Unit 13 : Presentation

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bnqKEcvv0UvRmkruXgMgvJiZK6frPhDk/

In this blog I am going to look over and evaluate my performance with my band playing a gig at sound house on the 30th of may. I am going to evaluate each song with key points I am going to look at: Sound, crowd communication, stage presence and singing. Then at the end I am going to evaluate the gig as a whole.

first song (Breaking ties) 0:20 – 3:19

The First song went fairly alright for me as there were a few time where I was out of tune, but i feel like that was cause mainly from being nervous. I did think that it got much better as the song went on as my nerves started to go a little. To me the song sounded okay, but the second verse sounded a bit week melody wise so I am going to have to sort that out. Also Jake’s guitar was fairly quite throughout the song and throughout the night, so I could barely hear him at all. I thought my was stage presence was okay, but I do feel that it could have been much better. I think the main reason as to why I didn’t do much is because I was just nervous and couldn’t loosen myself up as much as I wanted too. Although after the first song was done I did start to loosen up a little bit as I was gaining up some confidence.

Second song (Your Porch) 3:20 – 6:31

Second song into the set and I could defiantly say that I was getting more comfortable as this song is quite an old song, so we have a had long time rehearsing this song. Also because I was getting more comfortable I also felt that my singing was getting much better by this point as the nerves started to go more and more. There was still a few times were I was off key, but from hearing every ones feed back about it they said it was fine and that it is going to happen. I do think that my stage presence was better then the first song as there was more movement, but I do however think that it could have been better. Finally I think this song went really well, as it sounded excellent and no mistake were made by anyone.

Third song ( A Room With a View) 6:50 – 9:40

Third song into the set and this song is also another old song that we wrote, so I was pretty confident with singing this song. I defiantly think that this was my best song so far of the set, as I was singing more confidently and I was in key for nearly all of it. However I did mess up the last two lines on the second verse, but it didn’t throw me off as we all kept playing. I thought my stage presence through some of the song was good as there was some movement, but then there was some parts of the song where I think it could have been better as sometimes I would just stand there awkwardly. The sound of this song is really good no mistakes, no wrong notes played, it all went well. However for some reason they turned Jake’s guitar up and down during the intro, which is a little annoying and was a little off putting but we still manage to get through it.

Fourth song (Worst Intentions) 10:06 – 11:45

The first and only slow song of the set and I think that this song went okay, but could have been better. This is mainly due to me not liking how my voice sounds on this track as I think my voice sounds a bit mellow and that’s not how I wanted it. I think the sound of the song was okay, but I do think that our tone just wasn’t quite there as to how we had it in the band room. This is most likely from the guitarist changing their amps settings too quickly from being rushed and the song was most likely not mixed properly on the desk, as the volume was rolled off on the amps a little. My stage presence during this song was fairly reasonable mainly because it is a slow song there isn’t that much you can do, as you wouldn’t expect someone to be jumping around. After watching back and reviewing this song, I think for now that it would be best if we were to cut out and not play any slow songs for a while. The main reason as to why is because at the moment were are only a small band so a slow song doesn’t seem to work, so a slow song doesn’t seem to work at the moment (until we get bigger) so for now we want to play fast, energetic and rememberable songs. Also after watching flavour’s set this decision came to mind. All they played were fast energetic songs, no slow songs and I thought that their set was great, So next time we have a gig I plan to have a set like theirs.

Fifth song (Picking Flowers) 12:00 – 15:20

Second to last of the set and I was defiantly feeling very confident with myself as I was no longer nervous anymore. Although this song I was a little worried about messing up the lyrics as I had only learnt the lyrics fully fairly recently at that point. However there was no need to be worried as I had got everything correct that song. I think that this song was my best song by far as my singing was much better, as I would say that I was in key for all of it. My stage presence was okay, it was much better than the previous songs we played, but still looking back I do think that it could have been slightly improved in some places. The sound of the song was overall really well played, to me everything sounded good, no mistake made and everything was timed well, but again for some reason Jake’s guitar was still quite this was a requiring thing that happened throughout the night.

Last song (Untitled) 15:44 – 17:35

Last song of the set and I think that this song went bad and good at the same time. This is mainly because we messed up/went out of time at the start and had to restart, which was really annoying as the set was going perfectly until then. I also think that the first verse was a bit sloppy and that’s most likely why we messed up the first time. Singing wise I think that I did pretty good as I was in tune with song and you could hear me clearly, but there was a few times where the lyrics were a bit of a mouthful causing me to run out of breathe, so a few lines need to be changed after that. My stage presence was okay as there was little to no movement, but I think this was mainly due to me focusing more on singing and breathing as most of the song is a mouthful. Next time playing this song in the band rooms I am defiantly going to start implying some movement in this song as their needs to be as it is a fast energetic song, so movement is key. Apart from the mess up at the start I think that this song sounded good for what it is as it is meant to sound rough, fast and harsh, but with a melodic twist to it. There is defiantly some areas for improvement in this song like lyrics, singing and timing, but I think overall it went well.

Overall I think that this gig went surprisingly well as a first gig, as even though there was a few mistake here and there it still ended up going really well. I think that as a band we represented our sound really well and we also gained a few followers out it, which was the goal. I do however think that my stage presence and crowd communication could have been a bit better, but for a first time gig I thought it was good enough.

Unit 13 : Evaluation and Reflection

22/04/19 – 28/04/19

First week back from Easter holiday. The plan for the whole week was to rehearse all of our songs, finish/write more lyrics for songs and to do more coursework. Unfortunately this week didn’t go according to plan, as not everyone could not make it either from car problems or sickness, so instead of practice we decided that it would be best if we used this time to go into the studio and finish recording for a single we want to release. Studio time was good, but could have been better as we only recorded bass and nothing else. Lyrical writing was fairly poor as I didn’t write down an amount I was happy with, hopefully that will be better next week. Course work did go very well this week as I have now fully completed Unit 12.

As a whole I believe that this week was a bit poor, as most of it didn’t go according to plan, but it did allows us to get more studio time which we wanted to have anyway.

This week I researched into a youtuber called Doug Zed, in which he makes videos about vocal warm ups and vocal techniques. There were two video I found when looking which were very helpful and they were “How sing with grit” and ” How to breathe for sing post-hardcore and pop punk”. These two videos were the most helpful as the first video has taught me how to use grit safely so it doesn’t hurt and the second video is teaching me how not to waste air when singing.

29/04/19 – 05/05/19

During this week I/we planned to work on any songs that were not yet finished or were messy, also the plan was to do more coursework. The week did sort of go to plan as we did work on our songs that were unfinished, but we didn’t finish enough to the point where I am satisfied with it. We did finish one song completely and we sorted out the tempo in another song, but we still didn’t get to finish that song completely or work on another song that we are having problems with. So hopefully I/we finish them next week. Coursework this week wasn’t has good as I hoped it would’ve been, as I only did a very small amount and had planned to do more, such as trying to make a start on all of my Unit 13 blog posts. The goal for next week is to do more coursework by making a start on everything.

As a whole I think that this week was okay as we did get to finish a song and fix an issue with another song, but it could have been better if I/we had finished one more song and if I had done more coursework.

