Instrumental Studies

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Week one:

Lesson:

In this weeks lesson we learned a Paul Gilbert lick from Alex. it was a lick from the scale of A Dorian and it involved Legato, Pull- offs and Alternate picking. it was important that we worked on these techniques so that the exercise sounded clean and efficient. the exercise is played so quickly that no time signature is given and where it notes beats per minute it just states "very fast". the first shape is played on the B and the G string, i picked up the speed of the shape quite fast but decided to slow down a little to work on the pull offs and picking motions. we were then told to work on this exercise throughout the week

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Practice:

My practice of this exercise began on Thursday the 15th of January at around 11am. i began practicing the exercise to a beat of 100 bpm. i would lay 2 notes on each beat, focusing on my legato and picking motion, after trying out some of the different shapes that were in the exercise, i am still unable to cleanly pull off the notes on the G - string but this will come with more practice. after around half an hour of working on this i set to work on some of my Grade 6 work, i looked at arpeggio's , went through a run of the technical performances and looked over some of the parts of That Sounds Like Noise as well as the solo in Cranial Contraption. After this i worked on practicing the melodic recalls and the chords. I had another round of practice on the weekend this time going over the exercise briefly and looking into dont let me down by the Beatles, a song for our performance this week. the chords for don't let me down are E, F# and  B so i practiced strumming the chords to the song for a while,

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Week two

Lesson:

This week we looked further into the Paul Gilbert exercise and carried on with the different patterns in the technique, instead of just being 5, 3 ,2 ,5,2,5,3,2 it would be in different places and patterns on the fret board, our goal was to get down the technique of the position and pattern shape, as well as working on cleanliness at a slow speed with alternate picking , we would use pulling off, legato and efficient picking in later lessons

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Practice:

On the Tuesday afternoon i decided to learn Stevie wonder's Superstition by ear. i would be learning the song for performances the following week, i first looked on tab websites to look for the main riff then looked at some cover songs and learn their techniques by ear. in one cover the player bends on the 15th fret of the B string and travels down the frets to replicate the notes of the horned instruments that play after the chorus, i also looked into what scales he uses for his solo's and made a note of these too, all i need to work on now is remembering the songs structure so i can fit all the pieces in the right place

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Week Three:

Lesson:
In our third lesson of the new term we looked into the final parts of Paul Gilbert's exercise, after following on from the different patterns in the the middle half of the exercise, the final part of the exercise consisted of going up the frets in a similar pattern using different modes such as Ionian, Dorian, Lydian and Mixolydian, it was hard progressing up the neck on a guitar like mine because i have 24 fret meaning from 12 and up the frets are smaller than usual. however i worked around this and focused on learning the exercise rather than the speed i could play it.

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Practice:

After Tuesday's lesson i decided to practice the Phantom Lord Lick in my rehearsal room after everyone else had left. i practiced this starting off at 90 bpm, and continued to keep playing until i felt comfortable, then i tried 95 bpm, had a few cleanliness and picking mishaps but i managed to get 95 bpm clean.

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Week four:

Lesson

This week saw us looking at modes all up the the fret board, we went through signatures such as ionian, dorian, lydian and mixolydian on two octaves, i found some hard and some difficult as i was already family with Dorian as a previous tutor made me practice it throughout the span of the year. many other modes on the higher end of the frets were a challenge also such as mixolydian.

practice:

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Week four update

this would be my last week looking into Phantom lord, i decided to try and match the speed of the original recording, this i was able to do by matching the 180BPM to a metronome then playing the riff. after feeling comfortable with playing it to the metronome i looked toward playing to the original, it took me a few times but i got there eventually.

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Week Five (Half Term week 1):

Practice:

Week five was an off timetable week and where i got the chance i would practice the grade 6 stuff,  i decided to run through the songs on the first week of half term and the back of the book on the second week of half term. Songwise they are all at a good playing standard however it is now down to me working on the details of the songs and getting the little things right.

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Week Six: (Half Term week 2):

This week would be my final week of half term and as much as it was a busy one for me i managed to find time for my grade 6 technical exercises, it was clear to me that the Arpeggios needed work.

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Week Seven

Week seven was the first week back in college so Alex decided to Revisit the modes and make sure they were practiced by us over the holidays. We also decided to look into how naming the modes we play is important so that we would be able to play them in different keys on different frets, it also meant being able to remember a pattern by name so that it can be easily remembered.

