Musicians Blog

Tuesday the 9th of October 2018

Monday the 8th of October 2018

My weekend went well considering how garbage my week was previously, I started to watch the documentary about metal that Jason gave to me on Friday which has so far been interesting.

Within music business, we went over the job roles again and Chris gave the class a big ol’ chat on how much detail he wants put into the work. He said mine was fine and that I just needed to add in what role I’d like to do and what it further entails, which I then proceeded to do at lunch as I wasn’t up for hanging out with my band members.

After that, we had rehearsal which can either go two ways, but before today’s session Chris sat down and gave our guitarist a chat and then the both of us, Chris and Jason eventually sorted it out as what he said won’t be tolerated as lightly as it was the next time. Then as a band we went through a couple of songs before the session ended, because then our singer had to a leave to attend a funeral which is sad to hear.

The next rehearsal session was cut short again as our guitarist wasn’t willing to go through anything which is always great, so then when they left I went and saw Chris about finishing up sorting my bass out which I learned a lot from, last Friday he didn’t have the right size trust rod adjuster so he brought his Fender jazz bass in and we went from there.

He also thought to put me in another band to help them out with the lead guitar work so I get the best of both worlds, which is going to push me as a player but it should go ahead with flying colours and I hope to further impress Chris and my family on what I’ve achieved within music for the past 3 years with hard work and dedication!

Wednesday the 3rd of October 2018

Today we only had half a day to get things done because the college had a open evening, so we only came in for rehearsal, well I did at least because my guitar teacher was at a funeral and I teach myself Bass with some special help from Chris on the side.

Rehearsal was a bit heated as me and the lead guitarist are having a bit of a petty argument over whats going on in the sessions, etc and how I am acting up, which I’m not which is fun times. Apart from that I worked to the best of my abilities whilst feeling like absolute garbage on the side, I felt like I was at fault and I was bringing the drummer and the singer down because me being silent and his bad mood.

After rehearsal, Chris saw my email about him and that was fun, I understand that Chris is a very busy guy at the moment so I just let it play out. But I knew that talking to him and showing him what’s going on would be ten times better than me being sad.

But after that fun was sorted out and Chris cheered me up a bit, I went home and got myself ready to go and help out at the Henry Cort open evening in their music department considering Ben (Mr.Chilcott) helped me get as far as I am now in college. Chris and I agreed also that I should come back in on Friday to sort out my basses action out so its a lot easier to maintain so that should be fun also!

Tuesday the 2nd of October 2018

We went over ‘Mercy’ by Duffy in rehearsal today by request of our singer, it’s a Pop Soul song so its fun for her to sing as it’s within her vocal range and she likes the style as well, personally I think it suits her perfectly. The bass line is fun to play around with because the song follows a 12-bar blues progression and it compliments the vocals and the keys also, the drums are pretty laid back and simple but it is just what the song needs to make the impact that it does.

In composition, Chris had to go deal with an issue, so one of the HNC’s ran then class. We started a new 30 second piece based on a washing machine which was interesting, I’m still getting used to Logic X so it was fairly difficult to get into, but I will be sure to improve it before I have to submit it in to Chris. I’ve started off with imitating the sound and the motion of a washing machine on the drums to give it that chugging feel, but I can only get better and it will come together eventually.

After composition, we had Pop Music in Practice with Jason which is always fun times for both parties. My other band mates started to do an analysis of ‘Mercy’ by Duffy but I was still doing my break down of ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ by Bon Jovi, so I was incredibly confused with what I was doing but I didn’t want to frustrate my peers and or interrupt Jason, so I chose to listen in and make a few notes on the song and kept my struggle to myself.

After lunch we had rehearsal again, so we proceeded to go over the structure of ‘Mercy’ which is always fun to do at the end of the day. But we eventually called it a day because we didn’t know our parts incredibly well and we were all getting frustrated and hardwired to self destruct.

Monday the 1st of October 2018

Today, within rehearsal we went over what our set list for the Christmas Concert will actually sound like. We’ve sort of agreed on what songs to play and how we are going to present ourselves to the audience, what we think would work is that one half of the set is going to be soul based and the other will be rock; this is to show that we are more than capable of playing multiple genres!

We also had Music Business today, I did my work for it last Friday as I had nothing else to do with my spare time before the competition I fought in which had me feeling pretty much everywhere!

