Monday, 14 January 2013

Easter Gig Band Workshop Blog

Band Workshop 1 (7.1.013)

Today was our first day of band workshop, and today we worked on a reggae song so we decided to choose a famous and very good tune from the ledgend bob marley 'one love', we chose this song because it is very simple, catchy and easy to sing for the vocalists and the instrumental is very simple aswell for the musicians. We all got seperated into two groups, in my group there is sheva, danielle, matthew, garnnet, harry and immanuel. In my group we all are fairly doing something to suit our talents, me, sheva, danielle and immanuel are the singers and we went the four of us to choose who sings what and sort out harmonys for the chorus. Me and sheva are singing the chorus and in the verses doing the words in brackets to repeating after the solo singers in the verse. My singing role is to do the higher harmony. Immanuel sings the first verse, we all come together and sing the chorus, then danielle sings the second verse then we all sing the chorus as unison. Then other then the singers we have harry on guitar, andre on bass guitar, garnnet on piano and matthew on drums. Matthew was our group leader for today and he made sure we all had a fair part in the song and we all had a time to shine. I was very ill but i still got up and did my job, it feels so right with everyone, it sounds really good, were in good time, in the right key for all of the singers to be able to sing comfortably, i honestly think it was a very good rehersal and it came out successful.

Smart Targets: my target is to improve my singing vocals and work on my harmony so my vocals is on point and im hitting the right notes and not go out of tune, because in past gigs i have souned out of tune and not very good, so i am really aiming to improve on my vocals for when we perform this song.

Band Workshop 2 (9.1.013) 

i was not able to attend this workshop

Band Workshop 3 (14.1.013)

Today in band workshop we got seperated in two more groups and did a cover of a funk song, we did a cover of Super freak by rick james. The people included in my group is sheva,danielle, shardae, andre, caitlyn, donavon and demver. Me, sheva, danielle and shardae are the singers, andre on bass guitar, donavon and demver on piano and caitlyn on accoustic guitar. To be honest we all struggled with this song, the singers and i felt like this song was comfortable to sing and that for our voice it just did not go well for us, we tried our best to do what we could but we all decided within the two groups that we defenatley dont want to use the song. Rehersals were a bit unfocused the singers were really focused and tried helping eachother but the others on piano and drums made it hard for us to learn our basics for the song and made too much noise so we went to another quite room and sorted it out but it still wasnt going well, but we did what we could, we never gave up.

Band Workshop 4 (16.1.013)

Today in band workshops we all got seperated into small groups to write our original songs with the theme 'funk'! My small group included: demver,kline, shardae and me. Last week on wednesday we had to write in our small groups original songs with the theme reggae, but today we had to write with the theme funk. Funk is different in some funk songs the song is very repetitive and repeats the same phrase or line and then improvises, or has a normal structure but repeating a phrase to make that phrase important and cathcy. One very obvious thing about funk music the chords and the background music in general is very simple and repetitive. So we started by demver on piano making some chords up we like the chords he made up with and then started working on our lyrics, me, shardae and kline were a little stuck at first but then shardae came up with a line that we got attracted to right away and we liked how it went with what demver was playing. She came out with 'sweet suga mama of mine' we decided this would be our chorus but repeating the line 4 times. So because we decided to stick to that line we had to base the rest of the song about mums and how our mums helped us through life and told us good in life. We decided to pick the song structure: verse,chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Me and shardae and kline decided shardae sings the first verse and then I sing the second verse. Shardae came up with her verse and me and kline helped her with ideas and told her if it sounds alright and if the words are strong enough and make sense, then when we got to the verse we were really getting into the song and ideas just came out like lighting, so we made my verse really quickly. Then we got stuck a bit in the bridge so I came out with the line 'she lifted me up when I was down' and then I came out with the line 'I never thought I'd be this strong' and then shardae thought of the line '
As days went by I belived in myself' and then I ended the verse by saying 'and its all thanks to you'. By then we basically finished our song by repeating the chorus 8 times, add libbing because in funk it is known to have a lot of improvisation and add libs. We did this in litteraly 30 minuets and we all really worked well together, we got on with it really fast and finished it really quickly, and the ending touches sounded really good we felt proud haha.
    Band Workshop 5 (21.1.013)

    i was not able to attend this workshop

    Band Workshop 6 (23.1.013)

    i was not able to attend this workshop

    Band Workshop 7 (28.1.013)