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Practice:

after following on from the modes i looked back in the grade 6 pieces for a while and worked on the little details rather than the songs themselves, Grade 6 back of the book was up to scratch. Steve via cleanliness and play style. Work on certain parts of playing pieces and focus on arpeggios as they need work

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Week Eight:

Lesson:

This time in instrumental studies we had no lesson at all,  instead today was a day for all us to be recorded in front of a camera while improvising a solo over chord patterns. the solo could be in A Minor Pentatonic or the G Dorian mode. the backing had a relaxed and casual feel with fast drums, we would be recorded individually, and so i decided to record last so i could spend as much time as i could running up and down the scales to find some nice sounding ideas, afterwards i felt that confident i did well.

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Practice: this weeks practice had to focus completely on the grade 6 Arpeggios, as much as i could play them and remember the pattern, they didn't sound so confident alongside a 100 BPM click, i would have to get used to playing them to a click for the exam. So i began the technique of practicing one, playing it to a click, practicing another and then going back to the previous one. im feeling a lot more confident with them now and so they should be ready for next week.

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Week nine:

Lesson: this weeks lessons was a review of our mode patterns and names, we were called out at random to name a mode and write out the frets that are included, on top of this we learned about notes that can be included in the E pentatonic scale, to conclude the lesson we improvised on a chord progression to put what we learned to work such as the pentatonic notes we learned and the Ionian modes, 

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Practice: after successfully executing the Arpeggios in last weeks guitar practice it was time to focus on the general musicianship questions at the very back of the book, these questions ask for names of pitches, musical markings dynamic found in the piece, so i spent a lot of time looking into possible answers to be found to the questions.I also kept working on the arpeggios to keep them in check.

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week ten:

Lesson: No lesson

Practice:

Seeing as there was no lesson to be had i wisely used the time on offer to run through my grade 6 exam,  The technical pieces are still as solid as they were in the seventh week. the pentatonic scales are solid on their own but need to practiced against a click more often, this would be my last week until my exam so practicing as often and jst has hard was important, i would be having a mock test with Alex during our monday guitar lessons, so during the weekend i spent a solid hour praticing all the book had to offer.

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Week Eleven

Lesson:

Rhythm was this weeks focus so without any hesitation we began with Quavers, Triplets and Semi-Quavers, we first had to vocally repeat the rhythm with Quavers, Triplets and Semi-Quavers so we could become more comfortable with the changes in beat, we then slowly set to work on applying them to guitar, our first goal was to pick a single note in time with Quavers, Triplets and Semi-Quavers. Then we ran through a mode progression and applied the rhythm to it, the quavers were okay but the triplets and semiquavers became rather a challenge for us, so it would be something to practice over the coming weeks.

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Practice

as my Rock school exam was just around the corner it was my utmost priority to keep on top of my technical pieces and exercises, the exam was on friday so i had a good five days of practice, so i could really get the exam under my fingers i decided to run through the entire book with a mixture of different guitars. this would also allow me to take more than one to the exam incase something happened to one of them.

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Week Twelve

This week was a simple review and revision of our online blogs, mine are up to date and on point so there's no worry on my shoulders.

Week Thirteen - Fifteen ( Half Term)

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Week Sixteen

On our first week back we looked more into the ionain scale and decided to apply it to different patterns, instead of going down the scale in order we would change it up and go down the scale in different patterns, so instead of going
------------------------------------------------------------5--7--8-------------------
-------------------------------------------------5---7---8----------------------------
--------------------------------------4---5---7---------------------------------------
-----------------------4---5---7------------------------------------------------------
-----------3---5---7------------------------------------------------------------------
-3---5--7-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

we would be doing
5-7-8-5-7-5-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------8-7-5-7-8-5-7-5----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7-5-4-5-7-4-5-4---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7-5-4-5-7-4-5-4---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7-5-3-5-7-3-5-3---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7-5-3---------------------

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Week Seventeen

in this week we would bee following on from out improvisation skills as seen in week eight. we would spend some time doing some melodical composition. We learned that the best way to approach the improvisation is not to practice improvising but to practice pre-written patterns and melodies. Using the key of A minor we set to work and made our own tunes going up the strings, the key is to make a melody that couldn't possibly be conjured on the spot, it would need to be broken up into pieces and jigsaw'ed together at the the end. then you would begin the process of re-learning your melody.