This week I researched into improving my composition skills and while looking I found one video that was mildly useful. The video by a youtuber called Skyway Avenue and the video is called “How to write pop punk songs”. The reason as to why this video was helpful is because it has show me different style into writing song, especially when it come to writing lyrics, which I tend to struggle with.

06/05/19 – 12/05/19

The plan that I had for this week was to work on the unfinished/ messy songs again and potentially finish them. This plan did happen to an extent, as we did work on the songs by changing certain sections of a song and also by releasing what the problem was as to why we couldn’t finish a song. Unfortunately though we still haven’t finished these last two songs that need to be finished before the 30th of may. Hopefully we will have a better breakthrough next week and have them completed. My coursework however, has been much better compared to the last two weeks as I have now started to work on Unit 13. Next week I plan to do even more coursework, as I want to have unit 13 done as soon as possible.

As a whole I think that this week went much better then last week, as it went more according plan. I do think it could have been better though, if we had done more/finished those two songs.

This week I wanted to make my stage performance better then what it is, so I did this by looking up live videos of bands I like to listen to. A perfect video that I found was of a band called The Story so Far playing at pop punk fest in Singapore. The video itself is really helpful as it’s giving me some ideas on how I can act on stage, how we should open, how to talk to the crowd when were not playing and just what to expect from a show. This is stuff that I will imply into my own stage performance whenever my band plays gigs.

13/05/19 – 19/05/19

This week I was planning to finish the last two remaining songs and perform our set list in front of a teacher in Swinburne, but unfortunately it didn’t all happen. First problem we had this week was that one of our members couldn’t make it in at all so we had to adjust our writing style a little differently so we could continue doing it. We also didn’t finish the two songs completely, but they are 90% done now. All that is left to finishing them is adjusting a few transitions and making both of them smoother. The final problem we had was that we have had to push back our Swinburne lesson back to next week. The reason why we had to move it, was that another band was meant to do it last, but there drummer didn’t turn up so they were pushed back into our slot and then so were we. Although this did happen, I do think that this was for the best as we were missing a person so we would of had to have done it without either bass or guitar. My coursework throughout this week was fairly poor has I had only done a little and was hoping to do much more, but I have planned out most of blogs as to what I am going to write about.

I think that this whole week has gone reasonable well, as we have nearly completed all of our songs and our lesson was pushed back, but unfortunately we did have a missing Member all week and I didn’t do as much coursework as I wanted too.

During this week I researched more into stage presence and gig again, but this time from another band called Real Friends. The venue they’re playing at is very different compared to the last video as it’s smaller and has no stage. This video is has helpful as the last one has it’s helping me work on my stage performance, but it is also giving me a hind sight into what potential venues my band might play at.

20/05/19 – 26/05/19

One week before the final gig so the plan through out the whole week is to practice, finishing writing any songs and to prepare for our Swinburne lesson on Wednesday. Practice was okay this week as we did go through our set list and we did write more for our unfinished, but it still didn’t feel enough as we only had a few hours this week compared to what we usually have which is more. We did however decide that we are going to do a cover, as we know that one of our songs isn’t going to be finished before the final gig so we needed to find a replacement for it. On Wednesday the Swinburne lesson went moderate, as two songs I couldn’t do due to not knowing how the melody went, one song we couldn’t perform as it was too late and we didn’t have bass throughout the whole lesson due to some changes we are going through. On the other hand though we did get some good feedback about our songs that we are now going to use to improve them and it was good practice for next week, as we haven’t performed that much in front of a crowd before.

I think that this week has been reasonable productive as we did get to practice on stage, which we received some feedback for, however practice this week was poor and could have been much better.

For this week I have been researching into vocal covers in order to understand how other singers phrase words, when they breathe and when to add in certain vocals techniques such as head voice and grit. One video I found is of someone covering the song “Gone” by Knuckle Puck and it was surprisingly helpful. The reason as to why this video has helped me is because its showed how and when I should be breathing while singing, when I should be adding grit in certain parts and controlling the loudness of my singing.

27/05/19 – 02/06/19

This week is the week of the gig and It is also, two weeks away until my coursework is due in. The plan I had for this week was to rehearse with my band as much as we can and to also do as much course work as I can. Practice this week was much better as we have everything finished, so all we had to do this week practice and go over every song for Thursday night. We also decided that we are not going to do the cover anymore as I couldn’t sing high enough for the song, even when we dropped it down a half full step (from drop D to drop C sharp) it was still too high for me. My coursework this week was better compared to last week, as I had more time to do it. I have now got all of my blog posts going and have actually almost finished a few of my assignments. The gig on Thursday went better than I thought it was going to go. We played the gig pretty smoothly, with the exception of the last song as we did mess up and had to start over again. I thought my stage presence and talking could have been a little better, but seeing as how big the crowd was and that it was our first gig, I thought it went pretty well.

Overall I think that this week went surprisingly well as my coursework has greatly improved compared to previous weeks and the gig had a much better turn out than what I thought it was going to have.

The final week of needing to research into things that will help me before the gig. So this week my research was live performances of bands, but in personal as I went to a festival called Slam Dunk. While seeing some of my favourite bands, I decided to take some videos of their set so I could watch back and learn from them. This is exactly what I did and it has definitely help me, as now I have more of an understanding/ plan on how to open and close a set and how I could talk with the crowd during and in between songs.

03/06/19 – 09/06/19

First week after the end of year gig so the plan for this week was to get as much course done as possible and to rehearse/go over and change our songs with my band. Fortunately this week went according to plan, mainly due to the fact that we were no longer stressing about the gig. My course this week has been much better as I have now finished at least 4 major tasks in unit 13(Context, Research, Evaluation and Planning and Production), with only 2 or 3 remaining. This week I was really able to get into my coursework getting it done, as rehearsing was no longer a main priority anymore. The plan for next week is to get everything done as it id due in next week Friday. Practice this week was also very good, as after the gig we decide it would be a good idea that if we went over all of our finished songs and make them more professional/energetic. By professional I mean clean up some of the parts in some of our songs as they sound sloppy or we dislike them. We also decide that it was best if we cut out our slow song, as for a band starting out we want our set list to be filled with just energetic songs. So far we have gone over 2 songs and have 2 more to go. This week in practice we also managed to come up with a new potential song idea. So far we only have an idea for the verse and chorus, but it sounds promising as now it sounds like we’re finding our own sound as a band. Hopefully next week we are able to make more progress on it.

I personally think that this week was a major success as I was able to get a lot of coursework done, we manged to get a new song idea and we manged to professionalised 2 of our songs. Also everything that I had planned to happen to this week, happened.

10/06/19 – 16/06/19

Last week left until my coursework is due in, so all I plan to do is get my coursework finished and maybe depending if me and my bands mates finish their coursework early go in the band rooms and practice. Coursework this week has been very productive as I have now finished everything that needs to be done. I have read over every task and read through all of my work to make sure that everything was correct and meet all the guidelines. In order for me to get this done I had to dedicate every day I was in into doing coursework otherwise I wasn’t going to finish it. Unfortunately we wasn’t able to go into the band rooms as our main focus for the week was making sure our course work was completed, Which none of us had done early enough for us to practice.

Overall I think that this week went really well as now I have fully completed all of my coursework, even though it was a little bit stressful I still got it done. It would have been better if I had finished it a little bit earlier and focused more on it earlier, but it’s over now.

