Evaluation Of Final Performance

On the 7th of February, our groups finally got to perform the song we have been rehearsing since September. Every song that we performed (Heaven In Las Vegas, Don't Let Me Go, Papa Was A Rollin tone and Air Signs) In terms of performance, we had a lot of success as we had a lot of preparation as we rehearsed each song constantly so we were confident in preparation and equally confident in performance. However, one thing in my opinion that could've been done better was that their could've been a lot more uplifting body language from the band as a whole to make the crowd feel more welcome and positive. By this I mean that the band as a whole were in a way holding themselves back from interacting with the audience.

I have to say that we were all very happy with the performance as we didn't make much mistakes, their was a time where lyrics had been forgotten and improvisation had to be used to make the song flow, but in my opinion thats how true professionals go through their songs. When they make a mistake only they know that it was a mistake as they use their experience and talent to go through the songs.

Band Workshop Shoegaze

In one of our band workshops, we had also worked on a song called "Don't Let Me Go" which was meant to be our original song for the Shoegaze genre. This was during a session where their was only three people so we just came up with this idea during that session. Only a piano was used for this track as I was the only instrumentalist in the session so we had to come up with the song using just the piano and I used the sustain pedal to make the chords last longer and so it also links to the genre of Shoegaze which is musical loudness and dynamics happening simultaneously using the effect of reverb. We didn't necessarily struggle with the composition of the song but since the objective of the task was to have a full song complete with a mixture of different instruments, we couldn't do this as the whole band wasn't in and we decided to just use this recording as the main idea and any development could be added in future rehearsals.

Prog rock

 During the process of creating our own progressive Rock song, we pretty much made this song by improvising on spot with everyone playing their own instrument and vocalist live on stage.  It was a fairly easy way of making this song complete and come out in a natural way,  however what makes this a very risky way to make songs is that it can very easily be forgotten how to play what was created in the first place. Which is what happened in our group and we had to figure out different ways to make this song sound as similar as possible to the original recording because the original recording was brilliant and we loved the way we used every single instrument stand out.  We use three different sections which is what we tried to do as the Prog Rock genre has this element of differentiation throughout the structure of the songs. We also changed the tempo and the time signature of this song, but still using the same key .  As much as it was easy to create a song, we found it difficult to finalise the performance of the song as we wanted it to become better and better and we never reached a point which we were completely happy with how the song was finished.

Blues

For our blues song we done everything is gonna be alright by mamma Thornton, we faced quite a lot of difficulties in the beginning of the process of this song. Since this song is so dynamic in its own way in terms of instrumentation and vocal presenve, It was hard for us to recreate same thing. Therefore, the way we manage to get through this song was to do the same exact instrumentation but use our own timing in terms of where the instruments lay within this song and whether vocals come within each bar. The vocals are pretty much improvised since blues was a genre that was mainly created by improvising and artists would use their own emotion in that moment when it came to recording  to create this song in a much natural way rather than having a complete figure out structure which  I think personally would make a song much more limited and  restricted in terms of letting the emotion come out more naturally.

Band workshop shoegaze

When working on "Heaven in Las Vegas" we used techniques from the actual genre in terms of really identifying what makes the actual genre stand out from all the other genres which for me was more about the clashing of vocals in the chorus and the reverb and ambience creating a lot of space in the song. Also, the use of 7ths and 9ths with the piano creates this brightness in the song which for me is what makes the song sound the way it does in relation to the reverb and the combination of notes used. There wasn't much to change as the song itself is very full with all the instruments used and the multiple singers. But we also played around with harmonies in the vocals to create a very vibrant sound and to expose that space and shoegaze throughout the song.

Band workshop Disco

Our group decided to do arguably the most famous song in the Disco genre "Freak" by Chic. During the process of this song we experimented with many different things such as: melody, vocal changes in terms of notes and instrumental breakdowns to create a use of dynamic in the song. However, when coming to rehearsing the song we came to realise that the song itself already has a use of dynamic to a certain extent in relation to the bass line because somehow a difficult baseline to play but simultaneously the song being very easy to play for other instruments such as the piano (strings) and the drums. When it came to the piano which I was in charge of playing, I decided to play about with the notes in terms of using octaves in the chorus to make the strings sound very distinctive and present in the chorus. Also, in the bridge the experimentation of notes of 7th and 9ths created this presence of tension and dynamics which is what made the song stand out in general. This is what I had to do in the verses which is quiet simple.

Band workshop phsychedlic soul

In this first lesson of band workshop we worked on Psychedelic Soul, we worked on "Papa was a rolling stone" and we didn't struggle at all with the making of the song but we had to find a way to make the song grow because the original song was quiet simple and empty but the singers added harmonies which made the song sound fuller. The genre of soul is usually known for its space in terms of the sounds used but the vocals and lyrics are the main focus for the listener because of the process of improvisation during performance which we managed to re-impersonate. However, to change this we decided to add in harmonies in the chorus to make the song sound unique and to keep the song interesting during the different parts of the song - especially in the chorus.