After music business we had rehearsal and we went through our songs as per usual and wrote out the structure on the board to make sure we are playing everything to scratch, and or changing it so it best seeks fit to our capabilities, which is always special fun times!

In Music Business, I’ve chosen to base my work on a gig Primus played last and reference all the roles with an example going on whilst they played and what effect it had on the audience as seen below, I think that went pretty well but theres still plenty more I could add to it to boost my final mark.

Music Business

Within the music industry there are many aspects and roles that contribute to it behind the scenes to the public eye. One of the aspects of the industry is the live production of music, there are many people involved in the organisation and also the delivery of live music happening each and everyday roles like the following.

– Sound Engineers
– Security
– Box Office
– Hospitality
– Stage Manager / Stage crew
– Camera crew
– Support act / slot
– Lighting Engineers
– Musicians – backing singers and session musicians
– Hair and Makeup
– Medical crew

Primus was filmed live at The Capitol Theatre on Sunday the 29th of October 2017 at 8:20PM, this is what I’m going to be basing my example off of as it’s perfectly demonstrates some of the key roles needed for this performance to go as smooth as it did. https://youtu.be/Jw4PYdlTD2

– Produced + Directed by: Jonathan Healey
– Producer: Brad Sands at Red Light Management
– Executive Producer: Peter Shapiro
– Camera Operator: Dave Brown

As seen within the video of the performance the band have worked closely the production team to achieve the image they want to put out within the music industry.
To start off with the lighting engineers and technicians, throughout the set they are constantly change colour and the direction they are shone within this helps to set the mood of the song that’s being played and how the song is also progressing.

Lighting engineers have high-level skills to prepare, rig, operate and maintain stage lighting systems and electrical effects during live performances. Lighting engineers work closely with lighting designers, sound engineers, the director and the stage manager to combine their skills and help create the best live experience that pleases both the band and the audience.
During Primus’ set the atmosphere changes massively song to song, at the start of their first set they started off with ‘Mr Krinkle’ and the onstage presence is very dark and ominous which best suits the sound, the lyrics and les claypool’s stage appearance for this particular song.

But a couple of songs later, the mood changes when Primus play ‘Jerry Was A Race Car Driver’, the stage lights up progressively throughout and gets a lot heavier during the breakdowns and they also stop when the song pauses before Les Claypool says ‘Dog will hunt.’
This just shows how much preparation and time took to maintain and sustain the electrical effects during the live performance along with the sound engineers, the director and the stage manager.

As a sound technician, it’s their responsibility to assemble, operate and maintain the technical equipment used to record, amplify, enhance, mix or reproduce sound during a live performance. They’ll also need to identify the sound requirements for a given task or situation and perform the appropriate actions to produce the sound that the band want to produce for the audience and themselves.
However, they may also be responsible for setting up audio and mixing board equipment for event and or production. The duties of a sound technician vary according to the industry in which they are employed. Sound engineers often assist record producers also to help give their work the sound they are hoping to achieve.
They’re all types of audio engineers that help out at live audio events as it takes a lot of people to produce a very good out come just like Primus did, here are just a few examples.

-| Live Sound Engineer – A live sound engineer works at live events to make sure the sound is of appropriate value and high quality.
-| Monitor Engineer – A monitor engineer works with live sound engineers to help the performers at a live event hear themselves.
-| Systems Engineer – A systems engineer manages the entire experience of sound at live performances. Systems engineers manage both live sound engineers and monitor engineers, and also work to set up the entire live sound system at many live events.
-| Audio Post Engineer – An audio post engineer works to mix and edit audio for television and movies.

With all these factors and people combined the lighting technicians and the sound technicians help to dynamically convey the delivery of music to Primus’ audience, however there are still a lot of people that helped organise how this gig was going to play out.

Stage managers have several key responsibilities and tasks to perform in each phase of a production, including: scheduling and running rehearsals. They also coordinate the work of the stage crew and or stage hands, this is done by calling cues and possibly the band members entrances at the beginning of the performance.
Stagehands, also known as stage technicians or crew, work backstage with scenery, props and special effects in theatrical productions and live concerts. They play a vital role in any performance, by knowing exactly where and when to move objects, instruments and scenery in which that the band needed whilst performing song to song.
Yet again, during the first set whilst Primus were performing, Les Claypool was playing with his usual array of basses, but for ‘Mr Krinkle’ and ‘The Valley’ he uses a Ned Steinberger 5-String Electric Upright Bass.
Swapping between his vast collection basses would be the stagehands job to do it before the que is given to the lighting engineers to light the stage back up again after the change is made, as seen in the video it’s been done fairly efficiently and done with no trip ups.

