Recording your group processes for US16553
Hi Everyone,
As we get close to the end of Term 1, it is a good time to publish some written material about your performance groups. This published material can be used as evidence to support your group processes for this 10 credit, internally assessed standard. Please post comments for each group as follows:
- Name of Group/Band
- Members of Group/Band and the role of each member - Eg Bass player, Tenor vocalist, etc)
- Music you are currently working on - give details such as names of pieces, own compositions, etc.
- Event(s) you are preparing for - Eg. Assembly Performance, Rock Quest Heat - give dates and clear detail.
- Progress report on how you are getting on with your preparation - positive points to note, negatives, priorities for the next few weeks, timelines, things to action.
posted by Raewyn Winny @ 5:02 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
skjhgfbkdjh skdjhgsldijkgh
Josh test
Harris Tong; blog for performance 1, group stormrider
Ambitions prior to performance
Our ambitions above all was to create and perform a song that was both original and sounded good to us, one of our other hopes was to pass the rockquest heats.
Process,
I was the sole guitarist of our group, karan as the drummer and Leonard as the bassist, this was our core group which we practised daily Damien was our singer, however he was not around for majority of our song writing and rehearsals due to not being in the class. From the beginning of the year we were all aiming at performing covers however we were tired of learning the songs and decided to jam in class and make our own. The song writing process started with me writing some riffs at home which I brought to class to show Leonard and Karan in jams, we would first discuss whether it sounded good or appropriate then they attempted to jam along to me whilst I played the riff. We progressed the song by adding more riffs and so forth till we had enough material for that one song. We had did this a few times, some song ideas lasted a week or two but we ended up scraping each one till we came up with what is now the song we played at rockquest which we named “My self control”. For this song, we downtuned our guitars and basses as I suggested it would suit Damien’s low harsh voice more. I first brought in my song ideas for “my self control” or “control” near end of term one, Leonard was away for a few days so it was just me and Karan. I jammed with Karan extensively for 2 periods straight, coming up with the draft version of the verse, intro and chorus, when Leonard came in on the 3rd period we showed him what we had and he came up with his bass lines. By the 3rd period we had already completed half of the song writing, the music came flowing out of all of us and I felt that we all had a good musical connection there and a good feel of what we were playing. By the end of the period we discussed what we had done and all pretty much said it was “the song” and what we produced was awesome. We continued at this song for many more periods, changing and adding to the song structure which we discussed during our jams, we also arranged a solo space after the 3rd chorus for me to work on. During every jam of this song I attempted at a guitar solo finding what was suitable, Karan also added some drum fills which at first sounded pretty good but we agreed some of them needed to be ‘tightened’ to the structure. I thought Karan and Leonard worked really well as bassist and drummer need to do, during our jams it was essential for all of us to have eye contact for communication as we obviously couldn’t talk during jamming. Every jam was adding to accuracy and getting the right feeling, Karan tightened his drum fills and I continued to improve my rhythm accuracy for the riffs. After at least 15 jams we had the song ready for Damien to sing to, however writing the lyrics was also another thing. The weeks leading up to rockquest was a busy time for us due to other commitments and exams, however I caught up with everyone and organised exam leave days where all of us are free to practise, the 2 weeks before rockquest we acquired a basement for weekend/after school rehearsing; we spent 4 days a week in there which I lent Leonard and Damien amps, mics and a bass guitar since they didn’t have their own gear. The first time we rehearsed with Damien was a great we felt really good and his lyrics and vocals went really well with our song. Each practise we encouraged each other and had a good time, for some of the runs through the song we had huge amounts of energy and feeling which was great. I finally came up with a guitar solo that I thought was good and we had some runs through the song to try my guitar solo. After a few days being down there, the song wore us down a bit as that was all we were playing so we side tracked a little bit till the rockquest heats.
Leading up to the rockquest heats, we planned to wake up early at 7; I picked everyone up and went back to the practise space for our last jam and encouragement talk. It was all well and we were excited but also some nervousness I felt in the rest of the guys.