Unit 13 : Practical Skills

Week 1 22/04/19 – 28/04/19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QStBbEpivmZ5WckMKIyRpcWxFxuoDJi5/

During this week with my singing teacher he decided it would be good to go over a song called navy blue by a band called The Story so Far. The main reason as to why we chose this song is because it is a song that I know fairly well and because the song is in a high key, so hopefully it will help improve my vocal range. Unfortunately the song original key was too high for me to sing so we had to bring it down by 4 or 5 keys in order for it to be in the vocal range of my chest voice. So the video above is of my singing teacher playing an instrumental version of the song on his acoustic guitar 4 keys down. What I plan to do with this video is to practice the song more in my own time because when we did it I could make majority of the song in chest voice, but there was still some parts I couldn’t make chest voice as it was still a little too high. The goal is to sing this song confidently in chest voice all the way through and then slowly progress my way back to its originally key by going up one key at a time.

Also this week we decided that it was best if we went into the studio to record more parts for a single we’re hoping to release sometime in the future. During this session we only recorded bass and nothing else, this is due to not having enough to record anything else. I think the use of time was used effectively as we was able to achieve what we wanted to get done. We was able to have bass done and recorded in a matter of a few takes as the song isn’t that hard to play, but we wanted to make sure that we had it correct. Unfortunately we wasn’t able to record guitar or vocals as we weren’t allowed any more time in there, so we will have to record them next time we are in the studio.

Week 2 – 29/04/19 – 05/05/19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f-FrLG_-bHOBE5JTsuXsN_UF8V_2ebcm/

The video above is a full clip of a song that we have now technically finished completely with the exception of lyrics. The video only shows the song with one guitar and drums as our bass player was playing guitar at the time and all of us wasn’t happy with what the second guitar was playing, so we decided to cut it out for this video. I really like with how this song sounds as for a while now we wanted to create a short intense song similar to Knuckle Puck’s “Give Up” and The Story so Far’s “Brevity”, and I think that we have defiantly achieve this. When we go over this song a few more times we will mess around with the tone, as I want the guitars to sound harsh/gritty and the drums to be hard hitting and harsh. This is because the song is meant to be short and intense, so in order for that to happen to the tone and sound has to be harsh and hard hitting in order for us to get that song perfect. Soon either next week or the week after we will have everything finished such as adding bass, vocals and a second guitar.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12q8nlc5bFRLjVvevE9SJFnwcAJTV0b_U/

During this week my singing teacher has been getting me to warm up my voice by ascending and descending in different scales. The video above is a clip of my singing teacher going through different keys ascending and descending through the use of scales. What I plan to do is to add this video into my daily warm up routine as I find these ascending and descending scales to very useful when warming up my voice. By doing these scales daily they should help make it easier to hit notes, help project my voice when singing and they should help improve my vocal range. This is very helpful towards my project, as the concept of my project is the end of year gig, so anything that will help my singing improve before hand will help massively.

Week 3 – 06/05/19 – 12/05/19

Old version:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1sdk0yZhOELXBB6rEKEJbfpCrY5AYbb/

New version:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-0eD1KY7gMj2NVZFx7ex5ZZOrMlWVU47/

This week in the practice rooms we changed the intro to one of our songs. This change was decided because the intro was very similar to another song called “Everything must go” by a band called Knuckle Puck, so because of the similarity between the two it had to be changed. I also think that after listening to both tracks (before and after) I think that the change was for the best, as now I think that the song is much better compared to how it original sounded. Even though it was only a small change I feel that it’s made a big impact on the song.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xz1omTqtIARHcwrW-1PiysBDxsmiDL5q/

Similarly to last time with my singing teacher we have been ascending and descending in different keys, but this time the pattern of the scale is majorly different. The video below shows the scale I have been learning/been going over. I find this scale to be very helpful as it’s helped me with improving my vocal range and it has improved my projection of head and chest voice, Which is something I desperately want to improve. Overall I think that this scale is much better compared to the last scale I put in, as it uses more head voice, which is helping me improve my vocal range and head voice. Also as I prefer the new warm up compared to the previous warm up, I am going to replace it with the new warm up in my daily routine as I find it more useful.

Week 4 – 13/05/19 – 19/05/19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sd-3FsZ6fv_6gsmqBsyoSiLPNsm0jziH/

In practice this week we managed to finish yet another song instrumentally. In this video you will hear the full clip of a song we have been working on for a while now, as we’ve been having trouble with finishing it. The main problem we’ve been having with the song is the tempo, as when we usually play it the verses are too fast and the choruses are too slow. Luckily now after a while of playing the song over and over we have found a tempo that works well with the song. Even though the song is still rough I think the song is sounding really good especially with how the bridge sounds, as it goes from rough to mellow in the matter of a few seconds. Hopefully with a bit more practice we will have this song completely mastered down and won’t make anymore mistakes.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lq-l5cHVMi7-zFVruzuyJsCYAbtsuzb0/

This week with my singing teacher we went over a new warm up called octave jumps. This warm up involves me holding a note and then jumping an octave up for a few seconds and them coming back down to the original key. This is also another helpful warm up as it helps improve my transition from chest to head voice and it helps improve the vocal range of my chest and head voice. This is defiantly another warm up I am going to add into my daily routine as it’s not that long so it doesn’t take up alot of time and it is also drastically helping me improve my singing.

The picture above is a screenshot of my bands Instagram account promoting the end of year gig on the 30th of may. We not only posted this poster on Instagram we also posted it on our Facebook in order to gain as much attraction as possible. Which is also why we added hash tags underneath as well, so when people search for key words that we have put as hast tags our post will come up on their suggested. Also, we have and plan to post this pic on the bands story every other day to remind people about the gig and to get more attention in case people missed our post about the gig. Finally I also think that the amount of likes we received for the post was a good amount seeing as we only have around 50 followers at the moment, so I think that our post reached majority of our followers.

Week 5 – 20/05/19 – 26/05/19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oVDkiqxAKbsM1rJze20GTKJn3W6l-XQX/

The video above is a clip of a much better improved version of the song that we had finished last week. In this video there is only guitar and drums, but it is played much better and smoother compared to last time due to having a weeks practice on this song. I think now that we have practiced this song more its starting to sound really good especially with transitions from the verse to chorus and chorus to bridge. Now that the song is finished instrumentally either me or Jake will have finished writing lyrics for this song, completing the song. On the chorus I plan to have melody where it cuts for certain parts so a guitar lead came come over and replace the singing for a bit. Something similar to how the chorus is in “Disdain” by Knuckle Puck, as I think it will fit the song perfectly.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F08hv3UYYZm8v0khblZqzy_IX1F1W6DE/

The second video I have for this week is of another song that we have 90% finished. The reason as to why I am saying 90% is because there are still some parts with the song that we are uncertain about whether we like them or not. The main parts that I know that I am not certain about is breakdown/bridge and the first verse. The reason as to why I’m uncertain about the bridge is because to me it sounds like it doesn’t fit the rest of the song, especially the bridge as it has this random change after this soft build up. The reason as to why I don’t like the first verse is because again to me it just seems to be very messy and random. I like how everything cuts out and it’s just one guitar to start off in the verse, but when it does it again near the end it sort of ruins it for me and sounds messy. I’d much prefer it if it just didn’t cutout/ build at all, but instead just carried on like normal. However from theses two issues I like the song, I think that its got some good potential as the chorus is jumpy and the verses are quite harsh, so it should be a fun song to play live. Hopefully we get these two issues sorted out and finish lyrics before the gig next week otherwise we are going to have to drop it from our set list and work on it afterwards. The likely hood of the song being finished next week Is very unlikely due to having enough time to focus on the song, whereas there are more important things to do.

