40.2 Getting The Band Together (Essay)

Today our class formed ourselves into bands for this unit: Unit 40 – Working and Developing as a Musical Ensemble. The two bands I ended up in are as follows.

Band 1 (jokingly nicknamed “Superior Band”)

Drums: Ben Grose                                                                                

Bass: Tim Osborn

Guitars: Matt Alfrey & Reuben Harman-Mitchell (myself)

Vocals: Emily Hecker & Emily Jones

Band 2 (which is currently unnamed)

Drums: Ben Grose

Bass: Joe Stanton

Guitars: Rhys Bautista & myself

Vocals: Chesky Rogers & Sophie Wilde

Band 1 consists almost entirely of people from my old class that I have had experience performing with many times before. Ben Grose is the exception to this and I have only had limited experience playing with him outside of lesson time. Band 1 is going to be my main band for this assessment because I believe that prior experience and strong friendships lead to a better musical performance. In class we were all given time at the end to form ourselves into these bands and the inception of band 1 was very natural. Tim and I didn't really have to say anything to each other as it was pretty inevitable we'd end up playing together, Ben and Tim have previous band experience outside of college & Matt and I have performed lots in bands together before. The four of us united as a solid instrumental section and all that was left was to find two singers to complete the band. To be honest I can't remember exactly how the two Emily's came to join but they both expressed a keen interest in being a part of this band and Matt and I were in Band A with them last year.

In Band 2, on the other hand, I am the only member that wasn't in their class last year. I have previously performed with Joe Stanton at End of Term Gigs and I have also been able to jam with Rhys Bautista in my free time, however, I have never played with Chesky or Sophie so I think that it will be a little more difficult for me in this band this year rather than Band 1 which, as I mentioned previously, is very similar to Band A from last year.

 Moving on with Band 1 as my decided main band, we discussed what sort of music we’d like to perform together this year. Tim is an extremely versatile bassist, probably more so than I am at guitar so as a band we knew that he could play pretty much anything we decided to play and his music taste is also diverse to match. Matt is primarily a jazz/alt rock guitarist I would say and Ben is primarily a Jazz and Reggae drummer. So at this point we realised we probably wouldn't be playing any (dare I say generic) genres such as mainstream rock or pop and we’d stick to genres like funk, jazz and reggae. This is a stark contrast to last year for me where I played classic rock and pop-punk; nevertheless it’s a contrast I am pleased about.

I wouldn't say that there are specific roles in the band because I believe that any sort of hierarchy is detrimental to the structure of a band. All band members should have an equal contribution to the band, whether that's setting up a group Facebook mail to facilitate band discussion (as Ben did) or suggesting bands/songs to cover. We all share responsibility and we all make sure to practice in our own time and come prepared to band rehearsals on time.

Unit 40 Diary

Wednesday 17^th September

Matt, Ben and I decided to have a jam during the lunchtime after the lesson to almost just see how we gelled as musicians. I believe jam sessions are beneficial in many ways despite being unstructured for the most part. They’re good for practicing improvisation, developing ideas and band communication skills, as well as learning about each other as musicians. We played around lots of previously discussed genres such as reggae, funk and even some post-rock and math-rock. For me, one of the creative highlights from this session was when I introduced a motif I wrote based around 3 chords in a 7/8 time signature. Matt immediately wrote harmonising chords and Ben played around several different beats in 7/8. Ben suggested we tried playing in 7/8 over the top while he played 4/4 and keeping in time proved to be a really interesting challenge which we eventually succeeded at.

Our target for the next rehearsal session was to apply this team approach of developing ideas to choosing songs for our 20 minute setlist.

Thursday 18^th September

Today we got Emily and Emily involved and focused on choosing songs for our setlist. An initial jam lead to Matt playing 'Hey Joe' by Jimi Hendrix. I suggested that if we were to perform it we should alternate between each other and then come together at the end when playing the scalic riff. For instance:
Matt - C, E, F, F#, G                   F#, G, G#, A, C#, D, E

Me -                         B, C, C#, D                      C#, D, E
We also briefly revisited our math-rock idea from yesterday but this time we had bass too which adds so much to the sound. Matt and I were struggling to play as quickly as we desired so Ben suggested something that might seem pretty obvious: “slow it down, tighten it up, and then speed it back up again”. In doing so we were able to increase the speed at which all four of us instrumentalists could play perfectly in sync. After our initial jam, the six of us sat down by the computer and started suggesting songs. I think first of all Ben suggested 'Le Freak' or 'Good Times' by Chic but then someone suggested Jamiroquai and we narrowed it down to 'Cosmic Girl', 'Virtual Insanity' or 'Love Foolosophy'. After considering instrumentation we settled on 'Virtual Insanity' with myself on keys and Matt on guitar. We realised it would be more productive if we could work on a second song before tomorrow too so we discussed Bob Marley songs and picked 'Is This Love'. Matt and I had a conversation about who should do which guitar part and Matt offered me the main riff and lead line part because I’m not doing any guitar on 'Virtual Insanity'. This afternoon/evening we’ll all try to learn our parts to the best of our ability and we’ll have a run through tomorrow.

Our target for tomorrow is to see if we can at least play one of the songs all the way through to a passable standard and then we’ll work from there.

Friday 19^th September

Today was a little bit rocky because Tim didn't have his bass and Matt's train was late due to a car attempting to cross a closed level crossing... -_-

Regardless, we decided to focus on one song: 'Virtual Insanity', and leave 'Is This Love' until next week.

To begin with, the two Emily's practiced singing along to the prerecorded track leaving Ben and I playing along quietly until we were ready. This was a little unusual but worked to everyone's benefit as it meant that Ben and I could still rehearse whilst listening to the singers, but they were mainly focusing on Jay Kay's vocals from the track rather than our playing. The prerecorded track acted as a support essentially. After a little while we had a short break to discuss the intro we were going to add and where different people needed to come in. I think it was at this point that Matt eventually arrived. We were then able to run through the song all the way through on our own (minus Tim) somewhat fluidly. I noticed the singers' timing was a little off during the outro to the song so I suggested that we focus on that part specifically a couple of times. I actually aided by demonstrated their singing pattern (a little poorly as I'm not a singer) and then they were able to get it and the three of us could get the outro pretty much nailed.

Our target for next Wednesday is to be able to play 'Is This Love' all the way through as a full band.

Tuesday 23rd September

Today I realised all of these entries start with the word 'today'. As part of Fresher's a year 2 band (that I wasn't in) prepared a setlist to play live in the common room at lunch time. It was very successful in my opinion; they attracted a good sized audience and performed well. Afterwards there was still plenty of time left and all the equipment was there so Ben and I (later Tim among others) started jamming just for the sake of it. The two of us decided to debut a song we had been discussing on Facebook called 'Orange Juice'. The song is actually called 'Ochansensu-su' and it's by a Japanese math-rock band called Tricot, however there is a purely instrumental version called 'Orange Juice' on one of their EPs that we've been playing due to the obvious lack of any Japanese singers. We've been pretty ambitious choosing this song as it is very intricate, with lots of changing time signatures, as is characteristic of math-rock.

Here is a general structure I made:
intro - main section - 7/8 section - shorter main section - 11/8 section - 6/8 section - alternating time signatures section - even shorter main section - outro

The main reason I'm documenting today in this diary is because this was the very first time we had attempted to play it together and it pretty risky as it was live in front of an audience. All in all it was pretty successful and we ending up playing it again (all the more fluently for having played it once)

I know we're supposed to set targets but as this wasn't an official rehearsal I'll just mention the fact I hope that Matt and Tim will get involved in class tomorrow.

Wednesday 24th September

Today was used to: finalise 'Virtual Insanity' and perform it fluently as a full 6-piece band, begin work on 'Is This Love' to the best of our ability (also as a 6-piece) & finally for Ben and I to unite with Matt and Tim to attempt 'Orange Juice' for a bit of fun and see how well we can do.

'Virtual Insanity' sounded miles better to day thanks to the addition of Tim's bass line. The song has very funky bass that is predominantly just based around octaves and follows the chord progressions in the song. It's not simple though and has tricky slap rhythms that Tim had amazingly been able to learn quicker than we had anticipated. The bass tied everything together, really filling in the funk aspect of the song and adding such a thickness to the sound. Because of this, the song was basically perfected today, all that's left before a performance would just be to practice it more for the sake of increased fluency. I believe in the philosophy that there is always room for improvement.

'Is This Love' was a little rocky but I feel like the band performed well under the circumstances. We weren't in the live room for this song, instead the six of us somehow fit in a practice room although Tim wasn't actually playing. Matt and I had to use bass amps because the guitar amps in the practice rooms are broken so tonally we sounded pretty poor. We managed to play the track through a couple of times with the aid of the original song to help us. I often found myself getting lost which is entirely my own fault as, in retrospect, I probably hadn't spent enough time on this song on my own due to other homework.

'Orange Juice' was interesting. Needless to say, we had a huge challenge ahead of us and we managed to perform pretty well during our first time all playing it together. A lot of issues came up. One of the first to appear was the fact there are two guitars and Matt and I hadn't fully discussed who was going to play what. Some of the places in the song where this happened were dealt with by effectively saying to Matt "I know both guitars, you get a choice as to which part you want to play". We were both happy with this arrangement and that definitely smoothed massive issues out. The beginning and end of the song were probably the easiest to perfect early on as there aren't any particularly weird timing issues and those sections are based around the same 5 chords for both guitarists. In general the way we approached rehearsal was to try playing it through, highlighting issues, focusing specifically on the sections that contained those issues to try and fix them, rinse and repeat...