Week Eighteen: BANK HOLIDAY

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Week Nineteen

without warning from Alex prior, we would be performing our Final improvisation exercise on camera. it would be using the same backing track with the same chords and pentatonic scales. The aim is to show signs of improvement from the last time we did the exercise. Alex had been teaching me to write a recipe book for all the different patterns that i could do in the scale so i didn't have to make things up on the spot.i brushed up on this in last weeks post andI felt confident in my playing and i feel that i made good progress in comparison to my last video! all that was left to do now is to write the final evaluation.

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Week Twenty

i knew the Evaluation was up and coming so i made my own essay plan with questions and things to include in the essay. I also learned from Alex what other questions we could include in the essay such as which of your instrumental goals did you achieve? how? and if there are any you diddnt how would you do about achieving them again?. The essay is still rather empty but i have all the questions i need to help get it up to scratch

Week Twenty One

*Half Term*

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Week Twenty Two
as we had finished our Improvisational exercise there was no more practical work to be done so this week would be focused on sorting out our Task folders, finishing our Evaluation and working on something new. We would have to prepare a presentation with a action plan, it would include a list of some of the the things need to improve on as well as ways to achieve our individual goals. On a plus note i  managed to submit my evaluation ready for Alex's marking.

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week Twenty Three

i would spend my Twenty third week from last week and finishing off my presentation for the evaluation, I also got some feedback from Alex about adding in timestamps so i could set deadlines in the presentation, on top of this i also had to finish off the conclusion for my Instrumental evaluation. with all of these tasks finished my instrumental studies module will be complete and i will be able to focus on other modules that need completing, this would also be the last monday before the coursework deadline so i am unsure if anymore blog posts will be published.

Performance Notes (2015)

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Week one: (1)

Band Members: Katherine, Emily, Aaron, Shaq

Song: Rock with you - Michael Jackson

Week one began with Michael Jackson week. Kat was our band leader so her and i began work on printing out song lyrics and tabs, she checked with me that the Guitar/bass tabs were correct. later on in the rehearsal we all made a target to finish the intro, the first verse, chorus and second verse. after working through the song we learned the signatures and the tempo's and met our target and finished the respective parts later that night Katherine fed back on ways we could improve the song further, one of her points was that  and i told her that i could use my Fender Strat to give the guitar parts a more authentic and jazzy feel.  We also decided to leave out the Key change on that night because we felt that it would be too harsh on Shaq's Vocal range.

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Week one update;  (2)

On the day of performance we decided to give the song a more soulful feel by changing the tempo to a slower speed and swinging the drum track, this allowed everyone to approach the song with a little more ease and add our own take to the song, it worked well and we also added in our own fills and rhythms.

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Week two; (3)

Band Members: Katherine, John, Phoebe, Corrin

Song: Don't Let Me Down - The Beatles

Our first and only rehearsal song was directed by John, this weeks band leader. we were given one rehearsal session because the tutors felt we had been spoiled for time and have not been using it efficiently and so they decided to give us only one session to separate the wheat from the chaff. luckily all members of our band had done their homework and were ready for the song, however we made our target to only do the intro, the first verse, the chorus, and the second verse as none of us felt comfortable adding to the song's complexity.

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Week Three (4)

Band members: Aimi, Katherine, Pheobe, Me, Zach

Song: Superstition - Stevie Wonder

On our third week we looked into superstition by Stevie wonder and unfortunately i missed Tuesday's rehearsal session so forward to the Monday after  and we set to work, i had luckily done my homework so i knew the song the whole way through however not everyone else did so i spent most of that lesson teaching everyone else the song. we then did not receive a rehearsal lesson on that tuesday because the ICMP came in to deliver a presentation so this weeks rehearsal on monday was crucial for all of us.

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Week Three Update; (5)
Performance went well as we made good use of the small amount of time that we had, i remembered all my parts and performed well given that i had only had one rehearsal session with my band.

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Week Four: (6)

Band Members: Sarah, Tilly, Robert, Julson, Lewis

Song: N/A

Week four was the week we saw our permanent groups being set. we would be in these groups until the end of term concert where we would be performing again, we used our session to throw out some ideas for song choices and band names. We also had to create a plan for
The show we would be putting on. At the time the event was planned to be at a theater stage so we decided to discuss the differences between playing in a new environment and how we would adapt our playing and our performing to best suit the situation.

