SMS says which band, which round, and gives the link, marked as needing no login.

The round page lists every invited member with their status: not started, in progress (with the count of songs rated so far), finished, and when they last opened the link. From there you can copy someone's link to send it by hand, resend the email or the SMS, and add members who joined the band after the round started.

What the member sees

Opening the link shows a greeting, the band name, and the songs one at a time: title, artist, three rows of stars. Tap a star to rate, tap it again to clear. Every rating is saved as you go, so the round can be finished over several sittings: ten songs on the bus, the rest at home. "Next unrated" jumps to the first song still missing a rating; "All songs" shows the list.

When every song has three ratings, the member presses Finish and sees the results so far. Ratings can be edited afterwards from the same link. If songs were added to the repertoire after someone finished, the link tells them and asks them to rate the new ones.

Nothing is anonymous. The round shows who has finished and how many songs each person has rated, and ratings are attributed to the member in the band's data; the results ranking itself shows band averages and vote counts per song. Say that upfront when you start a round; most bands find that honesty improves once they realise everyone has to answer.

Closing and results

When enough members have answered, close the round. Links stop working, results stay visible. A closed round can be reopened if someone was late. Deleting a round removes the round, but ratings already given stay on the songs.

The results show:

• A ranking of every song with its average on each scale and a total score out of 15.
• Gold for ranks 1 to 5, silver for 6 to 10, bronze for 11 to 15.
• Tabs to rank by a single scale: Overall, Audience, Sound (performance), Fun (enjoyment).
• The number of votes per song and any songs still without ratings.
• Which members have finished, with their count of rated songs.

Results can be printed as a report for the band meeting. Keep the printed report from each round; comparing this season's ranking with last season's is where the most useful conclusions come from.

Reading the numbers

A working interpretation used by many bands:

Audience	Performance	Enjoyment	Action
High	High	High	Core song. Openers, closers, encore candidates.
High	Low	Any	Rehearse it. Put it in the next rehearsal's notes.
Low	High	High	The band's own song. One per set at most.
Low	Low	Low	Retire it. Label it Retired and remove it from setlists.
Any	Any	Lower than last season's report	Ask why in the meeting. Fatigue, a line-up change, a key that no longer suits the singer.

Set the thresholds for your band. Many use an average below 2.5 on audience appeal as the cut line for a covers band, since audience reaction is what pays. An original band might weight enjoyment more.

Two follow-ups happen inside the app: label the rehearse-list and put those songs into the next rehearsal's notes, and build your next setlist from the top of the audience ranking. The practice of pruning is covered in rating your repertoire.

How often

Once or twice a year for most bands: after the summer season and in January before the new one. More often than quarterly and the numbers stop moving. A round for a 120-song repertoire takes each member 20 to 30 minutes in total. Give a deadline of two weeks and send one reminder.

A round is also a good first task for a new member, after their first few gigs: their ratings show you what they can play well and what they enjoy, without a conversation that feels like an assessment. See onboarding a new band member.

SMS and email

Round invitations by email are unlimited. SMS come from the account's monthly allowance of 50, shared with availability requests and rehearsal reminders; when it is used up, the app says so at the moment of sending and the email still goes. Since a round is sent once per member, it rarely dents the allowance.

What it does not do

• No anonymous rounds.
• No per-song comments; a member who wants to explain a rating does it in the band meeting or the chat.
• No custom scales; the three are fixed.
• No automatic changes to the repertoire. Retiring songs is a decision you make and record with a label.

Do this today

• Check that the repertoire is complete and that retired songs are already removed, so members do not rate songs you no longer play.
• Create a round named for the season and invite everyone by email and SMS.
• Announce it in the chat with a two-week deadline and the reason ("we are cutting 10 songs and adding 10").
• On the deadline, close it, print the report, and bring it to the next meeting.

Full reference in song proposals and ratings. Rating rounds are included in every plan; start with the 30-day trial.