Tag: Performing

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!

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.

During theory this morning, music business, which consisted of going over our Job Roles within the Music Industry when it comes to Live music.

As previously mentioned, I based my work upon one of Primus’ live gigs and that went very well, Chris enjoyed it but to further improve it he told me to add which role I’d part take within and even consider doing in the future, my report can be found under the Music Business section on my blog!

After this we had rehearsal until lunch which was alright I suppose, we went over the set list which I’m not to happy with what we are playing. We were told by Chris and Jason that our set has to be more than four genres to be considered acceptable, but at the moment the songs we have are ‘I Want You Back’, ‘Mercy’, ‘Sex On fire’ and ‘Chelsea Dagger’. The first two songs are alright as we can really express ourselves but the other two Rock songs aren’t the best for showing our capabilities, so I’m probably going to ask Chris to come and suggest something else and talk some sense into our guitarist because I don’t have the nerve.

Then we had lunch which was alright, I went to the library and decided to finish up some work as I’m like that and I tend to take a lot of pride within my craft ever since secondary which is nice to see that every thing has transferred over without having Ben by my side.

At the end of the day we had rehearsal again so we went through ‘Chelsea Dagger’, my enthusiasm was lacking whilst playing this and the guitarist soon picked up on this and starting calling me a ‘slacker’ and kept saying that I was ‘slacking’ which cheesed me off. This then resulted in the session ending early which is never okay, so next time I’ll be sure to be more assertive and take control and dominance within the rehearsal sessions.

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 today 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, I’ll be sure to add more as we progress in the future by analysing the arrangement of the the new songs we’ve learn’t so far!

After lunch, we had rehearsal again which is always a laugh, we went over the arrangement for ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ and as a band we got roughly about half of it down without the singer which is fairly impressive, but I know we can do better in the future!

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.

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. 

• • 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
  • Sound Engineers 

I’ll be sure to go into much more detail later, and I thought I could possibly relate it to a Primus concert to keep me more engaged then I usually am!

However, within Rehearsal today, 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 but i would of personally liked something a bit more challenging.

At the end of the day, during Rehearsal 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 I 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, which I knew I was more than capable of doing as I’m a fast learner, especially when it comes to bass!

Nothing too exciting happened today,  so in rehearsal we played through the song we have already a few times then proceeded to wait for our instrumental lessons, purely because we were still overwhelmed from our performance yesterday which went very well considering I was hoping someone would turn up but they got stuck at work which dug at me but I completely understood and went and performed to the best of my ability pretending that he was there.

Whilst waiting for my instrumental lesson, I talked to some of the second year students, they seem alright and a good laugh, I tend to be shy and intimidated by new people but it was all fine surprisingly

In my Guitar lesson we went over a few scales such as the Major Pentatonic and the Blues scale, in the different positions and establishing what goes where and what notes to play them from, etc. That’s always fun because scales are the gateway to improvisation and creating new melodies for songs!

Also, within the afternoon I had Music Theory with Chris, we went over common time signatures which is always refreshing after being neck deep within Grade 3 theory but it’s helpful for the rest of the class for some basic theory knowledge so I get why Chris needs to go over everything in detail.  Whilst he does this I work on my theory and take occasional notes on things that are said that I may have forgotten previously.

Today is the final day in rehearsal that we could go over ‘I want you back’, it went very well whilst practising today we have all nailed our parts and our connection as a band is very visually explicit for the audience to see which is always great to have when delivering live music to and audience even when you’re not being paid as its all for the experience in my eyes.

After that, in our composition slot we went over how this evening is going to play out because our gig is taking place tonight so we were excused as it was many peoples first time playing to an audience, but it will be composition fun times always on a Tuesday after today which I am looking forward too. I still struggle a bit with composing, it was my weakness in secondary as I always had to ask Ben for help during lessons but I’m sure I will get the hang of it and become more independent as time goes on.

When composition was over and everyone had a break it was theory time with Jason, I began to type up my notes from the previous session, but before that Jason showed us all how to fill a rehearsal diary to a high standard which he checked through before we left to go to lunch which was very considerate of him!

After lunch we rehearsed one final time before the gig which was nerve racking but i played it cool and relaxed rather than setting myself up for failure which I used to do but I have a feeling that it can only go well for us! We then had tutor with Chris which was a pep talk which was great then after wards we waited for the concert to begin.