Wednesday the 26th of September 2018

Nothing much happened today, our vocalist wasn’t in again so we couldn’t properly go through our set list and or discuss new songs to play in the future so instead we played through the songs we had a few times then proceeded to wait for our instrumental lessons. Whilst waiting I caught up on some set work and typed up notes for class until the fire alarm went off, everyone then had to go wait outside until we were given the all clear which is always fun times. In my Guitar lesson we went over a few scales such as the Major Pentatonic and the Blues scale, it was frustrating at first as I keep switching between bass and guitar a lot more than I usually did when I was at secondary school, playing around more than 4 strings was odd and playing with a plectrum is also hard to adjust to also. Also within the afternoon I had Music Theory with Chris, we went over the bass clef (the Man Clef) and the treble clef, time signatures again and also Chris’ special tree of justice which is the note division chart but a quality edition.

Tuesday the 25th of September 2018

Yesterday evening I couldn’t find an awful amount of time to practice as I was training within Brazilian Jiu Jitsu because I’m competing on Saturday for the second time professionally this year considering I have just started the martial art. Keeping that in mind, when I got into rehearsal I picked up the bass line fairly fast and yet again the bass line is walking just like the one from ‘I Want You Back’. Our female singer wasn’t about on the day as she picked up tonsillitis, however our male singer was about and he gave it ago; but at the end of the day he got moved out of band by Chris because he needed to form 4 bands so we worked through that like pros and just continued going through the structure as a trio.

In the morning also we did composition with Chris we had to compose a 30 second piece based upon a news theme, that was fun to do; it was mainly to get us used to the new programme, it was a great starting point for everyone it was difficult at first but I soon got into the swing of things.

After Composition we had theory with Jason, I went over my Pop Music in practice notes and made sure I was up to date with everything Jason wanted!

Monday the 24th of September 2018

Today we went over one of the new songs for our set list for the December venue we are playing. Chris told us to choose at least 4 songs off of any of the 100 Now albums to form a 20 minute set, so far its been hard to figure out what we want to play as band with a male and female vocalist. However, our guitarist has chosen the song he wants to do which is called ‘Sex On Fire’, the song is fairly complex for an indie rock piece. Personally the bass line isn’t as hard as ‘I Want You Back’, but its always nice to take a break and have something light to play because I don’t want to strain my wrists and fingers whilst playing. At the end of the day I was beginning to lose my patience with the band as we couldn’t come up and agree with a new song, so in the end we decided to summon Chris to help us choose something new and challenging, we all agreed upon playing Bon jovi’s ‘Livin On a Prayer’ and because it was late we also said to go home and learn it in the evening.

Monday the 17th of September 2018
Yesterday evening went very well for all of the first year bands: level 2 and 3!

It started off with the Level 2 band then we began to go through each Level 3 band, my band being the last one before the break. Our performance was fairly explosive compared to the gradual build up before hand; as a band we were visually appealing to, we agreed to wear black and white to set the mood for the soul song we were playing and for its historical background too, for soul players at the time they were expected to dress smart to try impress the white audience, because typically most soul performers were black.

Playing wise, I could of done better and this goes to both me and the guitarist here, as we didn’t have time to warm up our hands. For me this could of brought up more strain than need within my hand from playing in the cold, next time depending on the temperature either way I will be warming up before and after.

The change within dynamics from forte the first time to piano on the second, was also a big help for impact, no one else thought of the effect it would have on the audience; I thought it made the song a lot more meaningful and it helped to show that it meant a lot to our band!

However, it was a very good first performance overall and I cannot wait to further improve as a professional musician and play more venues representing Fareham Music!

What Music Means To Me?

Over the past three years my love and passion has grown for music considerably more thanks to many people that have contributed to it, musicians, teachers and many others.

Ever since my second year in secondary school, I began playing guitar and I’ve progressed even further since that very day, my dad initially got me into Pink Floyd heavily and that’s where it all started then that soon led onto bands like Queen and The Beatles.

Only until two years later until I properly dedicated myself to music, during the majority of my time in secondary school I found myself being too shy and very insecure whist playing round over students which was excellent. I eventually stepped up during Christmas time in 2016 and joined a band with three other students playing lead/rhythm guitar depending on what song we were playing. This mainly happened with the help from one of my previous music teachers, Mrs Wilson.

