Ellie Thornton Music

This morning started off with Chris asking us how our half term went as per usual and he went through everybody individually asking a significant thing they did, I kept mine incredibly simple and said a “Hard Nothing” as I couldn’t be bothered to talk an awful amount in front of my class.

After this long winded routine Chris reminded us when our instrumental exams are taking place, my guitar exam falls upon the 18th of this month which isn’t too far away, hopefully I won’t freeze up like I did within my grade 4 exam and muck up completely…

We then went through an example of a project action plan template for someone who achieved a pass, we were going to have a class on it tomorrow morning but due to the GCSE retakes we are not allowed within college until lunch. Which is handy for me as I do enjoy the freedom of not having to rush and pack everything on a early Tuesday morning, but it also means that we are denied of rehearsal time which is something we desperately need at the moment.

After this lesson we had a much needed rehearsal where we finally went over ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ as a band which went surprisingly well for our first attempt as a band. We initially played with the track then we took it from there, after a couple times we felt comfortable without it so we then went on to play as a four piece.

Over half term I was tasked with figuring out a solo which fits within the slot of the saxophone which I ultimately failed within doing so, if I were to play the sax part it would be hard to then jump back to my original part on guitar when we get back to the song. This evening I will be taking another shot at this solo as we cant have a big empty space within a song because it seems unprofessional and just tacky.

After this rehearsal we had lunch we seemed to last for a mighty long time which is because of our D.I.S session which takes place after lunch, for the most of it we sat about in the corridor doing nothing until our singer arrived back early from her English lesson so we took this as an early opportunity to rehearse.

We set up and began to play through the new songs for our set, we managed to play through ‘Kiss’ successfully three times and then ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ twice. After this we tried going through ‘1999’ we left it up until this point due to how empty it sounds without the triggers and key parts but we managed to play it enough with a bucket full of enthusiasm for it to work at about seventy percent.

Chris was lurking about our rehearsal room for a good amount of time eyeing up Lewis’ bass which was nice, when he heard us attempt to go through ‘1999’ he walked on and told us how we could improve the song and be smart whilst going about playing it.

He then proceeded to change the bass part in which it has a completely different feel to it, my part differs to his when he either plays a high or low F. It is very hard to explain without hearing it, we went through the song and it sounded a bit better but it will be a lot of work for Lewis and I to get our heads around as there is a lot of space for us to go wrong.

After this we went through a couple of songs off our old set then we proceeded to back up and go home!

It is nearing the end of half term and it is surprisingly too hot for me already, on top of the immense heat out side, this is then amplified within my partners car because there’s no air conditioning and it is completely black, so all is well apart from the shirt I have sweated through within an hour of use.

We are starting off our day by going to pick up Ethan’s new laptop so when he goes to UNI he can do all of his work more or less at home, then there will no unnecessary trips just to do work which is a smart idea on his end, which doesn’t happen often 🙂

Then we took a trip to PMT to see if his guitar has arrived yet as he has been waiting impatiently all week for it to arrive like a little puppy waiting for food, turns out it is mean’t to arrive tomorrow only because it got held back for not having a tremolo arm.

Driving back home again was fun, if we had the windows down it would hurt our ears but if we had them up we would sweat bullets, the sooner we got out of the little black box the better. When we got back to my house I quickly packed up my bass and changed shirt as I stank, so did Eth, I also gave him a jack cable which merges into a USB so he can use it with his new Macbook on Garageband.

After we had gathered enough food to fuel us for the next 4 hours we set off to pick Jay up which was a long car journey, by the time we got to rehearsal we were all drenched within sweat. We were then met by Will from DXTA who let us in and told us to give the key to the other band rehearsing after us.

I knew that this was going to be a different space to what we have within college so I brought my earplugs with the thicker plugs so my ears weren’t obliterated by the end of the session, along with my cable, strap and brain.

After a hour in or so we took a break as my fingers were so sore and Jay needed a cigarette, so in this picture you can see my bass and Ethan’s big smelly feet believe me the sweat didn’t improve the overall aroma in the room.

But now that we are on to this topic the room was pretty cosy and a nice place to rehearse, it is twenty pound for three hours if you’re a student and if you rehearse from 7pm-10pm you can play all night as long as you lock up after yourselves. We are going to go back again after we have got a sets worth of songs and when we all know our parts fluently so then it just up to playing as a band, here is another picture of the room below;

I completely forgot to mention that I am the new bassist for Acid Vision, Ethan kicked out Jack because he was difficult to work with and very annoying at times. So instead of finding someone else I wanted to play for him because of the experience I will stumble upon and because I have a lot of potential being a fairly young musician.

Here is a video of what we got done in the rehearsal below;

My day started off with a rehearsal which was cool, I sat around for an hour as per usual as I’m always in early due to sleeping round my partners the night before.

