Thursday, 26 March 2015

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. 

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