Week 6 – 27/05/19 – 02/06/19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h4EIbmXrXkzViTmqFme3h-na3rgVoug3/

This week we was back again in the studio after having a long “break” to record more parts for a single we want to release. This time we managed to record both guitars parts in the matter of three hours. I think this time it went much smoother compared to last time when recording bass, as we was able to work more efficiently as their was no interruptions this time. There was a few hiccups when it came down to playing lead parts, but other then that we manged to record both guitars in a few tracks each. I think the sound of the guitars and the track is sounding really good, as before we started recording we messed around with tone and got what we thought was the perfect tone for each guitar. The only thing left to do for the track before mixing it is to record vocals and then its done, after that we plan to do a few gigs to gain a small following and then release the single, so then we have people listening to it instead of no one.

Week 7 – 03/06/19 – 09/06/19

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sMtuMATp2o3UF5pRjqE_kjtGvhgGwbKi/

During this week of practice we was able to break from rehearsing the same old songs and start writing new and improved songs. This is exactly what we did and surprisingly we manged to get a new song idea. The first video above is of an potential pre-chorus idea we came up with while messing around jamming. The video only shows one guitar playing as we was missing a few members that day.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-nQC954C_cQ7ZrsbiIhTtkPVjYq4f1h/

In the next video we came up with a verse and a chorus to add to the idea, so at the moment the idea is verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus. We’re not 100% that everything in this video will stay the same due to coming up with majority on the spot, but we are certain that we will keep the verses as it fits what we are trying to sound like. Even though this is a very rough idea I think that this song has got good potential to be something big, especially with the verses as it is fast, energetic and rough so it will for sure get people moving and listening if we were to ever play the live when it’s done. Hopefully in the next week or two we’ll be able to work more on this idea and potentially have it completed instrumentally. After that me and Jake have got to decided who is going to write lyrics for, but before we can do that we need to go over our previous songs and re-write lyrics on them.

Week 8 – 10/06/19 – 16/06/19

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture anything this week due to me doing coursework, so me and the band were not very productive at all. We do plan to practice/rehearse loads after all of our coursework is done and submitted.

Unit 13 : Planning and Production

Week 1 – 22/04/19 – 28/04/19

Plan:

The plan that I had made for this week was to start/finish writing lyrics for any songs that need them and to also get started on my coursework.

What Happened:

Unfortunately this week didn’t go according to plan, as instead of writing lyrics we decided that it would be best if we went into the studio to finish recording for a single we want to release. This made more sense to do so as some of our band member couldn’t make it in due to either car problems or sickness. Unluckily we didn’t dod as much as I hoped, as we only finished recording bass and nothing else. I did try and write lyrics this week, but unfortunately I didn’t produce anything that I was satisfied with that usable. I did however do a good amount of coursework this week as I was able to finish my unit 12, so now I can move forward onto unit 13.

Week 2 – 29/04/19 – 05/05/19

Plan:

What I had planned for this week was to finish any songs that are not finished and to continue working on my coursework.

What happened:

This week did go to plan in certain ways, as we did work on our unfinished songs, but we didn’t do as much as I thought we was going to do. We did finish one songs we’ve been working and also did figure out what tempo we are having for another, but unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to work on a song that has been unfinished for a while. We also decided that we would go through all of our songs one by one and write down all the problems we had with the songs. So now we have a list problems we need to solve in order to make our songs better. My coursework this week was also a little poor as I only started working a few of my tasks, instead the amount I had hoped I would do.

Week 3 – 06/05/19 – 12/05/19

Plan:

This week I planned to go over every song that my band has and make sure that all of us are happy with how they are/sound.

What happened:

This plan did happen to a certain extent as we did go over all of our songs and we did change a few parts in certain songs that we weren’t happy with, but unfortunately we didn’t get to go over the two unfinished songs we have. This is something we desperately want to go over as we need these two songs done before the 30th of May. What did go to plan fully was my coursework, as now I have started all the tasks I need to do for unit 13.

Week 4 – 13/05/19 – 19/05/19

Plan:

The plan that I made for this week was to write up a set list for the gig, figure out how the stage layout will be for the gig and to do more course work.

What happened:

Unfortunately this week really go to plan at all as instead of writing a setlist and working on a stage layout we decided it was best if we get theses two remaining songs completely finished for the gig. Making this decision was really beneficial as we have almost finished both songs. We also planned to prepare for our Swinburne lesson on Wednesday , But luckily it was pushed back a week due to another band not being able to do it a week before. This also helped out majorly as we was missing a member so we would have had to of done it without a second guitar or bass. The only thing that did go to plan this week was me working on coursework, but I didn’t do as much as I planned I would.

Week 5 – 20/05/19 – 26/05/19

Plan:

During this week I had planned to work on my and the bands stage presence, Promote the gig on our social media and to work on more coursework.

What happened:

What actually happed this week was that we decided that because our end of year gig was next week, it was best if practiced for it. So for majority of this week we practiced every day we could. However we did sort of work on our stage presence this week, as on Wednesday we had our Swinburne lesson with Scott. In this lesson we performed all of our songs on a stage in front of Scott and at the end of it he gives us feedback about our whole set. This lesson was extremely useful compared to the plan I had, as we was able to get some feedback to help us for next week. I also wasn’t able to do any coursework this week aswell, due to dedicating majority of this week to practice and Swinburne.

Week 6 – 27/05/19 – 02/06/19

Plan:

The plan I had for this week was to practice for the upcoming gig on Thursday and to do more coursework.

What happened:

This week everything went according to plan, this is because we dedicated this week to practice and coursework. Practice this week was better then any other practice session we have had for a while, as we was able to go through our setlist multiple time without messing up or forgetting anything. We also decided last minute that we was going to drop two songs from our setlist, one being an original the other being a cover. This happened because the original was not finished in time and the cover I couldn’t sing as it was too high for me. Even with it being a half full step down it was still too high. My course work this week was also very good as I spent a lot more time getting it down, which has paid off as I have almost finished a few of my assignments. On Thursday we also played our first gig outside of college, which went much better then I had anticipated it would go. The gig went pretty well as we had practised pretty hard for it, even though we messed up the last song at the start.

Week 7 – 03/06/19 – 09/06/19

Plan:

What I have planned for this week is to finish any course work that needs to be done.

What happened:

This week went pretty much according to plan as I did do coursework and I was able to finish majority of it, with four major tasks done and only three remaining. This week I was able to finish off context, research, evaluation and planning and production. unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish problem solving, practical skills and presentation as I have been having problems with putting videos into word press from my phone. So what I had to do in order to fix this was to upload my videos into google drive and then share the link from there into my blogs. Due to technical problems I wasn’t able to stick fully to plan, but I was still able to get as much as I could done.