Sitting in the corridor has become a routine that I have became too familiar with, my guitar teacher isn’t available this week because he is playing within the musical so I sat organising the work in my bag and looking at all the work I have to do.

When our singer came back from her English lesson we grabbed a rehearsal room as a trio, because Lewis is always in a bass lesson during the time where it is optional to rehearse within,

We began to look at ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, we kept playing it over and over whilst playing/singing around to the track until we had some footing of where the song was going.

Me and the drummer picked the structure up quickly, after two times roughly, and our singer had nearly memorised the lyrics too which is very good for her!

We will learn our parts over half term so it just a matter of putting them all together and getting tight as a band. Whilst our singer was singing she went to spit in the bin, well that is what I thought until I had realised she was throwing up in the bin.

I came to a stop after Lucy caught my attention as I carried on playing which is basic instinct for me, we quickly got up and helped her out and then we packed up to sit within the corridor.

I then went home with my partner to have lunch because we didn’t have any breakfast as a sacrifice for being at college in time.

After we had food, I was driven back and forced into a theory lesson but then I remembered Chris saying that my band could rehearse during that session so that is what we did, this time round though we had our bassist.

We went through ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ with our bassist now, he didn’t get the song so he took notes according the cut work down over half term. Afterwards our singer came back to go through the song a couple times then we went home for a much needed nap…

Due to the GCSE retakes I had the morning off which was handy, I then had the luxury of laying in for an hour or so alongside the constant fidgeting from my lovely partner.

I also had the opportunity to dry my hair properly after a shower I had first thing in the morning, which was not worth the ten minutes of pointing hot air at my hair.

Jack came over for a bit to restring my guitar as I always manage to prick myself whilst doing it to any guitar but my black Stratocaster which I heavily rely upon.

We only had two hours lined up for our day in college, this consisted of rehearsal and a tutor session which is always a blast.

Once I was all set up, which takes a fairly long time considering I have to plug in a stomp-box to the back of the amp. Then I have to put the wah onto my pedal board along side my chorus pedal. All that would be left to do is adding the power supply and then my two jack cables one to my amp and guitar!

Chris said from now on Dan will let me in earlier to set up all of my equipment so it makes future rehearsals easier for everyone and more time efficient, not to mention how much more we would get done in the first ten minutes..

This morning I was in reasonably early because I managed to wake up at the crack of dawn and have a wash, make breakfast then get a lift in to college where I proceeded to sit and wait until lesson started.

Within our first lesson we went over our stylistic analysis with Chris to make sure that we are working at the best of our abilities, I have finished mine all I have to do now is get it checked properly and then add a bibliography so I can achieve the best possible grade for myself.

Everyone began to have their one to ones in the morning but I had to wait until the afternoon to have mine, because I do not have to retake English or Maths so in the time given whilst waiting I finished some work and placed a few more posts in to my drafts section for me to post later.

When it came to my one to one yesterday it was over and done with quickly, Chris handed me my results and told me the areas I would have to improve within to achieve a distinction overall in the end. I wasn’t far away from working at excellent all round but I didn’t do some small attributes which I will do now knowing what I have left out.

This morning I was in reasonably early because I managed to wake up at the crack of dawn and have a wash, make breakfast then get a lift in to college where I proceeded to sit and wait until lesson started.

Within our first lesson we went over our stylistic analysis with Chris to make sure that we are working at the best of our abilities, I have finished mine all I have to do now is get it checked properly and then add a bibliography so I can achieve the best possible grade for myself.

Everyone began to have their one to ones in the morning but I had to wait until the afternoon to have mine, because I do not have to retake English or Maths so in the time given whilst waiting I finished some work and placed a few more posts in to my drafts section for me to post later.

When it came to my one to one yesterday it was over and done with quickly, Chris handed me my results and told me the areas I would have to improve within to achieve a distinction overall in the end. I wasn’t far away from working at excellent all round but I didn’t do some small attributes which I will do now knowing what I have left out.

After my one to one we went to sit in the mac room until everyone came back from the English Lesson, turns out Millie was already back from her class so Chris swiftly put us in a rehearsal room to get to work as a full band because Millie has nearly recovered to full health, however she hasn’t sung since she left ill so she was a bit rusty.

We went through our set to start off with as a warm up which was something special, the batteries within Lewis’ Bass died so it sounded a bit odd on his end not to mention how dull his strings sound because he hasn’t changed them since he brought the bass which is interesting…

All together we sounded tight but our tone was awful all round Lewis couldn’t figure out what was wrong so he kept playing around with his tone but so did I as I didn’t sound how usually did. I think somebody has mucked around with the levels in the room we went in too which isn’t handy.

By the end of the rehearsal session, I had a headache from how loud Lucy’s drums were, I need to invest within a better pair of earplugs or ask everyone to keep their levels at a reasonable amount so I can hear myself think.

