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
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.
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