Week 8 – 10/06/19 – 16/06/19

Plan:

This week I have planned to finish any course that still needs to be done and then check over all of my work by myself then with a teacher.

What happened:

This final week went exactly according to plan as I have now finished all of my coursework. This week I was able to finish off Problem solving, Practical skills and Presentation and then after that double checked everything to make sure it was all correct and completed. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to let a teacher go over and check my work as majority of this week I was in another room where there wasn’t any teachers around. However After Friday a teacher is going to review all of my work and make sure it’s all completed and correct. Then I shall receive an email with a review stating what was good, what grade they think I might achieve, what I need to change and what needs more work.

Unit 13 : Problem Solving

During my project I will likely come across a few problems that I will have to face. The first problem that I will most likely come across is that either mine or someone in my bands equipment will either break or stop working. This will probably happen from someone breaking it at the gig, someone accidentally spilling liquid on it, batteries die or there is a circuit problem. The chances of these problems happening is likely, so in order to prevent this I will check all the equipment I am going to use a week before the project and make sure everything works, I will check every device that uses a battery and replace them if they are low and finally in order to prevent anything from breaking or being damaged I will move it to a suitable location where it is out of reach from the audience.

Another problem that I will come across is bad monitoring or loud/quiet amps. This will happen due to a bad sound check or a rushed sound check. This will negativily effect our project as we won’t be able to hear ourselves play and will most likely mess because of it. The solution I have thought of in order to prevent this from happening is that we arrive early at the venue so we can prepare and have a good sound check that is not rushed due to timing or being late.

A third problem that I believe I will come across is that either me or someone in my band will mess up while playing causing to stop mid song or throw us out of time. This will happen due to someone dropping a pick/drum stick, someone forgetting/not knowing their parts, The tempo changing mid song and someone going out of time mid song. In order for this problem to not happen I have thought of a few ways to prevent this. One way is to practice our songs so much to the point where if one of us does go out they can just come back whenever they want, as they will know when too.

Another problem that I am predicting will happen is having to kick out one our band members. This is due to our guitarist having problems keeping up with the rest of us, so this is going to create many different problems such as having to make parts easier to play and the risk of him messing up live. Obviously these are issues that we want to eliminate as mine and my bands project is to a live gig at sound house on the 30th of may. The solution that I/we have come up with to solve this problem is we have asked him to practice more at home and to get more involved when we are in the band rooms together. Then after a few week if he doesn’t get better we will unfortunately have to get rid of him, as we don’t want to put our first gig/reputation at stake.

Furthering on from this problem if we do have to kick out a member this will create another problem. The problem that will be created is trying to find a replacement and then having to teach them all the songs before the 30th of may (depending when this happens). Obviously this will be a major issue as we don’t want to spend most of our time having to teach new member how to play our songs, as we have a few songs that still need to be finished. The solution that me and my band members have come up with is that we move the bass player to guitar as we have two guitarist, so having two guitars is slightly more important live than having bass. Eventually we’ll plan to get a bass player after the gig, but before we will have to do without as it will be too short notice to find someone and teach them in time.

Unit 13 : Research

Week 1 22/04/19 – 28/04/19

Currently the research I am looking into to make me a better player are cover videos, live performance videos, singing techniques/warm ups, albums and composition technique videos. There are a few YouTube channels that I look at frequently and then there are also some random channels that I have come across which only have one or two good videos. Aside from my research I have also been taking singing lessons outside of college, which I have been doing for almost a year and have every other week.

One the main channels that I have been looking at is someone called Doug Zed. Majority of the videos that I look at are either singing techniques or vocal warm ups

https://www.youtube.com/user/slappingpopping/videos

One of the main videos that I have been looking at is “How to sing with grit”. I found this video to be very useful because a lot of the bands I listen to use this singing technique so I have always wanted to be able to do it and then add it into my own music. I also feel like it is required to learn/use grit in pop punk I play in, as it feels like it is a key feature of the genre. After watching this video and studying the technique I can now safely and properly use this technique to my advantage.

Another video I found very useful was “How to breathe for singing post hardcore, pop punk and screamed vocals”. The main point of this video is to show how to sing with diaphragm support, as when you sing from the diaphragm certain muscles help you sing softer and more powerful. The video demonstrates an exercise I can use during my warm ups to help improve my diaphragm support which will in turn further improve my singing overall.

After watching this video I have added this exercise to my daily vocal warm ups and I do feel that it has made a difference, as I can now sing notes much more powerful than what I could do before.

Week 2 – 29/04/19 – 05/05/19

One of the skills I want to make increase is my composition skills and in order for me to make it better I have been researching many different ways I can develop this skill. During my research I found a video that I found to be very helpful. In this video he talks about how he writes songs instrumentally and lyrically. Although I found how he writes songs instrumentally to be useless, I did however find the way he writes lyrics to be interesting. one problem I have is that I find writing lyrics to be a bit of struggle as I am still new to it, so I found this video to be helpful in some way. The way he writes lyrics is that he will play the track on loop and hum or sing random words over the track until something useful is said or comes to mind. After researching this video I have now put this technique into my own practice to see how helpful it was and I did find this technique to be somewhat useful, as I do feel like it has helped as I am now a bit more comfortable with writing lyrics. Although, I do still struggle writing lyrics now and then.

Week 3 – 06/05/19 – 12/05/19

Another skill that I have been researching to develop is stage presence. For me to develop this skill further I have been looking into how bands that I listen to perform on stage. The video below is a live performance of a band called The Story so Far at RB Pop Punk fest in Singapore. One of the things that I like and will take from this video is the start/intro. The reasons as to why I like this into is that its a short and gets into the crazy atmosphere straight away, instead of just waiting trying to build up hype for when they start playing. Another point that I like and will take away from this video is the singer’s (Parker Cannon) performance. I found the singer’s performance to be something I plan to aim for as I love the way he is on stage, his high energy inspires to me as having an attitude like that will always get the crowd hyped. Third point that I will defiantly take away from this video is the lack of mistakes, as even when the singer stops singing to take a breathe they still continue to be in time with each other. This is something I hope to achieve when my band plays live, as we want to look as professional as we can and making no mistakes is one of the things we can do to look that. A final point I am going to take from this video is how good the monitors are. Due to the monitors being sound checked they can all hear each other properly allowing everyone in the band to constantly be in time and rarely making any mistakes.

Week 4 – 13/05/19 – 19/05/19

From researching more into live bands I came across a video of a band I like called Real Friends Playing at a very small venue. The video is similar to the one above, but the venues are different as the video above is on a stage at a proper venue and the video below is in a small hall with the crowd directly in their face. With the venues being different, the stage performance is obviously going to be different as majority of the time at house/hall show you are not going to have much room. The main reason why I am looking into this video isn’t the bands stage presence, it is more for the sense of preparation for when I/ my band will potentially do gig like this. These small venues are defiantly the type of gigs that my band will do for a while, so looking up videos like this on how bands that I like handle/ perform in theses venues is going to be major help for when we start playing shows.