I guess my own personal target is to go over 'Is This Love' much more thoroughly on my own so that I'm at the required level of familiarity with the song to never get lost.

Thursday 25th September

Today was an extremely productive band rehearsal even though there were no singers involved. The song the four of us officially rehearsed was Orange Juice, but we also developed Matt's yet to be titled math-rock song which we first visited on the 17th. Previously all we had was a rough idea that the song revolved around 2 chords: Dmaj7 & Amaj7 with Matt and I playing harmonising arpeggios over each of the chords. This time we improvised the song further for several minutes. We used the two chords as a base and Matt, Tim and I took turns soloing over the top.

We also completely ad-libbed a song called 'Threads' by a post-rock band called This Will Destroy You. What we played wasn't exactly a cover of the song but it started off with Matt playing the introductory riff and the rest of us following as best as we could. I'm not entirely sure who had previous knowledge of the song but I certainly didn't and just improvised rhythm guitar based on 3 chords: E, C#min & A. I was astonished at how well we captured the essence of the song and the genre seeing as it was completely impromptu. We developed band communication hugely as we relied on looking and listening to each other for changes in dynamics and when to finish the song.

The development of 'Orange Juice' this week has been incredible. I think I can say with almost certainty that it's been the biggest challenge any band I've been in has had to face. As of today we've pretty much achieved being able to play it all the way through without stopping. This doesn't mean it's free from mistakes, it just means the mistakes are small enough that they don't throw the band off and we can all play on. The way I feel we'd been approaching the song was by looking at sections of the song in turn and perfecting those. This isn't a bad way to go about things but then when it comes to metaphorically gluing the song back together, the actual pieces are certainly solid but the glue itself is weak. What I'm trying to say is that our transitions between sections were our biggest weakness when playing through the song so those joins between the 7/8 section and the shorter main section & between the 11/8 section and the 6/8 section were looked at very thoroughly this time.

This has all been a lot of fun and has had some great challenges that has certainly aided the four of us in this band, however, we realise that excluding our singers with instrumental genres is a little selfish and we've come to the conclusion that these songs are best left to the side for now and could make great End of Term Gig songs. For now, we'll continue focusing on 'Is This Love' and 'Virtual Insanity'.

Our target is to pick two more songs to add to our full band repertoire and begin working on those.

Friday 26th September

Today we achieved half of our target from last lesson. Friday is probably destined to be the least productive day of the week as people are keen to get home for the weekend and it's also our shortest session. We dedicated the hour we had to a band meeting where song ideas were discussed and one new song was ultimately chosen to add to our repertoire. The song we chose was 'Santeria' by ska-punk band Sublime. We chose the song because it fits with our current two songs quite nicely, one being reggae and one being funk based. The song has two guitars and I'm sure the singers could adapt the vocals to suit them both by adding harmonies. The song has a really nice bassline that suits Tim and likewise with the drums. In short, the song suits all six of us and fits in with our current repertoire so we thought it would be a good choice.

As usual, some of our band stuck around with me at lunchtime. For some of today's lunchtime I was able to rehearse 'Is This Love' with Matt and Ben. The three of us managed to pretty much perfect the entire song which is great because this fulfills my personal target from Wednesday 24th. So, despite being a Friday, I completed one and a half targets today.

Our next target is to try and run through 'Santeria' after all of us hopefully learning it before Wednesday.

Wednesday 1st October

'Santeria' was pretty rough today. Most of us were fairly unrehearsed and a little confused apart from perhaps Matt and Ben. We made this song our main focus for today's rehearsal whilst still allocating a bit of our time to the other two songs. Although I hadn't really learnt the song particularly thoroughly, I was able to fill in the gaps by ear as we went along as it's a simple song with all the refinement coming from how it's being played, not what's being played. All in all our first rehearsal of this song went quite well as there was nothing that caught any of us majorly off guard or caused any huge slip-ups. The biggest development that occurred today was deciding to turn it into a mash-up and add in a little bit of 'Billionaire' by Bruno Mars after the guitar solo.

Our target for tomorrow is to develop the mash-up idea more and make sure we're all more confident next time

Thursday 2nd October

At the start of today's lesson we were told to organise our two hours into fifteen minute sections in order to increase productivity. I thought it worked very well. In this main band we managed to run through all three songs that we currently have in our repertoire by dedicating roughly 15 minutes to each song after an initial 15 minutes planning our time. (The first hour was spent with my main band, the second hour was spent with my secondary band and then a performance at the end). Our last run through of 'Virtual Insanity' was the best we've ever played it together I think, it was incredibly near perfect in my opinion and after we finished all of us seemed so accomplished. 'Is This Love' had been causing a few headaches because the structure is a lot more complicated than it seems and the unusual phrasing of the vocals has definitely been throwing everyone off. Today we got a lot of issues fixed but we're still puzzled about what we're going to do instead of a fade-out. 'Santeria' was sounding infinitely better today. Tim had completely figured out the bass-line, the two guitars sounded really nice together as we'd both gone for different guitar tones so that each guitar could be heard separately even though we're playing the same thing for 90% of the song. The Emily's were way more confident today too. I decided to play the whole song without a guitar pick, again for tonal reasons so that the chords weren't so piercing and the solo was more mellow. We performed it to the class at the end of the session and although a little rough, I thought we'd developed hugely since yesterday and the feedback we received was very positive. The one thing we do need to work on is the end of the 'Billionaire' chorus right before the end as it doesn't quite fit with the 'Santeria' chorus chords.

Our next target I suppose is to work out what we're going to do with the end of that 'Billionaire' chorus as a band

Friday 3rd October

As I said last week, Friday is definitely the least productive day of the week. Today was probably the least productive day since the start of term and as such I don't have much to write about. Nevertheless, I feel like we've been productive enough previously that it isn't the end of the world that nothing was accomplished today. I hope the trend of Friday being a lazy day doesn't continue because losing out on an hour per week is a shame to say the least.

Before next Wednesday, my target is to practice all three songs from this main band and also focus a little more on my alternate band as there are already four chosen songs in that band.

Wednesday 8th October

Today we were rehearsing the 'Santeria/Billionaire' mashup and 'Virtual Insanity' in preparation for another slot in the common room tomorrow lunchtime. 'Virtual Insanity' is sounding extremely close to completion whereas there are still some issues seguing from 'Santeria' into 'Billionaire'. We tried to fix these issues by focusing specifically on the section where the singers change lyrics because it was quite hard for them to get the first note because it's considerably higher than 'Santeria'. This was pretty effective but the singers weren't able to fully figure everything out so I hope they will in their own time before tomorrow.

Our target for tomorrow's lesson is to practice the two songs even more so that they're as perfect as they can possibly be before we perform them at lunchtime.

Thursday 9th October

Today we had 2 hours rather than 90 minutes which is nice as it allows us to run through the songs a few more times. The vocalists really cleaned up the issues they had yesterday, nailing the first note of 'Billionaire' as well as sorting out the final chorus where Emily Jones sings 'Santeria' and Emily Hecker sings 'Billionaire'. At the end of the lesson we got to perform to the class which helps us quite a lot because it's a bit more like an actual performance to an audience rather than an isolated rehearsal.

The actual performance at lunchtime went fairly well. As a a band I thought everything was really good but on a personal level there is a lot that I'd like to change. We started off with 'Virtual Insanity' and although I played the intro correctly, part way through the first verse I started to panic for some reason and snapped out of that state where you're just playing without really thinking and suddenly forgot the chords and started playing wrong notes and everything fell apart for me. I've played those chords 100s of times by now and somehow I just forgot. I think it's mainly due to my unfamiliarity with piano and that was my first time ever performing anything on piano to an audience. In the second verse I also lost it but from that point on I locked into the song much more and didn't make any mistakes for the second half of the song pretty much. As a band, however, everyone else played really well and I didn't hear any of the others make a single mistake. The next song we played was the 'Santeria/Billionaire' mashup which I made no real mistakes on at all. I'm just more comfortable with a guitar as I've done countless performances to way more people than today. I think my solo could have been a little bit better but to be honest I could say that about every single solo I'll ever play. Not to say the others didn't do well too but I was extremely impressed with the singers and how well they pulled off the segue into 'Billionaire'. The final chorus where both choruses are being sung simultaneously was also performed incredibly well by the two Emily's. In my opinion I think that was our best song today. After that Matt, Tim, Ben and I thought we should try performing 'Orange Juice' as the four of us for (I think) the first time. I thought it went really really well. All the trickiest bits e.g. starting the intro from silence just by watching Ben as well as the ending and all the changes of time signature and section were up there with the cleanest we've ever played them. Matt claims he didn't play the 7/8 riff particularly well but I thought it sounded absolutely fine. I managed to accidentally flip my kill switch during the 11/8 section but that didn't affect much as Matt was playing the same parts as me basically so I think that may have gone unnoticed. I felt a lot better walking off stage having also played 'Santeria' and 'Orange Juice' than if we had finished after 'Virtual Insanity'. I had fun and I think as a band we achieved quite a lot today.

Tomorrow my target is to actually get something done and break the unproductive Fridays tradition. I'd quite like to work with my other band as I still haven't really.