Future direction
We feel developing our own style and music is best for us we want to continue making songs and also a one or two covers. We will also need to work on having more energy on stage thus getting rid of the stage nervousness. We hope to do more performances soon and will work eve harder towards them.
Log for performance 2 (manakau music competition)
At the beginning of term 3 the band got together again to try rehearse for manakau event, however
It was soon realised that it would be very hard to rehearse with Damien again. Our band was in a period of no productivity till week 2 where me, Leonard and Karan joined and just jammed. We played our pervious song ‘my self control’ and slither many times but our jam sessions were quite boring and repetitive in my opinion. That’s when Leonard started playing his own very bass line out of nowhere; it was funky and very cool. Me and Karan liked it a lot, Karan began playing a drum beat to it and I just improvised a rhythm line and the song progressed from there. It was a very fun and enjoyable jam where all of us connected musically. I though Karan and Leonard were really connecting as bassist-drummer usually should connect, they also complimented on my lead playing saying it had feeling and suited. Every class we had for the next for days we kept going at the song and perfecting it as far as we could; we discussed the song arrangement as where the verse and chorus should start and finish and where I could solo and where we should finish the song. At first we just played it however each one of us would like the other 2 would follow for instance Leonard took control of when the chorus should start and finish and me and Karan followed but that became a problem so we made an 8 bar verse and 8 bar chorus/progression etc. The discussions were productive and soon our song was ready to perform. Every jam we had I improvised the solo and guitar fills to find the right solo. A lot of good things were happening for us, there was no other band that needed equipment during class so we were able to practise 5 days a week in studio 1 (our preferred studio) and as soon as class started we grabbed the equipment we needed and set up within 5-7 minutes, tuning took 50 seconds sometimes more depending on the state of the guitar’s tuning, I liked to get a very well tuned guitar and since I never brought a tuner to school it was always by ear. I always brought my own ear plugs and pick to school too, I forgot them a few times and my hearing was numb afterwards and my playing was limited due to no pick. Karan and Leonard never brought ear plugs and that’s too bad because just 10 minutes after jamming our ears would really hurt or be permanently affected. Our jam sessions just progressed into long periods of improvisation where one would start a riff or drum beat and the others would follow, Leonard although doesn’t practise bass or have played bass for very long was still able to play along with us fine. Karan garnered a wide arsenal of fills or drum lines it was great as whenever I played my riffs he could easily play along with a complimenting drum line. Sometimes not all of us could be at class and our jam sessions were very difficult if missing one of us for instance me and Karan could not practise our song for manakau event when Leonard was away one day because his bass line was key rhythm to the song.
When it came to the event we were not nervous at all having watched all the other bands there and most of them were very good in our opinion our hopes for a placing wasn’t there but we were there to have fun. Our performance on stage was okay, the sound setting was off, I forgot some of the key licks/riffs I was going to use and we didn’t have the feeling on stage. I guess the reasons for these problems were that we only had the opportunity to play one song that day we had no time to get used to playing there it was completely different atmosphere. Also I improvised half of the time at the practise sessions and never really composed the guitar part or made a set guitar piece for the song so when I played on stage with the band there was an element of nervousness which made me to forget some of the riffs/licks. This was our third time playing on stage as a band and we are still in a learning process so in the future our performances hopefully be better but for now our goals are to continue playing our own songs and keep practising.
