Month: Jan 2019

So it turns out that Ewan looks like Shaggy, that was a solid highlight of my day because usually Wednesdays are pretty pointless.

This morning we had a very productive rehearsal in comparison to the previous weeks work. With the new band line up there is a new lease of life which is key for me to shine and work even harder than before.

With our lead singer not being in, we have been working closely this week to work on the structure of the songs. Purple Rain has been nailed in the head today, all we need to do with it is work on perfecting the ending and then consistently polishing it up with all the time we are given.

We have touched upon “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Take Me With U” it has been challenging but I am sure we can get through it when we all know our parts so when we come together we can change and add to make further improvements to ourselves!

I have brought a book that should help me figure out the structure of most of the songs as doing it all on my own is challenging with the limited amount of free time I have…

Instead of Music Theory with Chris we had it with Jake and Lee which was entertaining, didn’t really learn anything new though, I prefer to sit at home and doing it on my own otherwise it won’t stick in my thick skull.

Home time best time, I now spend my evenings with my other half if we don’t have something going on and it seems that our timetables have lined up pretty well which is relieving as in the first time in a while I feel mentally sound…

This morning was a huge improvement, Chris has made the conscious decision and swapped Lucy out of another band for Tom in our band as he feels Tom and another bassist have a better chemistry, likewise with Lucy and Lewis will now have which I am very happy about!

In our first rehearsal of the day we focused on “Purple Rain”, helping Lucy get the structure down and specific fills and breaks, along with the hidden time signature changes from 4/4 to 3/4 and back, which are hidden in plain sight when first listening to the song.

We have a back-up singer who stepped in during our first rehearsal to sing ‘Purple Rain’ as she already knew it. Despite the difficulty of not having a singer for most of our rehearsals this term we have found that rehearsing without a singer is helping us to become even more confident with our parts individually and as a band. It also means we have to have the structure memorised and work with each other even more to perfect our playing which is something we hope Chris will see shine through us when we perform in the live lounge and to a paying audience.

Within our second rehearsal, we ran through “Purple Rain” a couple times, but we also looked at the other songs. Me and Lewis already know the overall structure to “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Take Me With U” roughly, however we haven’t perfected them all and are still not quite sure on all the parts. Lucy found “Let’s Go Crazy” to have an incredibly drum part which became fairly entertaining to me, so she has decided to take it a step further and to try to adapt it and make it a bit more interesting.

“Take Me With U” has a very cool drum fill for a intro to a song and I bloody love it, Lucy learnt it by ear in rehearsal in under ten minutes which was very impressive considering shes limited to two toms. We played through the first verse and chorus with the band as a whole but we aren’t very confident when it comes to this song.

We then had a look at the Lenny Kravitz version of ‘When Doves Cry’ by Chris’ recommendation, and all of us agreed that it was a interesting arrangement, and that it would be a challenging to attempt it but incredibly fun on all ends.

Today didn’t go awfully well, rehearsal still feels like it is going nowhere and we a couple weeks in now, I thought we would be well ahead of the competition but that doesn’t seem to be the case and I think it is my fault for having little to no confidence and or leadership skills purely because I feel incredibly uncomfortable.

After a week plus of not getting anywhere and being not very comfortable I am at a solid breaking point which is great, I will work through it but it will take time and I only want the best for myself and my peers which is becoming a growing concern to my overall moral when I go home and continue to worry…

The only lesson we properly had today was Aural Perception which went I shall attach a link here if you’d like to check out how I have done and what songs Chris exposed us too today!

I am sorry in advance for the lack of detail within my blog posts recently, I can’t go into failure within detail so this is the best I can do, I’ll be sure to work hard and improve the quality of my work with precision and practice…

Today felt very tense, well it shouldn’t have been; it’s just me being woman about it.

We managed to get a room for rehearsal and tried to go through “Let’s Go Crazy” properly but Jason came in and we ended up talking to him for most of it, which is a win either way you look at it.

Guitar Lesson, the highlight of my day, I was so hyped to go over the A NATURAL MINOR IN FIVE DIFFERENT POSITIONS. We went through the majority of the grade 6 stuff as me and Jack are cool like that, but Dan chose to mention Iron Maiden and that led us off on a stray, so we decided to give him a few of their tracks along side the Jazz Lick..

Theory was the final push I needed to be completely fed up with college, looking through my book was a kick in the head I knew it was wrong as I did it half asleep, and having someone bloody go on saying that I was wrong and I’m stupid isn’t what I needed.