Friday 10th October

Today I finally got to play with my other band but not quite as Chesky has left. With one singer remaining it looks like we are still going to continue and today we focused on two of our four decided songs: 'Cigarette Daydreams' by Cage The Elephant and 'Rude' by Magic! which was actually pretty productive. 'Rude' is currently the most polished of the two songs, we all got it pretty much immediately although I was a little bit confused about the placement of some of the solo parts and Sophie couldn't remember the second verse exactly. When difficulties arose, Ben was quick to suggest going over those specific sections, repetition of the solo in particular being something I really benefited from. 'Cigarette Daydreams' was a little all over the place. I printed chords for Rhys and I to refer to whilst playing but even then there were times when it felt like Rhys, Joe and I were all playing different chords.It's a pretty simple song but some of the chord changes feel a bit irregular but that's probably due to inexperience and a lack of practice on everyone's part. Personally I could definitely do with looking over the song more thoroughly in my own time to get everything sorted for next week. Overall I thought it was a solid first rehearsal, the issues were very minor and we were quick to suggest ways in which we could improve.

My target for next lesson is to continue working with this alternate band quite a lot more as I've been spending a lot of time with my main band whilst forgetting that alternate band is some people's main band. Ideally I'd like to get these two songs almost perfected by next Wednesday.

Wednesday 15th October

This week I'm preparing to perform one song in each band on Friday. In my main band I'll be performing 'Is This Love' and in my alternate band I'll be performing 'Rude' by Magic! Today I rehearsed with my alternate band and we got 'Rude' sounding a lot better. We're all very comfortable with the structure now and can run through the song top to bottom with no problems. I think the main problem is that Rhys and I are playing the exact same parts all the way through because the song is written for one guitar. I think I'll experiment with different chord voicings or something at a later date to thicken the sound rather than double track it. The solo is sounding a lot neater and we've focused on just the solo section a few times to help too.

My target for tomorrow is to work with my other band and sort out 'Is This Love' ready to perform Friday.

Thursday 16th October

With 'Rude' under my belt, today I went back to my main band to sort out 'Is This Love'. We also worked on a new song called 'These Girls' by Sticky Fingers. 'Is This Love' is sounding a lot better but the structure is still confusing me. Everyone else seems to be fine however so I think I'll just practice it on my own tonight to prepare for performing it tomorrow. It takes quite a lot of time to rehearse as there aren't really any specific sections that are causing problems that can just be focused on. Instead the whole song as a finished structure kind of has to be played in full to get an understanding of how everything fits together. 'These Girls' was a bit of a surprise as I don't think we'd really planned to start working on it until next week. I don't think many of us really knew it apart from Matt and the Emily's (actually I suppose that's 50%). Actually maybe Ben knew it. Okay so Tim and I didn't know what we were doing but I worked out what Matt was playing and learned the second guitar parts from him and then Tim worked out what I was doing. There was a little chain of learning going on as we were actually playing it that went Tim watching -> Me watching -> Matt. The singers weren't particularly happy with the original key of the song F# Major so what we decided was that they'd sing it without us in a key they were happy with and we'd then work out what to play around them. What they'd done was move it up 3 semitones to A Major which is actually a bit better to work with as it means in the chorus I don't have to double Matt as I can now play two of the chords an octave lower.

My target for tomorrow is to see if I can have any time to rehearse with either band before we perform and then to give the best performance as I can.

Friday 17th October

Today was a proper performance day and I performed 'Is This Love' with my main band and 'Rude' with my alternate band. My main band was first to perform which is always a little nerve-wracking but we managed to perform with little or no mistakes and I feel like we captured the essence of the original track quite well, even managing to end the song in our own way as the original fades out. There wasn't really any criticism either which may actually have been helpful but I suppose that's a good sign. 'Rude' was one of the last tracks performed today and I felt it was actually received better than 'Is This Love'. I received several nice compliments about my guitar solo actually being better than the original mainly because in the actual track the guitarist has this really silly flange effect thing. My own personal criticism with 'Rude' as I mentioned on Wednesday is that Rhys and I currently play the exact same thing for the whole song apart from my solo. If we need to perform this song again, I'll definitely work on playing something different even if I have to write a part for myself.

My target for next Wednesday is to work more on 'These Girls' with my main band so that we have four songs under our belt.

Wednesday 22nd October

'These Girls' is starting to sound really good. There is a section towards the end before my solo that none of us knew how to play and then Matt and Tim didn't know what to play behind my solo either. The way we went around this was to listen to that section of the song over and over again and figure out exactly what was being played. Then we shifted that up 3 semitones to match the key that we are playing the song in. It took a little bit of time to adjust to the key change in this section as well as other sections. Matt had a little trouble with his solo but again he readjusted quickly. My solo is simple but sounds really nice if you get the right amp settings and play the bends really slowly. I really enjoy this song and I think that our current setlist has a really good mixture of songs in it but all fit into a kind of theme.

Next lesson I aim to get this song perfected now that all of the kinks have been straightened out.

Thursday 23rd October

Today was possibly the most unproductive day I've had since the start of this year. I was unable to rehearse with either of my bands as several members from each were off practicing with their other bands. Instead of the usual structured rehearsal sessions I try to have with either band, today just devolved into a jam session with Ben and Tim. It was a lot of fun and it helps us develop individually but it doesn't help us towards our actual course goal of performing a 15 minute setlist. We played 'Orange Juice' at a much slower speed and a much faster speed. Playing slowly helped us technically as when a piece is played much slower all of the timing intricacies are exposed and any mistakes are really shown up. Playing quickly is just a challenge really to see if we can all still play in sync and accurately at a higher tempo.

Tomorrow I just aim to practice with a band again and be more productive, especially as there's been the unproductive Friday trend.

Friday 24th October

Today was thankfully nice and productive and was also spent entirely with my alternate band which makes a change. We wanted to attempt a new song today so we decided to rehearse 'Opposite' by Biffy Clyro which is a very calm song in 6/8 time which sounds deceptively simple but will probably be quite tricky to perfect. One of the things I dislike about playing 'Rude' is that Rhys and I play the exact same thing. However in the rehearsals today for 'Opposite' we discussed how we'd solve that problem when tackling this song. We came to the agreement that I'd play the subtle background melody in the choruses and Rhys will improvise his own harmonies in the verses and prechoruses. This system worked really well I thought and it meant we were constantly switching up what we were playing which helps keep the song sounding interesting as well as alleviating our own boredom. After playing the song from top to bottom several times, we were all fairly impressed with how quickly we managed to get the song to an acceptable level. Acceptable isn't what we're aiming for though so we'll end up rehearsing it more as well as an undecided fourth song to make up our setlist for Friday 7th November.

My target over half term is to practice all 7 songs I've played with both bands: 'Virtual Insanity', 'Santeria', 'Is This Love', 'These Girls', 'Rude', 'Cigarette Daydreams' and 'Opposite'

Wednesday 5th November

After a nice break, today was the first music lesson back after half-term. In this 90 minute session, we found out that our new goal was to prepare a 15-20 minute set in each band for a performance in Haywards Heath.

With that in mind, my main band decided to run through our 4 songs (minus 'Is This Love'). As expected, everything was a bit rougher than we'd left it before half-term, however, any issues were quickly pinpointed and addressed by the band. One such issue for instance was the pre-solo and solo sections in 'These Girls' that was mentioned on the 22nd October. Seeing as we'd only fixed the issue once and then left it over half term, I suppose it's only natural that we slipped up. Luckily I remembered what the guitar parts were and managed to show Matt who, once his memory was jogged, quickly got back on track. We then went over that section a few times just to reinforce it for ourselves.

'Santeria' was surprisingly pretty smooth once Matt had shown me my guitar parts (which I had somehow forgotten over half term). It's a simple repetitive structure and luckily caused no further difficulties.

Weirdly, I had almost completely remembered my piano parts for 'Virtual Insanity'. The intro was the only section that I was a little hazy on at first. As a band, we managed to play successfully up until the bridge section after the second chorus where everyone pretty much forgot what was going on and even how many bars long it was. At this point, I think we were all getting a little pressed for time so we decided to end there and work on everything another time.

My target for next lesson is to either start working with my alternate band again or to continue where I left off with my main band.

Thursday 6th November

Unfortunately, today was one of those days where, to no fault of my own, I was unable to rehearse very much at all with either band. So I spent the majority of my time today with Tim, who was also in the same predicament, in the mac suite. We tried to be as productive as possible and went on a bit of a Youtube and Soundcloud odyssey to try and gain inspiration and find possible new songs to cover.

Towards the end of the session Matt, Ben, Tim and I were actually able to have a jam in which we mainly just noodled around but we did practice Santeria again a couple of times.

My target for next lesson is to try and track down either of my bands as they all seem to be focusing on their own alternate bands at the moment.

Friday 7th November

This Friday was really productive. I got a lot of time in with my alternate band and we managed to run through all 3 of our decided songs so far: 'Rude'. 'Cigarette Daydreams' and 'Opposite'. The same problems as Wednesday existed in that I'd actually forgotten bits of 'Rude', especially the solo, as well as the structure of 'Cigarette Daydreams'. Other than that though, the songs are sounding surprisingly good for a band that has unfortunately practiced so little.

We started with 'Cigarette Daydreams' as we though that was probably our least known song. I printed off the chords like I've done before and used them more as a reference rather than a crutch as I'd done before. We addressed some issues with the structure, especially towards the end of the song, as we went along and actually came up with our own ending which we think is a little bit nicer when the song is played live.

I'm really familiar with 'Opposite' so luckily I had no individual problems with it. The band however, had a couple of moments where they got a bit confused I think because the structure is actually very complicated. I tried to guide Rhys through a couple of specific sections, namely the second and last choruses. but he seemed to get the gist incredibly quickly and learned from his own small mistakes quicker than I could help him out.