Week 5 – 20/05/19 – 26/05/19

For more vocal techniques and style I have decided that it would be a good idea if I looked into vocal covers, as they should help me with phrasing, breathing, when to add in vocal techniques and if I should be singing in chest or head voice. The reason why I chose this vocal cover below is because this is roughly what I aim for my vocals to sound like. After watching this video I found a few techniques and tips that I found to be quite useful, which I am going to implement into my own work. One tip I have from this video is that you should take very chance you can to breathe, even it means missing a few lyrics as your singing will sound much better when you have air in your lungs. Another thing I am going to take away form this is when to add grit into your vocals, as some sections of the song may or may not need and too little or too much can ruin the part. A final tip/technique I have taken from this video is controlling how loud singing should be on each section.

Week 6 – 27/05/19 – 02/06/19

The videos that I’ve provided below are videos of two bands that I saw at Slam Dunk festival. The first video is the opening song of a hardcore band called knocked loose. The reasons as to why I decided to recored the opening song is because I wanted to study their stage presence and I wanted to see how they started their setlist. What I like about this video is how energetic and intense the intro/first song is. This is something that I will want to imply into my own work as it’s a good short introduction and it usually gets the crowd moving/interested.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17sxncMA_JeOVrJrE-35iz56MM2jtpYSC/

The next video is of the same band, but more into their set. What I liked/found useful about this video is the bands stage presence and communication with the crowd. During this song the band is seen jumping around, head banging and dancing, without ever messing up. This is something that I desire to put into my own work, as I believe that not only playing good makes you a good band, but also having a overall great stage presence will make you even better. I also like how the band hypes up the crowd and tells them to getting moving more. This is also something I desire to put into my own work, as it will help my band put on a much better show and it will also help us communicate more with the crowd.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WkGPYlD4R0J1zr2VX4KjzTTu4pvc_ZC-/

This is the last video I have of Knocked Loose set and It is also their last song on their set list. Again in this video I like the stage presence and crowd communication, but what I particularly like about this video is how the singer leaves the mic and gets in the crowd. The reason as to why I like this and may take into my own stage presence is because I find that it allows the fans to get close to someone that they listen/look up too. I also think that it does make more for good show as well, as it shows that band aren’t afraid to go in and do what the audience does.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XEGE92W1-wawPTr-vp6IaJMWbx9_LcNm/

The final video I have of Slam Dunk is a video of a band called Real Friends playing their opening song of their set. Like the Knocked Loose videos I posted What I like about this video is their stage presence and crowd communication. Very similar to the knocked Loose singer the singer of Real Friends goes down to the crowd on the bridge. Like I said previously this is something I would hopefully like to add into my own stage presence, especially when my bands songs are more know, as I think it helps the crowd connect more with band as they’re up close singing with the band.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DZFtgQBJ2VWjIPpFxNWtkVFcsRYIZKge/

Bibliography

1). Doug Zed (2015). HOW TO SING WITH GRIT LIKE PARKER CANNON, BEN BARLOW, DAN SOUPY CAMPBELL. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6crw_CAO4ds [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

2). Doug Zed (2016). How To Breathe for Singing Post Hardcore, Pop Punk and Screamed Vocals (Must Watch). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng4KMT_xFwU [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

3). Skyway Avenue (2016). HOW TO WRITE A POP PUNK SONG!. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-lA8c8PBPc [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

4). Tanin Memongkal (2015). The Story So Far – FULL SET LIVE @RB POP PUNK FEST SINGAPORE 2015. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Z8N-Frjjc [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

5). Alex DiVincenzo (2016). Real Friends – Late Nights In My Car / I Don’t Love You Anymore (3/28/16). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlcIbvAxPMo [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

6). Alex Lulow (2017). Knuckle Puck – “Gone” (Vocal Cover). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bOBE0_S9O8 [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

Unit 9

12/09/18

During this week we (my band) came up with a new potential song idea. The video only shows off what will most likely be an intro into a song. I like this idea as i think it has the sound we’re trying to achieve but it needs to be cleaned up. Although, it is only a rough idea. How we are going to improve this is by trying to work of this idea and make a full song out of this.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

10/10/18

This week we have worked from that song idea we had a while ago, as we have now come up with a verse and pre-chorus for it. The video only has one guitar and drums, So next we need to add bass, lead guitar and vocals.

This video shows off a rough idea on how we want the chorus to go. As shown in the video before it still only has one guitar and drums, so to improve it we will need to add bass, vocals and lead guitar.

Third video shows off what the verse, pre-chorus and chorus sound like together. We have now figured out what the lead part will be playing, so the video consists of two guitars and drums. Now we just need to finish the song and had bass and vocals.

This next video shows of the last section that we have come up for the song. It also shows what the bridge sounds like aswell. It still only includes two guitars and drums as it is still rough ideas.

Final video shows what it sounds like with it all put together with the exception of the last chorus not being there. I think the overall song sounds good, as we came up with most of it in one day. Only thing left to do for the song is to write lyrics and add in bass.

15/10/18

During this week we decided to practice/finish the song we made last week as we were still a little rough playing and there was some small things that needed to be added which we had now done.The video shows off a slightly more improved version of the song, as it now flows more smoothly into each section. The video only has guitar and drums, as we were missing a band member that day and lyrics were not completed yet.

07/11/18

This week my band came up with another song idea. It’s still not finished as it doesn’t have a intro or bridge/ending. The choruses will most likely stay how they are as they sound fine. The verses may change slightly as they do sound rough when listening to the video so they will need touching up. The video only has guitar, bass and drums as we came up with song in a day.

Four pictures below are the chords for the chorus in this song. The chords are D#m9, C#, B sus2 and F#.

21/11/18

Another song idea that we came up with in the practice rooms. The song is made up from an old song we have and something new. The intro, verse and the ending are new, whereas the chorus and bridge are taken from an old song. I like most of the song except that i don’t think that the chorus and bridge fit in with the rest of the song so we are most likely going to have to change them.

11/12/18

This week we worked more on the song i recently posted about. We have now changed the verse slightly compared the last video and the chorus is now also different as the last one didn’t fit. we haven’t figured out a bridge yet but we have some ideas we want to try out for it but most don’t sound like they fit. One thing that needs improving is that we need to sort out our tone on guitar and bass as it’s very muddy.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

19/12/18

This week we worked more on the new song, as we have now shortened the first verse by 2 bars and we have also chopped up the chorus a little as it was a bit plain. We have also figured out what the lead guitar will play on this song, but it is still needs improvements in some areas as it doesn’t sound right. The bridge is still not completed as we know what we want to do for it but we are struggling to figure out how we want it to sound/ be played.

The clip below shows us practicing/playing the new song as a whole band, as we only have one day where all of us are in together. It also shows us playing with our new guitarist Gabe, he’ll be taking over rhythm guitar while i’ll just do vocals now. We have now figured out a rough idea on how the bridge will go but we are still not 100% satisfied with it so i may change. For a first time practice it doesn’t sound too bad, but still needs more practice. The one things left to do is add vocals, finish the bridge section and figure out lead guitar.

Final video shows us playing the band rooms later that day trying out different ideas as to what the lead guitar will play. The video below shows what the lead guitar will be it will most likely change slightly on some places, as I’m not 100% with it all.