At the beginning of the GCSE Music studying was a bit tough amongst all of my other subjects, but she has always pushed me to go further ever since the start, she gave me piano lessons which helped me with my basic knowledge of Music Theory at the time even though piano is my worst enemy when it comes to co ordination along with drums.

Nearing the start of the new year, the band started to from my new taste and playing style when it came to music. My two original music teachers both eventually left before the new year, one retired and Mrs Wilson was planning to leave and look after her children full time after she gave birth to the one due at the time.

Within the first week within January 2017 (the 5th I think) my class were introduced to our new substitute teacher, at first I found him weird as it takes time for me to get used to new people but yet again he was still a cool music teacher. After getting to know him a lot more than I did at the time of him first joining, my taste in music yet again changed to a much more heavier and slower pace, with touches of Jazz on the side, his name is Ben Chilcott.

During that year we played three major gigs, well to me at least: Whiteley’s Parish Rooms, Meadowside Festival and the Christmas concert. It was my first time playing Meadowside and it helped my confidence massively having him by my side filling in bass for us because our bassist had a injury with her back. Whiteley’s Parish rooms were fun to play whilst representing the school, gigs like that made me feel like i was actually repaying the school for what they’ve given me so far as a musician. The Christmas Concert didn’t go particularly well for me, however it was more about the experience that came out of it rather than a perfect flashy performance. It showed me as musician what I needed to work on for the next time I perform solo rather than locking up rather than being prepared and ready for failure if I slipped on the smallest mistake.

At the beginning of the new year (2018), I began to look at myself as more of a professional musician and began to take more pride within my craft than anything else that came to mind, I thought this would be more productive rather than messing around with others and getting involved with petty friendships and all that crazy jive.

Yet again, with the help from Ben I was guided within the right direction for doing so, as sad as it may sound I preferred to spend my free time with him talking about music, literature and film rather than talking to others as they were a bad influence on me from the start. After weeks of serious practice, some tips and tricks from Ben, I eventually perfected the solo ‘Money’ by Pink Floyd and by that time I also finished the majority of the coursework for GCSE music.

Nearing the end of my final academic year at Henry Cort, the creative arts department as a whole put on a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘School of Rock’. All besides from helping out Ben and the music department where I could which I always took great pride within, the production was the best thing I had done during my time at Henry Cort. Considering that our whole pit band learned the majority of the score by ear, it went very well, it was also a good laugh amongst the band which was always fun even within rehearsal when we got occasionally fed up with it all!

At the end of the academic year, I found it very upsetting to be leaving Ben and the creative-arts department behind, but he let me know that I’m always welcome to come back and give a hand, I’ll always be there to help him out and he will always be there to help me which is nice to know.

Now that I’ve joined Fareham Music, it’s been a lot more serious which is one of the many aspects in which I like about it, even though I’m still settling in and rebuilding more confidence day by day. The lectures, Chris, Jason and Dan are three of the best people and musicians that have so far furthered my love and passion towards my craft, they are always ready and willing to help anyone out, and without a doubt make my day that little bit better.

Ever since I’ve joined, I have began to trust my abilities considerably more and with the help of Chris’ almighty influence I have finally picked up the bass properly (without a pick); I also found out that Chris used to teach Ben in college also which is a good laugh! I cannot wait to continue studying music like a professional after many dedicated years so far and then eventually within the future my end goal is to become a teacher most probably just like Ben and Chris.

But for now, I have a lot more work to do, this is me signing off…

Tuesday the 11th of September 2018

We began to start use composition as an actual lesson today, Chris showed us how to use Logic X and he also explained to us what Midi is. Our aim for the lesson was to create a jingle or short 30 second piece to a certain key signature that we were assigned: I was given F Major, the key signature with one flat in which being B flat.

Monday the 10th of September 2018.

Today we rehearsed ‘I want you Back’ By The Jackson 5, I’ve essentially nailed the bass line after a solid 10 hours plus of rehearsal/practice. Our drummer wasn’t in today as he had a cold (so do I though), it staggered our band in many ways, but I managed to tanked through it with the the split on my index finger also. Yesterday, I went to go see Ghost at the Royal Albert Hall; it was my second time going to the venue and it’s been magnificent both times, I partly regret that I sang my heart out as consequently I’ve lost my voice but it was definitely worth it, last time I went I saw David Gilmour which was amazing for the first gig I’ve ever been too!