I had problems with 'Rude' for some reason. I mentioned earlier that I'd forgotten the solo which was annoying as I only realised that I had when it came to actually playing it. Afterwards I quickly figured it out again but it's silly to have to mess up during the song. I remembered the structure though as it's an extremely conventional pop structure.

Next week is going to be a bit difficult as we only have one lesson which is an hour long on Friday. Then we only have the 90 minutes Wednesday before we have to perform all these tracks live. So, my target for next week is to be as individually prepared for all 7 songs as I can be because I know that band rehearsal time is going to limited from now on.

Wednesday 19th November

It's been a long time since my last diary entry because there were no music lessons last Wednesday and Thursday and then I was ill on Friday. Today served as a well need final preparation for our performance tomorrow. I really tried to squeeze out us much productivity as I could today by being extremely proactive trying to organise rehearsals and during rehearsals.

I started off with my main band in the live room. First of all we decided on the order in which we are going to play our songs tomorrow: 'Santeria', 'These Girls', 'Is This Love' & 'Virtual Insanity'. We then played through our whole setlist in that order as if it was the real performance. I found that this was a very good way of doing things, almost like a how a full dress rehearsal works for a play. We tried to make gaps between songs as quick as possible and all in all I feel like the setlist feels finished as a whole, rather than just having four independent finished songs.

After that, I was able to rally together my bandmates from my alternate band and have a crack at playing all 3 of our songs with them. We were unable to find a spot in a practice room or the live room but we didn't let that stop us. Ben grabbed a cajon from the instrument cupboard and we all sat outside in the corridor and had an "acoustic" run through. Although we didn't actually decide on a running order, I still feel like we're ready for tomorrow and I'm confident that both bands' performances will be a success.

My target for tomorrow is to perform as well as I possibly can in both my bands. I'm playing 7 songs in a row which is on par with the longest I've ever performed for although this won't be nearly as energetic as some of my previous gigs so I'm sure I'll have the stamina for this.

Thursday 20th November

So today was my two bands' first proper performance. Everything ran in the same order as yesterday pretty much. I started playing at about 1:30 in my main band and we performed in the same aforementioned order. The one thing that I really need to point out now which was well known by every performer and audience member is that it was very cold, as you'd expect for the end of November. This caused two main problems for me. Firstly, my guitar didn't particularly want to stay in tune due to the cold and required a retune after pretty much every song. Secondly, and probably most importantly, my hands were completely frozen and stiff and I found it very difficult to play the whole time. I'll break this down into 7 short paragraphs to review how each of the seven songs went.

'Santeria' took some settling into for me. I had no idea what it would be like to play in the cold and for the first few seconds I was playing all the wrong chords and fluffing notes because I had no idea the strings would feel so cold or my hands would be so stiff. After this, however, I tried to push past it and get back into the groove of the song. My solo was very hard to pull off and although it wasn't as perfect as I'd played it previously in rehearsals, I feel like I pulled it off without any major errors that would detract from the performance. From the solo onwards, everything actually went very smoothly for me.

'These Girls' was okay although I struggled to add little bits of embellishment to the barre chords that I would have otherwise been able to in a warmer environment. This song has a lot of waiting around for me which I only realised looked a bit silly when it came around to performing it. I managed everything okay until it came to my solo and I was concerned that my gain channel was too quiet but afterwards I was told that the levels were good so that's fine and it deter me from playing it with the intensity that I normally would.

'Is This Love' is still the weakest song in our setlist in my opinion. It's very difficult to pull off a cover of a Bob Marley song because there's such a unique reggae vibe that's really hard to emulate. This song in particular is very layered and textured with lots in the background that we couldn't incorporate to thicken the sound. A lot of what I play is improvised and I really struggled to play a lot of the more fiddly lead lines today. I also think the ending is a weak point as the song fades out and I don't think our ending sounds particularly good.

I was really dreading performing 'Virtual Insanity' because the last time I performed it live I really messed it up, and now I had the added pressures of playing with stiff hands on a keyboard with very cold keys. Somehow, this ended up being the strongest and most successful song in our performance. Everything went perfectly and I can't actually pick out a single flaw from memory without watching a recording. One thing I will say about my own performance is that even though I actually played all the notes of the piece perfectly, I didn't give much of a performance. I can play piano but I can't yet perform piano as I'm still unfamiliar with it. As such I just stood there with my head down and got on with playing. Overall I thought we did actually perform really well but there's definitely room for improvement in some areas.

In my alternate band we decided to start with 'Opposite' because we didn't think it would be right to finish with it but I wanted to get DADGAD tuning out of the way so we decided to open with it. I had concerns that people would forget the structure or get lost in places and I think there were a couple of points where that happened if I remember correctly but it was fixed very quickly and it probably wouldn't have gone unnoticed but I don't think it necessarily hurt our performance.

Next was 'Cigarette Daydreams', again chosen because we didn't want to end with it. I think it may have been this song where the was a little blip where someone forgot structure but I can't really remember too well without watching it back. Overall though I think the song went well but I just don't think it's a great song to perform live as I feel like it suits being a recorded piece much more. I don't think there's enough dynamic contrast in the way we perform it.

We decided to finish with 'Rude' as it's undoubtedly the most well known song of the three. My hands really suffered playing this one as aside from the end of the choruses and my solo, it's entirely barre chords. When it came to my solo I was nervous I wouldn't be able to pull it off but I did and I thought it was my best solo of the day, better than 'Santeria' and 'These Girls'. I had a lot of fun playing this song and Rhys and I really interacted throughout and got into the groove of it.

So yeah, in conclusion I had a really great time and I was proud of how well both bands performed.

Friday 21st November

I don't think anyone really wanted to go straight back to playing all of the songs we'd just performed. It really felt like we needed a break and even though Tim, Ben, Matt and I wanted to jam, we couldn't find a place to play until towards the end of the lesson. We didn't really play much but we had an improvised crack at 'Threads' and 'The World Is Our _____' as we have done in the past. I keep suggesting that we should try and learn the songs properly but I'm not sure whether anything will come of that.

Next week I suppose we should all get back to doing what we're supposed to. I think it would be a good idea to decided a fourth song to play in my alternate band so that our setlist is closer to the desired length.

Wednesday 26th November

Today, my main band decided that we should spend most of our time on youtube looking for new songs we could cover. Ben started looking at some Katy Perry songs but I commented that she has a very high range and that the singers would probably struggle. I then suggested 'Last Friday Night' as a more easily approachable Katy Perry Song we could do. We looked at some other pop artists we could potentially cover (pop songs are fun and easy for the audience to engage with) and we stumbled upon Jessie J. We started listening to 'Domino' and we soon realised that the chorus chords were the same as 'Last Friday Night'. So considering the success of our last mashup, we all agreed we'd try another one. 'Price Tag' by Jessie J was played out loud and I suggested that we could mix that with 'We Can't Stop' by Miley Cyrus because the chords are the same throughout for both songs. We also had a quick look at some Christmas songs like 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' just incase we decide to do something christmasy. We also had a look at 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' by Prince (a song we'd discussed before but never really done anything with) because it really fits in with our funk/disco kind of stuff.

Matt happened to already know 'Domino' so with the remaining time that we had, I worked out 'Last Friday Night' by ear and we tried playing both songs separately before seeing how best to mix them together.

At lunch time, I resurrected 'That Golden Rule', a Biffy Clyro song that I'd played in a band last year but the singer left college. We managed to find a new singer, Josh, from the year below and we rehearsed it at lunch time. We ran through it a couple of times and I was very impressed, not only by how well Tim, Aidan, Matt and I remembered the song and all its challenging timings, but by how well Josh sang it. I think we'll be opening the End of Term Gig with this song so I'm keen to perfect it over the coming weeks.

Thursday 27th November

I was in a little late this morning due to a doctor's appointment but I found my band in the mac suite. I think people ended up doing other things because Matt, Tim, Ben and I ended up without singers just kind of milling about. We had a go at trying to do 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' instrumentally but none of us have really learnt it so that wasn't very productive. Luckily before too long we found Emily Jones and worked a lot more on our 'Domino/Last Friday Night' mashup. We decided that we'd start with Domino and then segue into Last Friday Night later on in the song.

My target for next lesson is to focus on the development of the mashup much more with the entire band.

Friday 28th November

The mashup really developed today, Matt's guitar tone for recreating 'Domino' sounds very accurate compared to the one on the track. Ben suggested a full band stop leading into the second verse which I think is very dynamic and a nice way to add some personal flair to our cover. We also added a quiet outro section which finishes the whole thing off in a very clear and melodic way. Overall we ended up with an almost finished cover.

At the end of the lesson, it was decided that as many bands as possible would do some filmed performances of what they'd recently been working on and we were first to perform. I thought we did quite well although the ending wasn't as clean as we'd played previously and it kind of just trailed off. Nevertheless, I received a couple of bits of positive feedback so for 3 days work I'm pleased with that result.

Next week I need to see what my elusive alternate band is up to because we still don't even have a 4th song.

Wednesday 3rd December

Today was mostly spent with my main band working on 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' and the 'Domino' mash-up. We're really figuring out both songs now and both are starting to sound really good. This band seems to be really good at doing funky songs and both of these have a really great vibe. The instrumental end section of 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' is still a little bit rough and we're mainly just improvising it and watching Ben to know where to end.

Ben, Matt, Tim and I are down to perform at the End of Term Gig so we discussed what song(s) we wanted to perform and settled on 'The World Is Our ___' by This Will Destroy You. It's pretty ambitious because it's about 7 minutes long and very dynamic but I'm sure we'll be okay. We started playing it without Matt and we made some progress.

