rehearsal and performance

Hey jude

Rehearsal 1

this rehearsal went well as we all worked well together to decide how we should play a folk and punk cover of hey jude. We all contributed ideas such as finger picking, acoustic guitars and percussion for the folk part. and Distortion, power chords and faster drumming for the punk part. we came up with we then assignmend who should play what instruments for which parts. Me helios and Dan are playing more in the punk side of the song. As our talents more match this genre. This therefore allowed sax to be able to sing the folk part and gus to play guitar in the folk part as there abilities are stronger when doing the techniques in folk music like finger picking for example. In the remainder of the rehearsal we tried to play through as much of the song as we could, and see if there were any parts we should change. I found that i took a lot of control over the rehearsal alongside helios. I also found i contributed alot more to the punk side of the song over the folk side as my knowledge of punk music is very good as i play in a punk band out of college where as i dont have much knowledge of folk music.

Rehearsal 2 
I feel overall that this was our better rehearsal as we got alot more done. in this rehearsal me and helios became leaders of the group and were helping others with this song. Contributed an outro to the song which i made in the lesson. One thing i noticed that when we are not controlled by Kim or Henry is that at first it was very difficult to get organized and we all got slightly distracted but once me and Helios started to take control then we got things done very efficiently. Which therefore shows me and helios were very organized and contributed alot. I feel that all of us suggesting ideas was very good co-operation and teamwork to achieve the completion of the song. I also managed to keep in time with everyone else playing which was good.

Performance
Overall i feel the performance went really well as everyone managed to play in time and everyone remembered there que to come in. The level of the music was good as none of the instruments were too overpowering or loud. However there was a part where we were supposed to stop the instruments for a build up but we all forgot to do it in the performance however as a team we worked really well and all worked equally to get the song done. The overall outcome of the performance was really impressive as all the transitions were on time and perfectly executed. the only ways we could have improved is if the build up was done in the actual performance. As this would have been a better way to begin the outro out of the song and may have taken our grade up higher. But overall we worked very efficiently with little distractions and no arguments.


I predict a riot

Rehearsal 1
In our first rehearsal of this song I decided to play bass instead of guitar, This was both a positive and negative contribution towards the song. It was positive as it means we have a bass in the song which we didn't before. this allowed us to follow the instruments that are typically found in country and disco music hence making our song sound better and more like a typical country song. I managed to play the bass line accurately and well however I wasn't very good at  improvising a bass solo as im more used to playing guitar as opposed to bass. overall I feel the bass was a good decision as otherwise we wouldn't have a bass and the song would feel slightly empty. I wasn't able to play guitar as im not strong or comfortable enough to play bar chords therefore I feel like this is something I should practice and work better at. Ed managed to play synth for the disco part of the song which really benefited the cover as in disco music you typically find a synthesiser. This made the song feel like a generic disco song and benefitted it in a very good way. Andrews drumming was really good as he was able to keep the beat and he was able to keep and pull off a swung rythem which I know is typical of country music due to having done my presentation on different eras and genres of music from the 50's to present day. overall I feel for our first take on this song it was very well done with only a couple of hiccups.


Rehearsal 2
In our second rehearsal we went back over the song in order to practice the timings and structure of the song in order to find a good place to make the transition into a different genre. compared to our first rehearsal of this song our timing was a lot better and the song flowed in a much better way. Due to our presentations we all had very good knowledge of the country genre of music and we were able to adapt and use this knowledge into our cover song. We played through the song a few times to see if any final adjustments needed to be made we then decided that I should play guitar for the disco part of the song. Because of this I played the bass line for the country part of the song on guitar so that I don't have to quickly switch a whole instrument mid song. This worked a lot better as it meant the was no break and the song was fluent. Overall our second rehearsal was very good as we had all learnt the song in our spare time and therefore we could all play the song at a good level without having any breaks our mistakes, we were all a lot more confident when playing the song as we had a better understanding of the structure and how the genre changed


Performance
Our performance was overall very good, all the timings were perfect as well has the structure of the song. although the music sounded good our stage presence wasn't very good I found that I need to look up and smile more and perhaps move around and we all need to communicate more or look more happy as our stage presence isn't very good or create a very fun atmosphere. Compared to a lot of other musical ensembles our ensemble wasn't as good as others as in most musical ensembles there are members with character where as none of us had character and all looked like we would rather be elsewhere.

Wannabe - spice girls

Rehearsal 1/ Performance
This was our first and last rehearsal for this song, It was decided that i would take up vocals for this song. The song was split into rock and roll and reagge. We decided the best place to split the song would be just after the first chorus as there was a rap just after this which we figured would be easier to do in reggae style as opposed to the rock n roll style.  Whilst singing the rock n roll style i tried to imitate the sound of elvis, where as for the reggae part we slowed the song down and the song was more spoken. To get the sound of the rock n roll genre we did many things.  For example we had simple drumming, All the chords played on guitar were played an octave higher and percussion was used in order to make the song sound full. We knew to use these things due to having done our presentations on different genres across the decades. For the reggae part of the song we had a more complex bass line, the guitars were played on an off beat and the percussion was changed to cabasa as we felt it was more of a reggae sound that was produced. Overall the first rehearsal sounded very good considering we hadnt done the song before. The song sounded whole and displayed the different genres extremely well. The only way i would have improved would be to actually have a bass in the song. In my opinion i would say that this was definately our strongest song that we performed out of the three. All the timings were on point and all the levels were very well balanced so you can hear each individual instrument.