Ellie Thornton Music

This morning I woke up to find that we have a theory class before lunch. It was our first class call after having Easter half term for two long, boring weeks. In comparison to the others we have a smaller group so it is much easier to talk and keep track of the conversation if we stay on topic. It was fairly short call as our lecturer had a meeting, we had a quick catch up by working on time signatures and scales from the Grade 3 Music Theory Rockschool sample paper.

Luckily I had already finished it at the start of the year so I was just marking my answers as went along, it was a nice recap as I have swiftly moved along to five and I am on my way to starting six properly. Next week we will go through a couple more pages as a class and tomorrow we have a catch up meeting with everybody which I am not particularly looking forward to.

Within the afternoon I then proceeded to go out on my daily form of exercise and after being for half an hour and seeing groups of teens out, I went home slightly frustrated as I can’t see my partner so why should they… 

Well half term was not very eventful, turns out being stuck indoors for two weeks doesn’t have many perks at all. My younger siblings are loving it as they don’t seem to get bored of TV and just doing nothing, I on the other hand struggle to keep my self occupied.

For the first week off I tried watching as many movies as I can which seemed appealing to me. As Disney+ came out that week I stuck to everything on there as it didn’t require me to get out DVDs etc.

I got round to watching ‘Incredibles 2’ and I was more distracted my the score at times rather than the plot of the film! The drums draw you in when a fast pace fight takes place and then the brass section just hits you hard.

Going out for about half hour a day was fun until my hay fever made it impossible to see without clawing my eyes out. Despite having taken the tablet that is meant to help I felt like garbage, so after recovering from my cold thing I have a new threat.

I did acquire a new found interest within drums and I have been toning out everything else whilst listening to anything I’d normally chuck on in the background. Whilst going through my bands set list I could find myself hitting a imaginary guitar kit as no one is around to judge me…

With YouTube at my disposal, I decided to dive into a plethora of videos, drum notation and breakdowns of the tracks I have been listening to.

My favourite drummer at the moment would have to be Gavin Harrison, he is a beast, obviously I can’t explain what he is doing technically but it’s like woah. He has written a couple books full of drum things, and all the notes are a bit much for me to comprehend but it’s still cool to see noice into sheet.

Apart from that I mostly practiced and went though my grade 6 and 8 books for guitar, I did pick up my theory books here and there but I didn’t want to force myself into doing them otherwise I wouldn’t be getting anything right.

I donated a fair bit of money to the NHS rather it be through the text thing and the raffle someone put together. Musicians where donating certain items, tickets, etc and when I saw Steven Wilson’s name I instantly lit up.

I had brought two tickets for myself, my Mum had got one on her behalf, and so did my Nan. Then I brought one for my partner before the raffle shut, it was fun to participate within, but unfortunately we didn’t win.

But at least the money went to a good cause.

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After warming up to play my instrument with scales, chords, etc. I began to draw my attention back to these scores I have been hearing behind films, TV and games.

In most the arrangements where huge, especially when it came to films and the games I picked up. The one that stood out the most to me was ‘Cuphead’.

It is a classic run and gun action game heavily focused around its big boss battles. It is heavily by cartoons of the 1930s which I adore, the visuals and audio are painstakingly created with the same techniques of the era including; traditional hand drawn cel animation, watercolor backgrounds, and original jazz recordings.

The game has won many awards, for its art style, animation and soundtrack. Not to mention the BAFTA it one, since then the game has begun to develop a somewhat underground following.

Now that the score behind it has gained even more interest they’ve put together a website where you can purchase the score in different ways. These include scores for a high school concert band, high school jazz bands, barbershop quartets and as professional charts which is awesome.

Here’s a preview below,

On YouTube there are a few clips behind the making of the music where are a good insight but I wish there was more to sink my teeth into as it is amazing to see how it all unfolds. Feel free to check out the game or not, it is available on most platforms and it’s definitely worth your time.

Now that I have seven days a week to do anything music related I will definitely take any opportunity I can to read about any path music could take me, and or learn any genre I desire.

I hope that the lockdown is lifted whenever is necessary but it is best if we all take our time and make sure we can prevent as many deaths as possible and create a plateau effect so we can all return to our normal lives.

Today is technically our last day of term, and the start to our half term which seems odd but oh well. Being indoors isn’t all too fun, running out of things to do in my pass time that aren’t to do with music which is irritating.

We had a meeting today with our whole class and lecturer which is always interesting, it’s nice to hear everyone’s voices but being at home makes me a bit unenthusiastic to it.

Within this meeting, the whole situation with our break was explained and how we are being marked overall which is a relief for all of us in fear. Afterwards we all had meetings within our band, discussing our final set as we are all gearing up to if we were to play it.

The whole meeting thing took place mostly over the phone, but we made sure to include our keyboard player and lecture on what we are intending to play! Here’s a brief compilation below, I missed out ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa.

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We decided to get rid of a few songs, so our set is 45 minutes long, but we have enough in our back catalog to play for longer if necessary.

After all of this I began to gear myself up for a very uneventful half term stuck indoors, luckily I’m surrounded by my instruments and family, along with being able to keep in contact with my partner.