    Today in band workshop we all broke up into our three groups and did a cover of a blue song 'a change will come' by sam cook. My group included bianca on guitar, jacob on drums, aundre on bass guitar, harry, emmanuel and batsheva singing vocals, kline on main piano and myself doing add libs on the keyboard playing a 60's organ. This was quite a hard song to cover because the melody is quite confusing for the singers to sing, and the original singer singing this song suited it for himself so the singers harry, emmanauel and batsheva tried to fit their vocals to this song and they succeeded after a few tries. It took me quite a while to learn the chords for this song, because this song includes very complicated chords, chords i have never come across before. But once i got it i got the hang of it and was on a role and doing my job in the band good. there is 4 verses and 1 chorus in this song so the singers divided the solos into the order verse 1 - harry, verse 2 - batsheva, verse 3 - emmanuel, bridge - harry, verse 4 - emmanuel. The rehersals today for this song was very confusing and not 100 percent because we found this song quite hard to cover and we all found it hard to get used to the feel of the song, because this song is in the style of blues and we all have never come across blues and performed blues so it all felt very wierd for us.

    Band Workshop 8 (30.1.13)

    Today in band workshop we all got seperated onto our little groups to write an original song in the style of blues. Today in my group was demver,kline, aundre and myself. We sorted out the roles in the band to be me singing, kline on piano, demver on violin and aundre on bass guitar. Kline made up a chord sequence witch we all liked, then demver followed with violin doing harmonys to the piano and all sorts of add libs, aundre followed with bass guitar but for me singing i found it hard to find a melody and to sing a melody over it, i just stood there thinking and thinking till demver helped me by playing the melody on the violin so i practiced that melody he played by humming it again and again. I then came up with the phrase: 'i wake up this morning, i see my baby, his smile on his face, makes me go crazy'. They all liked it and we only had time to stick with that phrase, so i guess its fairly hard to make up an original song in the style of blues, but we managed to make up something decent.

    Band Workshop 9 (4.2.013)

    Today in band workshop we all separated into two groups to cover the song heartbeat by the band knife, when we all heard this song today we really liked it. This song is in the genre of electro, so the instruments would change, the piano players had to play on the keyboard and use the electro synth effect and one piano player played normal piano, the drummer had to play on the electrical drums so it would sound like an electro drum beat. The singers just did their usual thing and learnt the melody and sang it in their own way.
    In my group was: shardae, immaunel, darlene, caitlin, kline, garnnet, yemisi, jacob and joe.
    me,shardae, emmanuel, darlene and caitlin did the singing, we sorted out the solos and harmonies for the chorus, we decided darlene to do the first verse, me and caitlin to share the second verse and shardae to do the bridge and in the chorus's we all sing together adding harmonies.
    yemisi was on a mini synth keyboard playing single notes, joe was on electric guitar, jacob was on the electric drums, garnett and kline were on piano, kline on normal piano and garnett on keyboard with the synth effect.
    Today was very successful and easy because the band got the hang of the instrumental easily and the singers learnt their parts in the maximum time of 20 minuets, including adding harmonies to the chorus and going over the whole song in another room so we get used to it and know what were doing.

    Band Workshop 10 (6.2.013)

    Today we all got seperated into our small groups to write an original electro song.
    My group included shardae, demver, shannon, la-shaun and aundre. Demver was on the synth piano, aundre was on bass guitar, la-shaun was on the electro drums and me, shardae and shannon were the singers. Demver made up some chords witch were really catchy so then aundre played along with the bass guitar and la-shaun did a simple beat, while me, shardae and shannon tried to think of a melody and lyrics. I tried to work with the octapad but we all didn't really like the sound of it so we decided to leave it out. Shannon came up with simple chorus and put a electro feel to it by going I I I I fe fe fe feel li I ike, so repeating the first sylibols of every word. We didn't get to far because we found it hard and had to clue what to sing about and how to structure it but with what we came up with, is really cathchy and makes us want to dance. When we performed it to everyone they liked the vibe of it and started moving to it.


    Band Workshop 11 (25.2.13)