Next lesson I want to work on 'The World Is Our ____' quite a lot more.

Thursday 4th December

At first we were unable to use the live room so our instrumental band decided to go into the mac suite and which videos of how This Will Destroy You perform 'The World Is Our ___' live. With more of an idea of the structure of the song, we attempted to play it right the way through and got fairly far actually. I feel like we're making good progress and hopefully once Matt finds more time to practice this with us, it'll end up sounding really good.

I also practiced 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' and 'Domino/Last Friday Night' and both are now sounding excellent. I've received good feedback from other classmates and I'm looking forward to performing both of these songs in the near future. I'm not sure whether we'll discuss a third new song to learn or whether we'll just play one or two of the songs we've already done. Either way, it'll be fine.

Next lesson I want to talk to my alternate band and see what's going on because I feel like nothing is really happening at all.

15.2 Rehearsals

Over the first term, Band C shaped and developed workable creative ideas during band rehearsals, meetings and private practice. In this unit 15.2 I will discuss how our band approached rehearsals, issues that we faced that may or may not have been solved, the conduct and topics of band meetings and whether or not my own private practice and preparation helped or even hindered our band rehearsal process.

We started off doing very regular weekly practice as a band, both on a Monday after school and on a Tuesday lunchtime before our double performance lesson. We used our Facebook group to arrange our rehearsals and discuss what we’d be practicing in that rehearsal. I was pleased to find that I didn’t have to act as a band facilitator as I have done in the past with other bands and projects outside of college. 

Everybody in the band actually posted and inputted in the group, making discussion very efficient and immersive. It served as a good place to post feedback after rehearsals too; my band-mates could easily suggest areas that we should aim to focus or improve upon next time. The Facebook group was very multi-purpose. Aside from organising and discussing band rehearsals, it was also used for discussion of song ideas and band image (discussing our outfits for live performances) in the run-up towards the end of term gig.

One of the main issues that started cropping up and reoccurring was that Aidan started a new job and became unable to attend rehearsals on a Monday evening which meant we lost a rehearsal per week. I specifically remember one time where Tim was unable to attend too, due to a meeting, and the band had to practice without the rhythm section and we really struggled to stay in time and we also realised that day just how much we relied on Aidan and Tim to actually keep track of our place in the song. We got lost on the structure of some songs in that rehearsal because of that. To be honest I think this issue was a fault of our own. I’m obviously not saying that it’s certain people’s faults that they couldn’t attend; however, what I am saying is that we needed to be better at practising in the absence of other band members. Upon reflection, improvements could have been mind, such as practising with a metronome (both during private practise and during band rehearsals that Aidan was unable to attend. Perhaps myself or someone else could have written out copies of song structures for everyone to read and learn so that we wouldn’t get lost without some members of the band.

Separate from the Facebook group, we did hold some band meetings where we could discuss things face to face. Band members’ conduct was very good at these meetings which allowed for productive discussion. There were never any moments were everybody was talking over each other. Everything was very informal and jokey and I think in some ways that’s a nice thing to have amongst band members but in some respects I do think that we were susceptible to going off topic into tangents about other completely unrelated things or generally just laughing too much. If we went into band meetings with a bit more self-discipline and a more motivated, work based mind-set then I think we could have discussed more. Something I think we should have done at meetings which would have been very beneficial is logging onto a computer and watching back our recorded performances from the previous week and discussing what went well and what didn’t go so well. It’s one thing to reflect on performances straight afterwards or in the evening on the Facebook group, but to actually sit down a week later and watch an actual recording would give a completely different perspective on our performance. For example, the sound actually sounds very different from the stage area than it does to other classmates seated in the room.

I felt that in general; my own private practice has never been a hindrance to the band rehearsal process. I have spoken in detail about my personal practice routine in unit 15.1 as well as unit 23.1 and I believe that personal practice is one of the key factors to effectively developing as a band. The famous phrase “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” accurately reflects my opinions on band dynamics. It is important for band members to have had a similar level of preparation coming into band rehearsals so that no one individual is less practiced and knowledgeable than the rest of the band. In my own personal practice I use a variety of different websites as teaching tools: Youtube, Ultimate Guitar, Sognsterr etc in order to learn the songs we have needed to play in Band C in the first term. Where there was any disparity between the original track and the published tab, I would use my own ears to determine what sounded right to me instead. I find a lot of my learning stems from my individual interpretation of the track, rather than trying to play something note-for-note.

In conclusion, the first term provided Band C with many challenges that needed to be approached as a unit and on the whole I feel like these challenges were dealt with constructively and efficiently. With anything band-related I feel like there is always room for improvement. As I mentioned previously, our band could have been more focused and on-topic during band meetings and we could also strive to be more productive in the absence of other members for rehearsals. These are my thoughts and opinions regarding the whole process in the first term and how I shaped and developed workable ideas within my band.

15.4 Evaluation

In the end of term gig I performed in five different bands but seeing as this unit is about the evaluation of progress I will talk about the main two bands I was in: Band C and Band F. I will look back at the whole first term and analyse both these bands, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of both. I will focus mainly on the potential of these bands and discuss how good things could have been.

Band C

In Band C, we deviated from our normal trend of playing well known classic rock songs and decided to play ‘Take Of Your Colours’ from the self –titled You Me At Six debut album. In hindsight I don’t think this was the best song we could have picked for the end of term gig. From an audience perspective the song is very upbeat, jumpy which makes sense because it’s a pop-punk song and is in a major key. I don’t have a problem with pop-punk, it’s just that I used to be in a very pop-punk band outside of college and to be honest I’ve grown fairly tired with that genre. To make matters worse, I played 4 out of 5 pop-punk songs at the end of term gig (2 You Me At Six songs and 2 Paramore songs). I felt like the genre didn’t really work well with our band. Mads for instance is a country singer at heart and although she really tried hard with this song, she expressed to us afterwards that she didn’t enjoy singing it all that much. Jack and Tim like classic rock and play music by bands like Led Zeppelin etc in their free time and, although they are both good musicians in their own right, I feel like they didn’t have a feel for the nuances of the genre like Aidan and I do (as we’ve both played songs like this before in the aforementioned outside-of- college band). A lot of the sound of pop-punk comes from having aggressive pick-attack and in this song in particular there is a lot of rhythmic palm muting in the verses and in the outro there are palm muted triplets and I feel like as a band we didn’t really capture that tonality and style adequately enough. On a more positive note I felt like our physical performances of the track were pretty good. In that respect, I feel like we did capture the energy of the track a bit more as we were moving about and making good eye contact with each other. Another very positive thing I liked about Band C was our relationships with each other. I know Aidan and Jack from secondary school and I’ve actually been in bands with them both previously, I have become close friends with Tim and we are in a band together currently outside of college with Aidan. I have become friends with Shaune and Mads too and I think the highlight of this first term for me is being in that band with such friendly people. There was a real sense of cohesion and I think the social, inter-personal aspect of a band is one of the most important. Our communication in Band C was excellent as a result of this. As previously mentioned, our discussions about song selection were very good and similarly we were able to schedule regular rehearsals effectively and in the lead-up to the end of term gig we rehearsed a lot and benefitted greatly because of it. In rehearsals themselves our communication amongst ourselves was very good and we were able to effectively highlight parts of the song that needed working on as a band as well as individual aspects that we could change or improve upon. In conclusion, I found Band C to be the most positive and co-ordinated band that I was a part of in this term. There was definitely a level of professionalism and there were standards that we adhered to in order to develop as a band. Communication and organisation were very good, as was the social aspect and our physical interactions on stage during performances. We could have improved a lot by sticking to the strengths of individual band members. We had learned during our two band choices in our class performances that we work well as more of a classic rock band doing Thin Lizzy and Guns ‘N’ Roses than we do trying to do a You Me At Six cover. If we were to continue as a band I think we should try and cover something by Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones or something along those lines.

Band F

In Band F, after Amy Booer left, we stopped trying to find songs that were piano based and instead looked towards the pop-punk genre once again. As we had played ‘Misery Business’ as our second compulsory track this term, Callie suggested that we played ‘Crushcrushcrush’ from the same album. As a fan of Paramore’s older music myself, I relished the opportunity to play this song on bass. Like ‘Misery Business, ‘Crushcrushcrush’ is in Drop C# tuning and the pre-chorus emphasises the low C# which, especially on bass, has a huge impact. The bass line is very fun to play and in the verses it actually walks around a little bit and it’s definitely not the typical root-notes bass line that is expected from a pop-punk song. I definitely thought that the line-up of this band was much more suited to play a song like this than Band C. Having two female vocalists to sing Hayley Williams parts was great. Callie’s powerful vocals went well with Sophie’s rich, deep voice in a yin-yang kind of way. Tom and Matt’s guitar playing was very faithful to the original track despite Matt later telling me he wasn’t that happy with the song choice and Aidan’s style of playing suits the genre nicely as previously mentioned. There were definite downsides with Band F though, despite how positive I’ve made everything sound.  The main issue with Band F was the organisation and discussion as I talked about previously in unit 15.1. Everything felt very cobbled together and rushed; I don’t think we ever sat down for a moment as a band and just talked about how anything was going. During practice and rehearsals especially there was little to no creative feedback about how we were sounding and what needed improvement. In conclusion, I thought that Band F had the most potential out of the bands I have worked in over the term, however, a lack of communication, co-ordination and overall dedication meant that we fell behind and didn’t achieve our full potential. In my opinion, not meaning to sound boastful, I think that band had the most talented individuals in the class and I think it was a great shame to see that talent wasted.  On the night of the end of term gig I thought we did actually perform ‘Crushcrushcrush’ very well but I think that’s only due to strong individual practice. That’s what that band was: 6 strong individuals rather than 1 strong band.