11/01/19

The two videos below show off the drum beat we had for the bridge. First video is what we had at the start and then second videos is what we changed it to. I suggested that we make this change as the beat that we had didn’t really sound like a build up to me, compared to when it’s mainly all on the snare.

old

new

12/01/19

The two pictures below show two different chords that I tried playing during the bridge section of the song ( The one at the top of the blog), as it doesn’t have a part for the lead guitarist to play. So while improvising over the bridge with these chords I discovered that it sounded the best when you pick them out into more of a lead line so it separates the sound of the other guitarist.

14/01/19

First time in the studio. We recorded the two songs that have been practicing in the band rooms. We finished recording drums, bass and a little bit of guitar, but we still need to finish vocals and guitar.

30/01/19

Second time in the studio. This time we are recording vocals as everything on the track is pretty much done with the exception of rerecording guitar as we’re not completely satisfied with it.

(me in the booth)

What the track sounds like so far( not mixed yet)

Me singing the first verse

Unit 11

Task 1

In this unit I will talk about about my ambitions for a future career I want to take, The progression I will need to take in order to achieve this future career and I will be showing off the progression that i have done so I can pursue this career path.

The ambitions I have in relation to my progression and career development is that I want to progress further with my band by pushing it outside of college by playing gigs. The reason I want to do this more than anything else is because I can’t really see myself do anything else and I don’t really want to do anything else other than play in a band as I only have a passion for playing music. How i’m going to help this potential future career is by setting small achievable goals that lead into bigger goals, researching into different venues that are either locally or aren’t too far away as researching up the venues that I am going to be potentially playing will give me a basic idea of how the venue is and what the music scene is like in that area. I will also research the best places to make merchandise from so that fans have some thing to buy so they can help fund the band and so they also have something to represent us with. Following this I will also research up recording studios for when we want to record music that we have created and then potentially produce and EP out the songs. I am also interested in bettering myself not only as a song writer, but also as a singer. This can be done through either practice, looking it up on the internet or by taking/attending classes. A final thing that I am partially interested in is taking up the sound tech course at Colchester institute. I have only slightly thought about this as it would be a good degree to have. I also think it could benefit my band so that we don’t have to spend loads of money hiring out recording studios or paying people to mix our songs when I could do it for free.

My backup plan for this situation if it all falls apart will be that i’ll go to university and study music. I have briefly looked into university’s and university courses but i’m not that confident I will go anyway, as it doesn’t interest me that much. A couple of the university’s I have looked at are BIMM, University of west London and Colchester institute. The Course I have been looking into are songwriting, music business and music performance.

Task 2

University

After thinking about going to university for a while I have decided that I don’t want to go as I feel that it wouldn’t benefit me for what I want to do and for what I want to achieve, as all I am interested in doing is playing music in the band I am currently in. A couple things that put me off university was that none of the courses interested me. Another reason is the cost for university, as not only is the cost for the course expensive but if I would have to move away that would then add to what I am already paying just to do the course. Final reason is that I don’t want to do 3 years of university and then I decide I don’t want to pursue a career in music anymore at the end of it, as that would just be a waste of time and money as I would then be in debt.

Other bands/Competition

If I want to continue with my band I will need to look up other local bands that are similar to my band as they will be our competition when it comes to getting gigs. It will also help to find out what other bands are doing such as how they are promoting themselves, what do they sound like, what shows are they playing at and who are they playing with. I think just by looking up these things will give me an understanding of what my competition are doing so I can then understand what I need to do in order to make my band different so that it stands out. This could also be beneficial as well as finding local bands that are a similar style to my band means that these are potential bands we could play gigs with.

Similar bands:

State of Millennia
Pessimist
Counties
Saving Sebastian
Our lives in cinema

Jobs

If I am going to follow this career path I will definitely need a job to keep me financial stable as I know it will take a while until playing music will earn me enough money before it I am able to make this my full time job. Fortunately for me I already have a job that earns me a decent amount of pay for a part time job. I am currently working as a coach at a place called Gymfinity located in Colchester where it teaches kids both gymnastics or parkour.

https://www.gymfinitykids.com/locations/colchester/

websites for merchandise

After searching for a while on the internet and asking a few people someone suggested the site awesome merchandise. After researching through it for a while the prices of t-shirts and stickers seem to be a reasonable price as 10 t-shirts cost £100 and for 100 stickers it costs £20. I think for what I have found so far they are a decent price to start of with, unless I can find another Site/company that does these deals cheaper. however, I think that if I go any cheaper the quality of the products will be terrible and wont last which could potential give us a bad reputation in a way.

http://www.awesomemerchandise.com/

Venues

These are the venues that i found that are based in Colchester. From research I think the Brewhouse would be a good place to start off with as it’s just a small pub so it wont need to filled unlike three wise monkeys and the bull which have a bigger stage and crowd capacity. Obviously three wise monkeys and the bull will hopefully be venues that we eventually play when we have a bit of a fan base built.

Colchester venues/pubs:

Three wise monkeys: https://www.threewisemonkeyscolchester.com/live-music-entertainment-info/

Arts centre: https://www.colchesterartscentre.com/

V-Bar: https://v-bar.com/upcoming-events-in-colchester/

The Bull Colchester: https://thebullcolchester.co.uk/whats-on-all/

queen street brewhouse:

Myself/Band:

As I said previously in Task 1 that I need to set myself some small achievable goals that will be either for myself or for my band.

Band goals:

A goal that my band has that we all agree on is to have enough songs written so we can produce an EP. This is a big and a small goal/achievement as we already have about three songs in the making and will only need either one or two more songs to complete it. But what would make it so big is that we would have something out there for people to listen to, it also means that we could then start playing gigs as that should be enough to do a small set at local venues.

Another goal of my bands would be to play our first gig outside college. Even though this would be a small/easy goal for other bands this is more of a personal one to us, as we have only ever played gigs in college in front students or parents instead of the public. I also think that once we get one gig down it should have a chain effect and should hopefully get more gigs over time by gaining a fan base and a good reputation.

Personal goals:

One of the tasks that I feel i need to do in order to achieve my ambitions is that I need to get better at song writer. What I mean by this is coming up with lyrics/melodies/meaningful lyrics. I use to find it a bit of a struggle when trying to write lyrics as I didn’t really know what i was doing or how to do it. Until I looked up a couple videos on writing lyrics which gave me a few tips and techniques I can use to get started. Even now I still find it a little challenging to get going but I know that if I keep practicing and read more I will improve over time.

Another task for me is to work on/improve my vocals as I would say I’m okay at the moment as I can sing in tune with most of the stuff we write but even still I still do need to practice on being on key and improve my vocal range. I have been getting vocal lessons for a couple months now to improve my singing. My teacher has giving me some warm ups and exercises to do that I try and do daily, which I think has helped me as I do sound better compared to when I first started out.

Tuning:

One of the key things to a band music is what tuning do we all play in and we haven’t fully figured out what tuning we should play in, until recently. When we started playing we agreed on playing in D standard, as we didn’t want to play in E standard or drop D as we thought it was too high of a tuning for what we wanted to achieve.As time went by I suggested that we tune up to Eb as to me D standard sounded a bit to sad for what we was playing. I showed everyone in the band and we all eventually agree that this was the better tuning for us to play in, as it gave us the tone we was looking for.