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Week Five - Six : (Half Term)  (7)

unfortunately the members of our band did not communicate enough in order to make a setlist for the rehearsals and so i was left unsure of how to prepare for the rehearsals that lay ahead. i stuck to my usual and practiced my instrument as well as thinking of songs that i could suggest to my bandmembers when i got back. 

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Week Seven:   (8)

Band Members: Sarah, Tilly, Robert, Julson, Lewis

Song: Viva La Vida - Coldplay

This week was our first week back and we would have to make due with a single rehearsal session before performing, this meant we had to think on our feet and quickly decide on a song and begin to practice. Viva La Vida was the chosen song, instrumentation-wise it's fairly straight forward however the guitars require a Capo on the first fret. Unfortunately I didn't have one as it's more suited for acoustic guitars so I replicated the effect by tuning my stings up a semitone in order for my chords to sound correct. I felt the song went well, it was definitely a crowd pleaser and even when Tilly began to forget lyrics the audience started singing with her.

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Week Eight

Band Members: Sarah, Tilly, Robert, Julson, Lewis

Song: Don't Ed Sheeran   

This weeks rehearsal went well as we had all done our homework on the song, I had put together a few riffs to compliment the chorus which i had learned from the song by ear. I decided to do this because Sarah was playing the main chord progression and I didn't want to replicate that. Interestingly we were also filmed while practising so that the tutors can see what's going on, sadly Rob decided to curse throughout the footage and give us a bad image, unfortunately I took ill on the Tuesday so i am unable to recall the events of that rehearsal lesson, all I learned is that we would be practicing Valerie by Amy Winehouse the following week.

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Week nine  (10)

Band Members Sarah, Tilly, Robert, Julson, Lewis

Song: Valerie - Amy Winehouse

As mentioned earlier i was not present for last weeks tuesday rehearsal so my band was ready for this weeks performance, i decided to learn the song in my own time and go over it on the monday before performing, the song was really out of my comfort zone as the chords i had to learn were rather difficult to change to, luckily there was only six of them and the strum pattern was easy as well, after nailing Eb7M, Fm7, Ab7, Gm7 and Bb7 i felt like the song needed more however i wasn't sure what to add

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Week ten:  (11)

Band Members: Sarah, Tilly, Robert, Lewis

Song: Oh Children - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

with the unfortunate absence of Julson, our band quickly decided to work around this factor and continue on without him, so we set to work on 'oh children' by Nick Cave, a song Robert was very fond of and was adamant on singing as he looks up to Nick Cave. It would be an intresting song for me to perform because i would be picking up the bass guitar, something i have never done before. however seeing as the notes on the string of a bass are the same as a normal guitar i was able to transpose the song quickly. I was excited to perform with my newly obtained instrument however disaster struck my band and the song was prematurely ended as nerves got the better of my band members.              

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Week Eleven:   (12)

Band Members: Sarah, Tilly, Robert,  Lewis

Song: Video games - Lana Del Ray

As video games was a rather intricate song we spent our rehearsals trying to develop our individual roles in trying to attack the song, Robert decided to step in on Guitar as he knew the necessary chords needed to play the song, Lewis would stay on drums as he had a better understanding of improvisation on a song with no drum track, Sarah would swap from guitar to piano and vocals, being her song choice she was more prepared for the song than any of us were, and i would be going on bass as i felt able to come up with a suitable bass line for the song.

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Week Twelve    (13)

Band Members: Sarah, Tilly, Robert,  Lewis

Song: Video Games - Lana Del Ray

Again i would be on bass for this song as Robert felt he would be best to step in for the role of guitar. learning the song was a little harder than normal as the song has very subtle note changes as no bass or drums, working these instruments in would be rather a challenge. luckily Caroline was able to assist in working the instruments in. the performance needed brushing up as the chord changes were still a little off. we also had some feedback that would help us include Julson into the song

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Performance Night  (14) 
Our time for rehearsals were over, tonight we would be in Fletchers Lea The performance went really well for us as we managed to perform all four of our songs, i feel we performed them well as we all remembered our parts, none of us went out of time and only a few minor note slips occurred, however during the rehearsal my guitar strap came off and so i had to finish a song whilst trying to keep the guitar upright, next time i would be sure to bring my own strap locks so that the instrument does not fall out of place.