15.1 Song Selection

Song Selection

Putting the End of Term Gig aside, during the majority of the first 14 weeks of the course I was a member of 2 different bands. In Band C I played predominantly lead guitar, the line-up consisted of: vocalists Mads Quinn and Shaune Moorey, Aidan Henderson on drums, Tim Osborn on bass, and Jack Keogh and myself as guitarists. In this first term we had thorough discussions, both face to face as a group in college and making use of a Facebook group, to decide our 2 band choice songs for the term. Our main aim was to find 2 songs that everybody was happy playing, rather than just resorting to ‘majority rules’ and leaving 1 or 2 people disappointed that their views were overlooked. My second band, Band F, was created part way through the term so that second year student Amy Booer could play keys in a band for her course. I decided to play bass in this band as it’s an instrument I’m fairly comfortable with but have an awful lot to learn and I was hoping that this band would serve as an opportunity for me to develop as a bassist. Band F was the largest band in the class consisting of: vocalists Sophie Lamont and Callie Mead, Aidan Henderson on drums, Matt Alfrey and Tom Coxhead as guitarists, Amy Booer on keys, and myself on bass.

Band C

Originally, it was discussed in class that we would go and learn ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones as it’s based on a simple verse-chorus structure and would not be hard to pull of. There are quite subtle but still noticeable vocal harmonies in the original track that Mads and Shaune were going to expand upon and Jack and I basically just double up the same guitar part the whole way through with the exception of the short solo I was going to take at the end. I went home and learnt the whole song in the evening it was suggested but I noticed it was almost too simple. Simplicity is not a bad thing, if anything the easier a track is the more it can be tightened up and perfected, however, with this track I felt the simplicity was almost too constrictive and didn’t allow for any of us to shine individually through our technique and playing. I flagged up my concerns in the Facebook group and it was quickly established that the others had come to the same realisation as me. With that in mind, Mads suggested ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns ‘N’ Roses. I told everyone that I was very happy to play it as long as everybody else was and so it was agreed upon. Like ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ is an absolutely classic song that everybody knows and, if perfected, would certainly sound very impressive. From my perspective, that of lead guitarist, the song is incredibly virtuosic and challenging but definitely not too challenging that I would be unable to play it.

The discussion we had in college regarding our second song choice was remarkably quick and unanimous. Sticking with the theme of classic rock songs, Shaune suggested ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ by Thin Lizzy and that was agreed upon. Jack and I thoroughly enjoyed playing this song together as there aren’t defined rhythm and lead parts as such. Instead, we both played the same parts for the majority of the song, playing the distinctive guitar harmony riffs in the solo and post-chorus. Mads and Shaune alternated singing parts rather than singing together, this was especially effective in the chorus where it goes quickly back and forward between them both when they sing “The Boys Are Back In Town”. Tim had a lot of fun with the walking bass line in this song as did Aidan with the classic rock drums and some interesting song structure.

Band F

Song selection with Band F was quite frankly an absolute mess. For band choice one there really wasn’t much of a discussion about song selection. I was just informed that we were doing ‘How to Save a Life’ by The Fray and that I had to learn it. I assume there must have been some sort of discussion but at this point in the proceedings we didn’t have a Facebook group set up yet so the conversation must have happened face to face without me. Whatever it was that happened I definitely did not get any say in the matter at all. The process of song selection for our second band choice was somehow even worse. It was originally decided that we would play Killer Queen by Queen as apparently Amy was a competent pianist, Matt would have a lot of fun with Bryan May’s lead guitar parts and overall it’s such a phenomenal classic of a song. The main problem was that the singers found the song incredibly hard to manage as well as the fact that Amy dropped out of the band. Matt, Tom and I were very passionate about trying to play the song, I even resorted to learning all the piano parts and got Tim Osborn in to play bass in my place but in the end we had to completely compromise and perform ‘Valerie’ (The Amy Winehouse cover of The Zutons) with the original line-up minus Amy.

Personal Practice

Band C

My Sharona:

For this song I mainly learnt it by ear and practiced by playing along to the official video. When there was a trickier spot in the song that I couldn't easily work out by ear I referred to this tab from Songsterr.

Sweet Child O' Mine:

I was very lucky with our first band choice because I already knew how to play the song having played it lots before. To practice I played along to the long version of the song on Spotify.

Misery Business:

Once again I lucked out and I already knew how to play both parts of the song. I have played along to the track on Spotify and I have also been playing along to the drum track as this song is pretty rhythmically challenging.

The Boys Are Back In Town:

A good tab for this song was surprisingly hard to find. Ultimate guitar for instance only had really bad tabs. In the end I went to this tab on Songsterr which I found to be pretty good. I practiced by playing along to the song on Youtube and if anything was wrong with the tab I just figured it out by ear.

Band F

My Sharona:

The bass for this song really doesn't differ a whole lot from the guitar. Essentially it's the same thing but an octave down for the majority of the song. This made learning very easy as there was very little for me to actually have to learn. For practice I played along to the official video and any part of the bass line I didn't know I just worked out by ear.

How To Save A Life:

The bass line for this song is really quite simple. I found a 90% accurate tab on Ultimate Guitar and where it faltered I just used my ears to figure it out once again. I'm not a bassist so I'm not particularly great at trying to embellish bass lines with my own style but I've tried my best with this song. To practice, I played along to the video.

Valerie:

Initially it was decided that we were going to do Killer Queen by Queen because we wanted to take advantage of having Amy on keys in our band. Unfortunately it was changed by our singers last minute because they said they were struggling to learn it. So after having learnt the bass to that, I had to learn the bass to Valerie. It has a very repetitive but fun bass line so I picked it up from just listening through the video of the song once and then playing it to myself over and over. Admittedly I didn't practice this as thoroughly as I normally do but after having spent the weekend learning Killer Queen I felt that the song was easy enough to not really practice for hours on end.

39.5 The Importance of Licensing and Royalties

The Importance of Licensing and Royalties

In the modern age of music, music copyright, licensing and royalties play a very important part in earning money from the business. Those musicians with a better understanding of how licensing and royalties work are more likely to be financially comfortable than those who don't.

There are three main companies for songwriters, composers and publishers which exist to collect licence fees from anyone that uses music for a business benefit and then pay royalties to music creators in the UK and around the world. These are PRS. MCPS and PPL

PRS for Music as an umbrella, which has two important sub-companies: Performing Right Society Limited (PRS) and Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society Limited (MCPS). PRS represents songwriters, composers and music publishers and collects royalties on their behalf whenever their music is publicly performed. This includes performances of both live and recorded music or music from TV and radio, in premises from concerts halls to corner shops. MCPS also represents songwriters, composers and music publishers, but collects royalties on their behalf whenever their music is reproduced for products such as CDs, digital downloads and musical toys. [1] Venues and businesses need to purchase a licence from PRS for Music which enables the public performance or reproduction of music in that venue. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 states that if you use copyright music in public, you need the permission of every writer or composer of the music you wish to play. PRS for Music acts as the middle man and a music licence gives the owner the legal permission to play the millions of songs controlled by them without having to contact the music creators directly.

PRS for Music asks venues to provide full details of all music performed as well as gathering information from TV and radio. With smaller businesses, surveys are used. From all that information they calculate the royalties due to each member of PRS for Music. Royalties to PRS members are distributed in April, July, October and December each year.

The third company, Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) is an entirely separate independent company from PRS for Music. In most instances a licence is required from both before you can legally play recoded music in public. Both organisations licence the use of music and collect royalties but each represent different people. PPL collects and distributes money for the use of recorded music on behalf of record labels and performers. PRS for Music collects and distributes money for the use of musical composition and lyrics on behalf of authors, songwriters, composers and publishers.

Another source of royalties I would like to mention are synchronisation (or synch) royalties. Synching refers to using the music together with visuals e.g. a song in a film, tv show or even live theatre. In terms of numbers, the royalties paid can be up to say $250,000 for a movie film score.

Music Streaming Services

I wanted to briefly mention royalties from music streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora. A lot of artists are outraged at the ridiculously low royalty rates that they receive from plays of their tracks on these services. Spotify say they pay an average of £0.004 per play to their artists on a section of their website called Spotify explained. However, I don't think things are as bad as they first appear.There are a lot of very positive statistics on that site too, for instance they have given out $1bn in royalties, $500m of which were paid in 2013 alone. The global value of the recorded music industry has been steadily falling and Spotify aim to provide a better service than piracy and convice people to pay for music once again. I am a Spotify premium user and I have barely pirated any music since. Statistics collected by spotify actually show that 55% of 18-29 year olds pirate less when offered a free legal alternative. Spotify premium users pay more on average per year than normal US consumers that  purchase physical music or download digital music. Spotify actually pay 70% of their total revenue as royalties to rights holders and compared to other video or radio streaming services they pay considerably more. Spotify is a huge and very useful marketing platform and even if the royalty rate may be low, the chances are more people will hear an artists music and then they may want to go to their concerts or buy that persons's merchandise.