Upon our last performance which was a near disaster (Leonard didn’t turn up on the day of performance, we picked Michael to replace Leonard on bass) we hadn’t thought of playing again this year but with the enthusiasm of Damien who we hadn’t played with, in months we were brought together again. This time we attempted to play a cover song again as we did in our first performance, the song was You Give Love A Bad Name by Bon Jovi which Damien wanted to do, we all learnt the song at home. Karan being the first to learn it, Damien to have picked up the lyrics in the holidays, I learnt casually few bits each day and Leonard just picked it up on the day we jammed. When we jammed it sounded terrible, our lack of practise was noticeable especially mine and a bit in Leonard however I thought Damien had improved since we last heard him sing which he used to sing in a deep growl. We were not very excited to play that song after that jam. We attempted the Bon Jovi song again the next 2 days which we had improved greatly mainly due to learning the song properly at home and listening to the actual song a few times. We had gotten the song maybe 75% complete with the last quarter still a bit fuzzy. Mr Jansen came to hear us play and thought we should play Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name, which upon hearing we were enthused as we all related to it and had previously picked it up we all liked the song. So we jammed that song on the spot that day without knowing how much each other had known of the song in terms of playability. It worked alright till the chorus which Karan and I had trouble, Damien only knew half the lyrics, I knew only the intro & verse but Leonard knew the entire song. Although we had not completed the song during the jam we were still excited about playing it unlike our Bon Jovi attempt. I asked Damien whether we are still playing the Bon Jovi song since only he wanted to play it, he said lets scratch it so there came some relief (I personally don’t like Bon Jovi at all and thought that was a bad song for us to play in terms of style). We came back next day refreshed and with near full knowledge of the song, we first discussed our upcoming Ngata House assembly gig and had ideas of playing two songs or just one, Karan and I thought 2 was better but had no idea what the other one was, after some thought I went with just one song since two was going to take much more practise time than we had. We practised Killing In The Name again and everything was well except the ending part which I mucked up and the solo I hadn’t learnt properly and hadn’t the right pedal. But after a few practises we pretty much had it down. During the long weekend I learnt the song inside out, every bit of detail was considered as for the solo I have decided to take my giant effects pedal to school even due to the massive size.
Today is the last day of practising before our performance day which is tomorrow, I felt very
Confident during our jam today because I learnt the song at home so well during the weekend. We had a bit of trouble setting up due to not able to find some of the equipment but we soon got away. Our first jam was pretty well and Damien had said my solo cover was pretty spot on, I felt so too. The only thing we did wrong was play the pre-chorus short which only I seemed to notice, I told everyone to correct it but failed at that, we then tidied up the ending where it’s quite awkward timing, but we figured out a good way to get us all to end at the same time. We continued to play as much as we could till the bell rang which by then we were hurried out.
Wednesday, and it is the day of the performance I am excited but not nervous. During class our practise space is taken and equipment is short we decide to go acoustic which worked out fine anyway, we got the pre-chorus right and jammed a few times through it, everyone else seemed slightly hesitant to perform due to constraints such as using gym 1 and having to carry all our equipment over also there was an acoustic issue which was that our playing would be too loud (as it usually is). But our hesitation soon turned into excitement. At lunchtime we all scurried to the music block to get ready. It was raining outside but that didn’t stop us from carrying our equipment. Setting up seemed quite a breeze, fortunately. When house assembly started everyone poured in and a bit of nervousness caught me as I saw our crowd.
Our performance was fun, co-operative and I think we showed musicianship. I felt I had improved a lot from our other performances in that I was more energetic I felt our music that we were playing which was mainly due to the song being one of my favourites and mistakes were quickly covered up. Our sound balance was much better than before, with the exception that my guitar was low for half of it which I adjusted it during the 2nd verse. Altogether the performance was fun and a good way to end the year and maybe we would have another chance to play in the next 2 and half weeks? The house leaders thanked us and some people enjoyed it but I didn’t think many people actually like rock so the crowd seemed unenthused during the performance (which Damien repeatedly asked everyone to stand up). Well I can say that as a group we have definitely learnt lessons on performing this year and improved on as much as we can for me it was feeling the music when performing and as little mistakes as possible, as a group it was co-operation and sound balance. When jamming we had learned to play along each other like we are a team at training, to overcome obstacles and get our performance right. I have enjoyed jamming and performing with my fellow band mates, some moments required a push but it has come alright, now all we can look forward to is maybe one last performance.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home