Videos/pictures

This first video shows off me and my band working on a new song that we tried in the band rooms at college. In this clip you will hear the first idea of what we have for a verse and pre-chorus. The video has only drums and one guitar but vocals, bass and a second guitar will be added.

Next clip shows off a rough idea as to what we was thinking the chorus could potentially sound like while we was testing ideas about. From this recording it is still only drums and one guitar.

This third clips shows us putting together the verse, pre-chorus and chorus together to see what it sounds like. We also came up with a rough design for the second guitar will play during this aswell.

This clips shows off a rough idea of what full song will sound like, it now includes an intro and a bridge section that we came up with. The song only has drums and two guitars as we had just came up with a rough idea of the whole song in one day.

This final clip shows a more semi finished/cleaner version of the song as we had worked on it a bit more since the last clips. The is not what the full song will sound like as it only has drums and one guitar as we didn’t have everyone in the band available to practice at the time.

The two pictures below show two different chords that I tried playing during the bridge section of the song, as it doesn’t have a part for the lead guitarist to play. So while improvising over the bridge with these chords I discovered that it sounded the best when you pick them out into more of a lead line so it separates the sound of the other guitarist.

This video shows off a new unfinished song idea that my band came up with while practicing in the band rooms. The video only shows off the chorus and verses as we are yet to figure out what we are going to do for the intro and the bridge.

Below the video are some pictures showing off the chords that make up the chorus in this song.

D#M7

B sus2

The chord progression and the chords for the chorus.

Next video is our third song idea that we are working on also. The video shows a mashup of something new with one of our old songs that we no longer liked but kept the chorus. This is something we came up with pretty quickly while practicing.

Next video shows the progression of the song as it now has drums, bass and a second guitar apart of it now. You can now here a change in the chorus as we were not happy with how the old one sounded with the verses so we changed it. We also slightly changed up the verses and are yet to figure out what we will do for the bridge.

Similar to the video above this video only has slight changes. in this one we changed up the order of the chords in the verse as they didn’t sound right and we changed up the strumming pattern for it aswell. We also slightly played around with the lead guitar in this song so this won’t what is in the final mix.

Next video shows the band playing the song for the first time together as we don’t get much practice time together has a whole band. We have mainly everything figured out except for lead guitar and what to do for the bridge as it’s still a bit messy. We have all agreed that we want to do a build up into a half time ending but we are yet to figure out how we want it to sound.

Old

New

The pictures below show off even more progression as now we are in the studio recording the tracks we had being writing/practicing in the band rooms.

Final video is of my own progression, as it shows off one of the exercises my singing teacher has giving me to practice at home. This is one of the exercises that I do in order to make my singing better.

Task 3

Like I said previously before in task 1 and task 2 I talked about some of the local venues that are based in Colchester. Here are a few examples of emails I sent out to a few venues asking if my band could play there.

The Bull/Sound House

Three Wise Monkeys

Field Recordings – Unit 9

Locations:

Bird house: The location has a nice reverb/echo with it as it’s almost empty. i might use this location as it’s in college, but i might not use it as it is a popular location that everyone else is going to use.

Chapel village:

Practice rooms: The practice rooms are an okay place to record in as on recording the guitar and kahong sound fine with the few accessions of the kahong growing out the guitar depending how far or close the guitar is to the mic. But from testing out vocals it makes it sound very flat as there is no reverb or echo at all as the walls have acoustic panels on them so it absorbs all the sound that hits them.

Examples of field recordings:

This is an example of field recording I might like to explore as near the start of the video you can hear a train go pass and at certain points where its quite you can hear the river.

This is another example of field recording I’m interested in as it is in the lobby of a hotel so there is lots of background noise at first when its quite. The vocals also have a nice reverb to them making it sound great.

I think that this field recording sounds really nice as through the whole video you can hear the trams movement in the background which I think works sometimes whereas there are some points where it makes it sound bad. I also like the applause at the end of the video as I think it gives it

My field recording:

This is my field recording I did with my band in the birdhouse/practice rooms. For our recording we did a cover of a song called daylily by a band called movements. I think the the recording came out

Unit 13 : Context

The concept of my project is to perform a gig to a professional level at the Bull (Roundhouse) on the 30th of may. There are many reasons as to why I chose this as my project and one of the reasons was from seeing bands live that I like. Bands such as Knuckle puck, Movements, Real friends, All time low, Lower than Atlantis, Bring me the horizon and Neck deep are all bands that I have seen. After seeing all theses bands I have always felt inspired that being in a band and playing gig is something that I want to do for the rest of my life. So I think that having the end of year gig as my final project is a perfect way to get started in the music industry and to start gigging.

Previously before I chose the gig as my project, my project was going to be recording and releasing an E.P. with my band. Luckily we decided that it would be best if we changed it to the gig as there were many reasons as to why it wasn’t the best idea. The first reason why we changed it was because that even when we release it no one or a very small amount would listen to it. This is due to the fact that my band has never done a gig before so we don’t a fan base at all, so it would be pointless to release music no one is going to listen too. Another reason why we changed it is because we knew that we would never get it done in time for the dead line. This is due to not having enough time to record and we wouldn’t be able to produce good enough material in a short amount of time. A final reason why it was changed is because as a band starting out we would much rather gig and get our name out there, then sit in a studio and post/promote it to no one on our bands social media. So due to all these reasons it seemed like the obvious choose to have the gig as the concept of my project.

During my project there are 3 important areas of development I am going to research to improve during the project.

One of the areas I am going to be researching into is stage presence. This is a skill I need to look into as the concept of my project is the end of year gig and in the future I also want to be able to make a living by playing in my band. I believe that having an amazing stage presence will instantly make your gigs so much better. This is because I have seen big bands before that have a terrible stage presence and after the show they didn’t intrigued me at all anymore, compared to a smaller band who had much better stage presence has always made me want to come back and watch them again. This is why I believe that having an amazing stage presence especially for a small starting out will benefit from as it will help grow a fan base and it will make people want to come to our shows. I am going to develop this skill by looking up live videos of bands I like and watch how they act on stage, I will then take ideas from what I have watched and implement it into my own stage work.

A second area I am going to look into is vocal warm ups and vocal techniques. This is also another skill that is very beneficial to me as I will defiantly need to warm up my voice properly if I want to sing to the best I can and I will also want to be able to any vocal technique properly. These two skills/techniques will help me with my project and future gigs as it will push my voice to be the best it can be such as helping reach higher notes, staying in tune and being able to sing louder. The vocal techniques will also help as it will allow me to add different type of sounds into my bands songs. These are things such a grit, screams, shouts and falsetto. I will research into theses skills by either looking them up on YouTube and watching videos on there, or by asking/learning them from my singing teacher.

The final idea/skill I am going to research into is improving my composition writing. This is one skill that I will defiantly be looking into because if I want to play in a band for a living my composition will have to good if I want to make money from it. I mainly want to focus more on the lyrical side first then move into instrumentally. The reason as to why I want to focus more on lyrics rather than instrument is because I feel much more comfortable writing songs instrumental as I have been doing it much longer, compared to writing lyrics, which I have only done for a few months now. I will research into this skill by either looking up videos on YouTube and see if they can provide any tips to help and I will also improve this skill by practising more practical, such as trying to write lyrics for instrumental songs or for my own songs.