When I came out I put my instrument and pedal board in the cupboard to be locked up over night so I don’t have to carry anything in tomorrow because there is a maths exam on so I won’t be able to get a lift in to college and carrying expensive equipment is hard to do especially when the sun is out.

Nothing too exciting happened today, but I will be sorting out my written work to post on here so you can see what I have been doing in my free time, I will see you all then!

This morning I had a guitar lesson, we went over a chord progression he had written on the board and I then had to play through it.

After that tedious exercise we went through scales which consisted of the chromatic scale starting on all different, the major scale in 8ths and many more.

I will continue to practice in my free time to achieve the best possible grade in my upcoming exam, I can achieve this by using my practice routine which can be found under my Unit 7 tab!

Once my lesson was finished we were supposed to have a rehearsal session but our singer is still very ill and the rest of my band scampered off, so I was left in the corridor for an hour.

During the time given, I began to write up my proposal because Chris has asked for it to be on our blogs by next week. So I have a week to write up a rough but stable copy to slowly add to and improve as the term comes to a close.

Afterwards, I was pretty hungry and I was getting fairly agitated from there being so many people loitering within the corridor so I decided to go get lunch with my partner and take a much needed break.

My day was then finished with some Grade Three theory which is always interesting, today we went over Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales.

We had to name the scale and then write out the name of its relative counterpart in the empty scale below, we only managed to get through one as Chris had to speak us through the whole process.

I understood the task but because it was the end of the day my focus was dwindling and the heat did not help that at all, anyway here’s my work below:

After this I then took off to spend the rest of my evening with my partner and family because it’s my brothers fifth birthday.

Me and Ethan decided to buy him a present on the way home from college which he was pretty happy about, tomorrow I will be doing lots of work you can be sure to here from me soon!

This morning started off with Aural Perception, today’s lesson was about intervals. If you didn’t know about them before intervals are the distance between two notes. Chris went initially went through the construction when building a major scale which revolves around this formula.

As an example he used the C Major scale which consists of the following; C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

He then went on to tell us how to form triad chords with the notes within the scale. Lets just say if we wanted to make a C major chord we would have to use the first, third and fifth notes in the scale to form the chord which would form C-E-G.

He then went on to show us how each and every chord is made, here is my chart for reference:

As we are all in college and training musicians we all have to start using Roman Numerals more often, however this is easy for me as I started to use them a couple years ago when I first started theory.

Chris then went on to tell us how some chords are minor, others major and one being diminished. Yet again, I wrote them down in the following chart below:

As the lesson was drawing to a close we were then told how to figure out any chord by using semitones, I made yet again a chart telling me how to below:

For example if I wanted to play a A minor on either guitar or piano, I start on my foot then I’d move three semitones or frets which would be a C, then I’d move to find the next note which would be four semitones which would give me E, this would then form A minor (A-C-E).

After this lesson we had rehearsal, our singers condition has worsened over night so we were left to figure out more lead sheets in our room.

Today we figured out ‘1999’, I’ve got my part nailed and the structure I just have to work on it and eventually get tighter with my band. This evening I will work on finishing all my lead sheets for Thursday so it’s another thing off the list!

This then was followed up with by a lesson with Jason, I decided to maintain my blog by sorting a few posts and rearranging the order of things. Then I scheduled all of my blog posts to post so if I forget to do them on the day it’s already done for me.

After lunch we ended up sitting in the Mac room trying to withstand Chris’ utter jive which is difficult when it’s the end of the day. He went on about some show filmed in Hamble and I spaced out so much that I can’t recall half of it.

That’s it for today, my guitar lesson should be tomorrow which will be interesting, I’ll see you’ll then!!

This morning we went through the assignment brief as no one made any sense of it, turns out it is easier than I thought and Chris simplified even more which is great, I will be posting my progress under my Unit 8 tab for the next month.

During rehearsal we went through ‘Kiss’ without our singer because she has fallen ill with tonsillitis and our drummer is stuck performing in a musical all week so it was just me and the bassist until our drummer came back in for half an hour.

We went through the song twice with the track playing behind us and we have figured out the structure and what style we are going to play within. Our drummer laid down a funky shuffle which fits in perfectly, I played my part but added some scratch noises and heavy picking which pushes that funk feel.

Collectively we tried to help our bassist to figure out his part but he has to go home and listen to the song as I couldn’t get through to him as he was in a funny mood. I wanted to try the other tracks on our set but no one else had learnt their parts yet so we are going to leave it until next week.

After lunch I went and sat within the mac room and started to write up all eight of my lead sheets for each and every Prince song we are planning on doing, so far I have done the following;

• Take Me With U,
• Let’s Go Crazy,
• Purple Rain,
• Kiss.

Chris then took my works to put in my evidence folder so I don’t have to worry about losing which installs some peace of mind, hopefully I’ll have more done by Thursday.

Tomorrow we shall be up to considerably more and I’ll be sure to write everything I’ve been up too!