As soon as that lesson was over I sat in the corridor and thought about things, Jason came and spoke to me which was reassuring, ended my week off on a high note thankfully…

Is this really a Musicians Blog if this is turning into a platform where I complain?

Our rehearsal time first thing in the morning has been taken out of the timetable because you know it’s too difficult to drag your self into college for 9am, it’s not bloody hard is it.

There was no motivation from the rest of my band today, I was ready to go but the others were like MmmMmM there’s no singer. So that’s going to be great, I’d be more than happy to fill in but playing and singing at the same time is pretty difficult. Also I don’t think you’d thing someone like me would sing, which is true.

We gave “Let’s Go Crazy” a try which went well, but from my snobby musicians perspective it feels like there’s a lot missing as there’s not much the three of us can do musically to fill or a sparse arrangement.

Composition this week consisted of my favourite the 12 bar structure huzzah, we recorded hound dog on Logic but considering my sleep deprived state hates thinking early I made it awfully, MIDI is the one thing I have a strong hate towards its like leave these instruments alone they’re not all keyboards.

I began to write up my essay for Jason on ‘Purple Rain’ but looking back on my notes is like looking back at Hitlers paintings, it’s impressive but you shouldn’t be ecstatic when you see them.

That took a lot of energy out of me, plus I had little to no money for food, so when rehearsal came around after lunch I was ready to backflip off a building into the pond. We went through “Purple Rain” and “Let’s Go Crazy” but it’s like 50/50 when it comes to passion at the moment and it’s really digging at me, I’m choosing to show in person as that’s for losers.

Tutor yet again, not fun, I know it’s not meant to be but normally Chris pops some good jokes but I can’t actually recall what happened so, that will remain a huge mystery…

Monday’s are boring. They should be banned, and therefore we should have another day of rest because God is incompetent. Just because he has a perfect sleep pattern doesn’t mean we do, not all of us are perfect images of him or what ever that religious jive states in a big book scribbles.

Theory, on a Monday morning, what more can I ask for; the death penalty of course. Not feeling it this week, this year in fact, I’ve felt overwhelming tired all day everyday, not good.

Can’t continue with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a bit due to personal matters and my own safety which is cool I guess, but yet again so is climbing, so my life is diminishing within purpose as we speak.

‘Purple Rain’ growing to love it really, if I actually step back and just think about something else than sleeping, he was a great musician and there was a hell of a lot of passion behind all of his work. That’s something I’m aspiring to obtain at the moment as I feel like I’m lacking within comparison to other people.

I used to have the mindset of it’s a big competition for the best grade but in reality I’m pretty garbage and it doesn’t take much to do better than me, as I’m not thee brightest or very talented in fact when it comes to music.

Rehearsal hasn’t been particularly smooth, still haven’t found my confidence which is so pathetic of me. I’m going to beat myself up if I don’t pick up my bloody slack next week, Jesus.

Our singer wasn’t in for personal reasons which I respect fully; so I took the liberty of writing up the structure for all of the songs we are aspiring to pull off this term. It’s more than doable it’s just trying to motivate everyone, I’m not a very good leader, yet but I’m trying my hardest.

Home time was imminent which is always good, spent the evening with my partner. I’ve found myself to be a lot more sane and happy with him so what a epic win for me and him.

Early morning rehearsal is always torture, we continued to go through ‘Purple Rain’ which eventually led to a solo which I have had very limited time to perfect so far, so I’ll be playing round with the root notes like a bass player, as that’s what I’ve been comfortable doing so far.

In composition we went over Minimalism, I say went over, we took a look at the 12 bar structure for the fifth time. So I preceded to tune myself out until my ears perked up at something interesting, hopefully next week we will do something cool.

In our lesson with Jason we have to put together a essay I want to say on why the album we have chosen is a iconic staple within Music, if you find my life slightly interesting you’d know by now that we are doing ‘Purple Rain’ which is a challenge in itself so I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes down.

After lunch Dan took the liberty of making are room look pretty today, and by pretty I mean, purple…

After spending an hour exposed to it, walking back into the real world is a struggle I’ve got to say.

Tutor, pretty boring, this week was trying not to goto sleep as I didn’t want to with stand the utter jive everyone was throwing about, the good thing is that I have the day off tomorrow as all the losers are retaking English and Maths. That means I can actually catch up on some sleep before I goto see Mastodon Thursday evening, huzzah!