Historic context of copyright

"Copy, transform and combine it's who we are, it’s how we live, and of course, it's how we create." Kirby Ferguson - Everything is a Remix Part 4 [2]. In this part, he goes on to talk about the original intentions of copyright and how ultimately the system is a failure. "Our system of law doesn't acknowledge the derivative nature of creativity. Instead, ideas are regarded as property, as unique and original lots with distinct boundaries. But ideas aren't so tidy... and when the system conflicts with the reality the system starts to fail."
In America in 1790, copyrights and patents were invented to make sure that original creations were protected from being copied for a limited period of time in order to give creators a window to earn a profit. Copyrights covered media and patents covered inventions. After copyright expired, creators work entered the public domain to be freely used and built upon by anyone. That was the goal of copyright: to have a large public domain where ideas, products, arts and entertainment would be available to all for the good of humanity. The idea of 'intellectual property' turned copyright into what we know in the music industry today.
One famous example is that in 1981 George Harrison lost a $1,500,000 lawsuit for subconsciously copying "He's So Fine" by The Chiffons in his song "My Sweet Lord". More and more copyright acts are being developed and put into effect as time goes on and some musical corporations exist for the sole purpose of suing others. Famously, Bridgeport music sued the hip hop group N.W.A. for using a heavily altered 2 second sample in one of their songs. This effectively killed sampling, no matter how small, and made it difficult and expensive to use samples in songs. Copyrights and patents were invented for "the encouragement of learning" and to "promote the progress of useful arts". In the modern era of music, copyright doesn't understand the need to "copy, transform and combine" and rather than progressing and expanding off of each other, artists are constantly being sued for copying and theft of "intellectual property".

Music 'Piracy'

We are currently living in the 5th age of media, the Digital Age. Preceding the Digital Age in chronological order are:

• Oral Age. Campfires and singing (10,000 years ago)
• Scribal Age.  Writing and documenting (5,000 years ago). This is the point where people realised that in order to establish ownership of media, there needed to be proof of creation and ownership.
• Print Age. Mass produced texts and sheet music (1,000 years ago). Towards the end of this age was when copyright came into effect in order to stop people from literally copying sheet music.
• Electric Age. (around 100 years ago) This age covers physical music like vinyl records and cassettes, radio, television and film.
• Digital Age. The age we live in now. The internet is dominant, music sales from iTunes etc are huge and illegal downloading is huge too.

Back in the day, before the internet, if you wanted to steal music you had to walk into a store and physically steal a CD or a cassette and get out without the guards noticing or the alarm bells ringing. Nowadays with filesharing and the fact you can just take the audio from any youtube video, obtaining songs for free is stupidly easy. Everything used to be physical, sharing music with a friend meant lending them the tape or maybe even a 12" vinyl. If you wanted them to hear a playlist you made, you had to physically make a mixtape and hand it to them. Copying a tape faded it, listening to a vinyl could scratch it. There was a fragility and very important realism to how music was shared and copied. In the digital world, stealing from someone is more like stealing an identical copy rather than taking a proper copy of a record. A million people can download the same song effortlessly for free, something that was impossible 20 years ago. It's also important to note that there is no loss in quality from sharing and copying digitally too. Immediacy and convenience are very important words when talking about this subject. As immediacy and convenience rise due to disruptive technologies like the internet, meaning and value lowers. I did some quick maths and I found that, buying music legally from itunes at 79p a track, it would cost me well over £4,000 pounds to fill my 32gb ipod with songs. Not to mention the fact that I have to sign up, make an account and enter lots of details and credit card information to do so. Whereas, I can very easily find a proxy for ThePirateBay and donwload that 32gb very quickly for free. Music 'piracy' isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Arctic Monkeys' debut album sold over 360,000 copies in a week and remains the fastest selling debut album by any band and this was largely due to the internet and free downloading and sharing. The Arctic Monkeys found that early on people knew all the lyrics to songs they had barely had a chance to perform. Illegal downloading isn't always a bad thing and can often boost the career of a band due to the fact that music can spread enormously quickly and easily. In the modern music industry, a much larger proportion of a bands profits come from live performance and merchandise anyway and music sales aren't necessarily the majority of a bands income. In fact, an extremely recent article from digitalmusicnews.com has found that the top 1% of artists earn 77% of recorded music income and they say "Whatever money is left in recordings, you're probably not making it."

On the other hand, famous examples of lawsuits against illegal downloading services exist. The most iconic case of this is Metallica vs Napster. Napster was a peer-to-peer network where users could easily upload their digital music and it could be re-downloaded by any other user. At its peak, Napster had 80 million registered users and arguments exist that it was a huge promotional power and contributed to many bands successes. Lars Ulrich of Metallica found that a demo of their song "I disappear" had been circulating before release and led to some radio play in the states. Lars traced it back to Napster and was horrified to find their entire discography free to download with ease. Metallica sued for $10,000,000 and Napster as a P2P site was shut down.

DRM, short for "Digital Rights Management" is an anti-piracy technology used by copyright owners to remote control how people can install, listen to, view, copy and share files. DRM can be thought of as a sort of digital padlock on a file and some argue that is should be considered necessary to protect 'intellectual property' just as a real padlock protects physical property. Have you ever bought a song on iTunes and realised that you can only access that file on 5 other computers? That's DRM in action. DRM in my opinion is a really bad thing as in effect it creates the illusion of ownership and inconveniences legitimate customers. An example of DRM being a terrible thing is when, rather ironically, Amazon remote deleted Kindle users copies of George Orwell's 1984 & Animal Farm. The reason behind it was that the books were sold by a third party seller without the rights to do so. If this had happened with the physical books, Amazon would have no right to enter your property and burn your book, yet amazon seem to have the power and the right to remotely delete content with no notice, warning or consent.

The issue with copyright in the digital age of music is that it really doesn't understand immediacy and convenience compared to meaning and value. Music copyright is still tailored to how things were before the internet where physical items were more personal and valuable. The world is constantly changing, technology is forever advancing and once in a while something entirely new comes along that changes everything forever. In that way, music is forever adapting and having new forms and right now we still haven't really figured everything out yet.

Practice Diary

Sun 12/01/14

• Today I learnt 'Respect' by Aretha Franklin. The song is very short so I played through it probably at least 4 or 5 times.
• I did this in order to familiarise myself with the structure

Mon 13/01/14

• Today I watched some Youtube videos of different interpretations of the song to see if I could try some different things. I worked more on what I think Steve called "chipping" which is like the sharp staccato top end of the chords.
• I did this in order to improve my tone through my playing and not just through amp settings.

Tue 14/01/14

• Today at lunch time I rehearsed 'Respect' in the live room with other people in the class before our performance later in the afternoon. Not necessarily our bands, just playing with Aidan, another guitarist and some singers.
• I did this because playing with other musicians helps me get a feel for how the song sounds live. I could work more on my tone too by working out some nice sounding amp settings.

Wed 15/01/14

• Wednesday's I normally give myself a bit of a break to have some fun and just play around. I played along to some Asking Alexandria tracks and a bit of Bring Me The Horizon. It's pretty challenging stuff especially on the right hand so beforehand I did some alternate picking exercises to warm-up.
• I did this to help improve my right hand technique and focus on challenging right hand rhythms.

Thu 16/01/14

• Today it was announced that over the next few weeks we would each have to perform three varied solo pieces. I originally decided that I would do 1 punk, 1 classic rock and 1 metal song for my three. I knew I'd have to do a 30 second demo of a song this time next week so I set to work practicing 'Letterbomb' by Green Day as it's a piece I'm already very comfortable with. To practice it, I first just played along with the song a few times to just familiarise myself with the feel of the piece, the tempo and structure. I then played along with a metronome at 180 bpm and aimed to bury the click. I found it took a few attempts to really play perfectly in time.

Fri 17/01/14

• Today I learnt 'Harder To Breathe' by Maroon 5 for Band A. I also decided that for my rock solo performance I would do 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' by The Darkness. It's an awesome song that I am extremely familiar with as I've been playing it for at least 8 years. I spent a while just playing the song over and over again from top to bottom, kind of just remembering how it goes and the structure and everything like that. Later on I'll focus on the 3 solos individually.

Sat 18/01/14

• Today I learnt 'Best of You' by Foo Fighters for Band B. This songs lead line, despite being 99% octaves is actually pretty challenging. Aside from playing along with the song multiple times to get used the to structure, I had to really narrow down my focus and start practicing specific sections. I practiced the solo section with the tremolo octaves over and over again, as even though it's 15 seconds long, it's the most challenging part of the song and required definite attention in order to get it up to speed.
• I did this because I had never really done tremolo picking across multiple strings before and I had to learn a new technique.

Sun 19/01/14

• Today I spent some time thinking about the other metal song I should do and narrowed it down to two songs: 'O.G. Loko' by Of Mice & Men and 'It Never Ends' by Bring Me The Horizon. I already knew 'It Never Ends' so I learnt 'O.G. Loko' and then practiced both. Both are really challenging to be honest, I actually made a cover of 'O.G. Loko' for fun which you can check out here, and here's a link to 'It Never Ends' that you can check out too if you want. Both songs have really challenging breakdown sections with triplets and quadruplets and odd rhythms and stuff. 'It Never Ends' has a section where it goes from 8th note triplets to 8th notes to 4th note triplets and then back to 8th notes again. I found that really quite hard at first but I used a metronome at 205bpm and played along until I actually managed to bury the click. Here is the section in question, again if you're interested.