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Week thirteen (Half Term)  (15)
as i didn't have any knowledge of what songs or what bands i would be in when i arrived back at college i decided to practice the songs i had performed in the performance aswell as other songs that i favour playing as well as writing up my evaluation task for how the gig went.

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Week Fourteen (Half Term) (16)
made more work on the evaluation as well as making a start on the rehearsal performance essay

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Week Fifteen (Half Term)  (17)

finished off the Evaluation and i am nearly finished with the Rehearsal performance essay, just need to indicate the goals that i achieved when performing.

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Week Sixteen  (18)

New Band Members: Tilly, Antony, Ben, Jack, Rebecca

We decided that our best plan of action for the day would be to suggest songs and conjure a setlist, we all made our suggestions and many were agreeable, we also decided to create a facebook group where the final set list would be confirmed, new songs could be added and we could also decide which songs we should practice over the weekend.

Week Seventeen:    (19)

Band Members: Tilly, Ben, Jack,

Song: Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz

the decision to do this song was rather haphazard as we had failed to agree on a song over Facebook group chat, so luckily the rest of the band knew the song. however as i didn't i went out of my way to learn the song for myself, Jack would be on Guitar but because the song has little atmosphere there wasn't really room for another guitar in the song so i decided to go on bass for the song's sake,  there were however only four of us on the song so Tilly decided to do Keys as well as vocals to try and fill in, which she did well. however the song wasn't complete as no rap was present in the song,

Week eighteen (20)

no performance this week as monday was a band holiday, more work was made on clint eastwood as we tried to get tilly to adjust her vocals to  better suit the song's key. we also decided on doing "beautiful" by eminem so that week i looked into learning the song as well as learning the cult of personality as the band had confirmed that this would be in our setlist.

Week Nineteen (21)

Band Members: Tilly, Ben, Jack, Antony

Song: Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz

We felt that this song needed to be re-performed so that we could mark it off as done, tilly needed to work on her vocals for it and Antony had not even rehearsed the song with us. we were pleased with the final outcome of the song doing it a second time, I can't say that i have done much improvement
as the part i'm playing in the song is very small and cannot be improved much more than it already is.
I'm spending more time on The Cult of Personality

Week Twenty (22)

Band Members Ben, Jack, Antony, Tilly

Song: Beautiful - Eminem

our band finally manged to get our second song to work as our previous song needed just a little bit more work, This would be another song out of my comfort zone. Eminem isn't an artist i listen to listen to regularly, The guitar riff i would be playing was rather repetitive so i had to spend some time coming up with creative ways on making it more interesting, the chord progression was the same throughout and there was no solo either so my role would be rather bland to say the least, however i made sure that i put all the effort i made in rehearsal to make the performance stand out, i still feel however that the song can be improved by all of us,

Week Twenty One (23)

Band Members Ben, Jack, Antony, Tilly

Song - Cult of Personality

finally i would be performing my chosen song, the one i had been practicing for at home and in my guitar lessons with Alex, i have put a lot of work into the solo particularly, practicing scales and patterns that can be used as well as a unique ending with the drummer in our band, performing the song went well as we had been practicing hard to get this song upto shape, given that it's in the time signature of 3/4, adjusting to the new time signature proved challenging,

Week Twenty Two (24)

Song - Radioactive - Imagine Dragons

Radioactive would prove to be an easy week for all of us as we all knew the song and had been practicing for it prior to the rehearsal, its an easy song with basic chords and rhythm patterns, and so performing in front of everyone was rather easy as well. i struggled to make the song more interesting as it does not change much at all, however i dropped out at the second verse to add affect and i practiced going over textures with Ben so the verse changes and bridges stood out.

Performance Night (25)

This performance would be our last one ever and so it would be held like it was last year at the square. We would be performing our set as normal in the order of Clint Eastwood, Beautiful, Radioactive and Cult of personality. I felt that the performance went well as we managed to perform Cult of Personality exceptionally well. We had been struggling with it however we were pleased that we ended well on it. however on the song Beautiful, my band members were performing different chords than i was and never told me that they were going to do so, as a result i had to change up my playing to suit there's and risk sounding our of key.