Wednesday 17th 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 18th 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 19th 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.