Mon 20/01/14

• At this point, I'd left it kind of late but I decided not to do a metal song and to instead do 'Parisienne Walkways' by the late Gary Moore. The song is effectively 100% guitar solo, it's not fast or filled with notes particularly apart from one lick but it requires a lot of thought for timing and feel so I thought I'd give it a go. The aforementioned lick is at this part of the song and I had to learn it note for note incredibly slowly and I spent maybe an hour trying to gradually take it up to full speed. I have a lot of fun playing this song and I'm very happy with my decision to do this over a metalcore song.

Tue 21/01/14

• Today I rehearsed 'Harder To Breathe' and 'Best of You' in our respective bands at lunch time before the performance in our double lesson. 
• I enjoy rehearsing as a band in order to tighten up our timing and knowledge of the structure of the song

Wed 22/01/14

• Today I found a backing track for 'Letterbomb' which I added some hi-hats to at the start so that I knew the tempo before the drums started, as the guitars come in with absolutely no tempo indication in the real recorded track. The second guitar part was also missing from the outro but I didn't want to add that back in, instead I worked on my internal metronome and got much better at counting missing beats in my head during the moments of silence in the outro. I practiced by playing along to the backing track until it was basically second nature to play the song.

Thu 23/01/14

• Today I performed my 30 second demo of 'Letterbomb' which I thought went fairly well.

Fri 24/01/14

• Today I decided to practice 'Parisienne Walkways' some more because even though I'm leaving it until last, it's by far the hardest piece I have to perform this term. I found a really good backing track and because it's all solo guitar, I don't have anything to hide behind. That requires me to really focus on the way I play. I decided to really practice my bending today.
• I did this because my bending technique is frankly terrible and this song is a great opportunity to focus on my bends and pitching them perfectly.

Sat 25/01/14

• Today I learned to play 'Locked Out of Heaven' by Bruno Mars. 

Sun 26/01/14

• Today I had an interesting day where I decided to practice the hardest parts of all 3 of my solo performances. I didn't play any of the pieces all the way through, I just worked on: The solo and outro from 'Letterbomb', the 3 guitar solos from 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' and the fast blues lick from 'Parisienne Walkways'.
• I did this because when you just practice the entirety of a song every time, the bits that require more practicing to really perfect get kind of glossed over.

Mon 27/01/14

• Today I recapped Locked Out of Heaven. I'm not going to lie, this song is insanely boring to play, I don't like it and it's horribly repetitive. I practiced it through a few times and left it at that.

Tue 28/01/14

• Once again, today I went up to the live room before our double lesson and practiced 'Locked Out of Heaven' with some other people.

Wed 29/01/14

• Today I practiced 'Letterbomb' loads. I like to practice things standing up as well as sitting down because I think playing something standing up feels different and is more like the real performance. I played along to the backing track lots as well as focusing on the intro, solo, outro and also thinking about where I'm going to use the amps foot-switch to change between clean, crunch and overdrive.
• I did this to thoroughly prepare for my performance tomorrow.

Thu 30/01/14

• Today I performed 'Letterbomb' all the way through for the first time in class and I thought it went pretty well. The guitar cut out at the start of the solo, which is basically the worst place it could have done so, but I pulled it back together immediately. The bit at the end could have been better timing wise, but in a situation like that time estimations tend to be quicker and therefore I was a little bit early.
• To improve, I will work on my timing more.

Fri 31/01/14

• Today I had a bit of a break and jammed around with some of my favourite songs and worked on writing some stuff too.
• I did this because I just think it's important that a practice routine doesn't get stale.

Sat 01/02/14

• Today I learnt 'When You Were Young' by The Killers for Band B. There really weren't any specifically challenging parts of the song so I didn't feel the need to focus on any part in particular. I just did my normal thing of learning the song with a mixture of tab and by ear and then practicing by playing along.

Sun 02/02/14

• Today Band A decided on 'Inhaler' by Foals which is the first song I've done on this course so far that made use of any guitar effects. The songs main riff and lead part uses a really nice delay which was interesting to learn seeing as the rhythm I play isn't the rhythm I hear but I got used to that fairly quickly.

Mon 03/02/14

• Today I practiced 'Inhaler' and 'When You Were Young' because I learnt both over the weekend and felt like I really needed more time to practice both before tomorrow. I played through both songs but decided I really wanted to start focusing on the end section of 'Inhaler'. The timing is very weird and to be honest I didn't really get it figured out 100% in time.
• To improve I will definitely work on that end section.

Tue 04/02/14

• Today I performed 'Inhaler' and 'When You Were Young' in class. I thought both performances went fairly well although to be honest I wasn't particularly confident with the structure for 'When You Were Young'.
• To improve I will learn the structure more for 'When You Were Young' by maybe studying it and writing it out or something similar.

Wed 05/02/14

• Today I thoroughly practiced 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love'. I played along to the backing track and after that I played along to a click. Following that, I focused on playing the 3rd solo over and over again until that was perfect. I also thought much more about my tone in order to have a really nice powerful sound that isn't overly distorted.
• I did all that as preparation in case I have to play it tomorrow.

Thu 06/02/14

• Unfortunately today I didn't have to perform 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' so that was a little disappointing. Taking that into account, I decided to practice it a little bit more at home but too much as I really don't want to start getting sick of playing such an awesome song.

Fri 07/02/14

• Next week is going to be a fairly complicated week as Tuesday I'll be doing 'Respect', 'Harder To Breathe' and 'Best Of You' and then Thursday I'll most likely be doing 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love'. With four songs to practice, today I started practicing one per day and I'll continue to do so over the next four days. So today, I started with 'Respect' as it's been about 3 weeks since I've played it. I listened to the song and played along to refresh my memory and played the new lead parts that I'd improvised in the lesson.

Sat 08/02/14

• Today I practiced through 'Harder To Breathe', spending some extra time focusing on the solo and seeing if I can memorise some of my favourite improvised parts so I can reuse them.
• I did this because I think it's a little bit easier to only improvise say 75% of the solo and then remember 25% and reuse those same bits everytime.

Sun 09/02/14

• Today was 'Best Of You' day. I just played through the song but I decided to focus more on my dynamics and the way I play the octaves.
• I did this because dynamics are an important part of performance and I don't normally practice them.

Mon 10/02/14

• Today I gave myself a bit of a break before tomorrow because I have to perform 3 songs in our double lesson and I just feel like a break. Wednesday I will practice 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love'.

Tue 11/02/14

• Today our performance lesson was cancelled but I went to it anyway just to see if people wanted to practice anything and I did get a little bit of practicing done with some of my band mates that showed up.

Wed 12/02/14

• Today I practiced 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' some more in preparation for tomorrow. I feel like I've focused on specific areas enough previously so I just played along with the backing track like 5 times.

Thu 13/02/14

• Today due to a really long story that I'm not going to go into, I was unable to perform 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' yet again and now I'll have to wait until Thursday 27/02/14. With that in mind I'll probably wait a while before I practice it again because it's half term tomorrow.

Fri 14/02/14

• Today is the first day of half-term! To be honest, I'm not sure how much I'll be practicing college stuff this half-term, I'll probably leave it until more towards the end of the holiday. 

Sat 15/02/14

• Today I thought I'd just learn some songs instead of practicing stuff that I already know. I learnt 'Chelsea Smile' by Bring Me The Horizon and 'Creature' by Asking Alexandria. 

Sun 16/02/14

• Today I played some acoustic guitar for a change. I wanted to work on my finger-picking so I learnt an arrangement of 'My Heart Will Go On' made by Sungha Jung. It's quite a challenging arrangement as you have to play both the melody and fragmented chords simultaneously.
• I did this to improve other styles of guitar I don't play often enough

Mon 17/02/14

• Sticking to some more acoustic stuff, I decided to practice some stuff on my 12 string acoustic. I played a lot of David Bowie and some Pink Floyd.
• I did this because I think it's good to be varied and I really don't play 12 string enough.

Tue 18/02/14

• Today I did something I don't do that often. I found several blues backing tracks on youtube in different keys and tempos etc and spent an hour or so soloing around.
• I did this to improve my improvisation and lead technique.

Wed 19/02/14

• Today I practiced working songs out by ear. It's something I do a lot of already and I think it's much better than learning from some inaccurate tab you found. I worked out several acoustic Mallory Knox songs by ear and I had the added challenge of trying to figure out the tunings too.

Thu 20/02/14

• Today I did something different and had a five hour rehearsal in my living room with my proper out of college band. We play almost entirely originals now and it's really nice to have a change of scene from all the covers we have to do in college and rehearse our own stuff for upcoming gigs.
• I did this not only for fun but to practice with a full band for an extended period of time.

Fri 21/02/14

• Today I decided to learn some of the music from Sherlock the tv show. I don't know why but it was actually very fun to work out by ear

Sat 22/02/14 

• Today I decided to really get started in preparation for Tuesday where I have to perform all 6 songs I've done with my two bands last half term. I started with the song I'm probably the least confident with, 'When You Were Young'. I wrote out a complete structure and played through the song 3 times looking at the structure and now I am way more confident with the song. Okay, next! I practiced 'Best of You' twice and my previous practicing of this song has definitely paid off as I completely nailed it both times.  The exact same thing happened with 'Harder To Breathe' which is pretty awesome. I love the fact I improvised the solo so it's different every time. I had some trouble practicing 'Inhaler', I don't have a delay pedal and on an amps built in delay, it's very hard to get the delay in time with the track.  'Locked Out of Heaven' was the same thing as best of you, just played through it twice with no problems. Same with 'Respect'.

Sun 23/02/14

• Today I had another band rehearsal with my outside of school band because we have a Battle of the Bands audition coming up as well as a gig in Brighton. We also recorded a demo on my computer which is pretty cool.