    Today in band workshop we decided who is covering the songs from each genre of music, each week 2 groups covered the same song, so today we found out who is covering witch song, i am going to cover superfreak and a change will come and for a change i will be playing piano. Superfreak was not easy to work with, for the musicians they found it easier, the drummer was in control of the beat, the main piano player did the riff witch is very repetitive and easy to play because it is so simple and so repeitive, the bass guitar player did a basic bass riff, and i played the keyboard doing a very simple 2 chord riff, doing a response to the main piano riff. The singers sorted out who is singing what because new people joined the group, they went over the melody and sorted out a few harmonies. Our aim for this song was to keep in time with eachother, keep in tune, keep the pitching right. So the piano players have to work with eachother, the main piano playes the riff, and the keyboard responses to it with 2 chords. To be able to suceed this smoothly and correctly they both have to practice it at home and remember it, and while practicing with the drummer remember the timing they have to play in. The drummer does his thing and plays the drums and in some moments follows the rest of the band but it is natural for the band to follow the drummer because the drummer keeps us in time, so the drummer has to make sure he knows how to keep the drums in time. The bass player follows the drums like the rest of the band, the bass player has to know the melody as well so to be able to suceed playing the melody he has to practice in his own time the bass in the song and the timing he has to go with. The singers do most of the work because they sing the song and natrually people follow the lyrics and the melody of the song, so they have to make sure they are in tune and are in key with the piano because the singers natrually listen to the piano thats if there is a piano involved with the song, they can make sure they do this by doing vocal exzcercises that include tuning their voice and getting their ears used to the tuning, listening to the song a lot of times to get the melody in their head and be able to natrually sing it without hesitating. So if all the band practice everything they need the song will sound good and sound confident.

    Band workshop 12 (27.2.13)

    today we worked on our original songs, we chose the strongest and tightest songs and we chose 3 and the 3 songs we chose was 'shadows gone' (reggae), 'new day' (electro song) and the third song the group who wrote it decided it was not as strong so yemisi said she will write a new blues song.
    my group worked on our strongest song 'sweet sugar mama of mine' (funk song) this song is upbeat and very catchy so we worked on it and worked on the harmonies and how long we should keep it.
    every group worked on their strongest song so each group gets to perform one original style song.
    at the end of the class we all had to perform our one chosen original song, my group performed sweet sugar mama of mine it was not very strong, we did not know what we were doing, we felt a bit insacure about what is going on so towards the end we just messed up.

    Band workshop 13 (4.3.13)

    today our tutor olly was ill and could not come in so he trusted us to all work together and practice our songs, we all ended up messing around and not knowing what to do, was lazy and was not sure on what to do, could not be bothered to do anything, i personally tried to get everyone together and practice but no one listened to me so i gave up and went to practice what i needed to do on my own and also i managed to get shardae to go over the harmonies because i was not very sure on the harmonies i was not 100% sure on my harmony and was not hitting it right away.

    Band Workshop 14 (6.3.13)

    today is original song day and all the groups came together to practice their original songs, like before my group practiced 'sweet sugar mama of mine' very few times and we had a debate on how to end the song, we chose how many times we should repeat the chorus to end the song and then we decided to end the song with doing the chorus 3 times and changing octave while building up from one chorus to another then when the last chorus game in the top octave me and shardae could hit we went back to the normal octave and repeated the chorus about 4 - 6 times but every time we went through the song the number of times we sing the chorus at the end changed.
    when we performed the song to the class it started off well but when it got to the octave changing it went alright me and shardae looked at each other with worried faces but we kind of hit the notes right and then when it came to repeating the chorus we all looked at demver playing the piano to see when he will stop the piano because we got confused and did not know when to stop singing, so again we messed up at the end not knowing how many times to sing and ended up confused.

    Band Workshop 15 (11.3.13)

    today olly told us the final songs we will we singing for next weeks gig and ends up all the songs i was working on was not strong enough to be performed, one love, heartbeats and tropicala was chosen to be performed for the covers and the originals were 'shadows gone', waiting for you night and day, sweet sugar mama of mine which i futured in and baby dont come round here no more.
    for the first hour we went over the covers so i had nothing to do but i watched and saw mistakes being made and people forgot their harmonies, did not know what they were doing and the gig is next week so it is very bad that this is happeneing we should be ready by now.
    for the second hour we did the originals songs for once sweet sugar mama of mine went well but could of been better but we finally finished the song without mistakes.

    Band Workshop 16 (13.3.13)

    today we found out the set list which is:

    1. heartbeats
    2. shadows gone
    3. baby dont come round here no more
    4. waiting for you
    5. sweet sugar mama of mine
    6. tropicalia
    7. one love

    today we just went through the set and there was very bad mistakes like taking too long to set up songs and move to the next song, people using song sheets, people still forgetting their words and harmonies, people not performing. so our gig is next week and the state of this set is really bad and were all really nervous and feel like we cant do good next week, but because i am in one song my attitude is staying positive and for what i have to do i will do my best and perform my heart out, i know what im doing i just need to make sure im comfortable with the harmonies and train my voice so i can hit the notes right and not flat.
    everyone else need to learn their lyrics and practice at home their harmonies and what they need to play and also meet with each other and work on harmonies.

    Performance Day (18.3.13)

    today was our performances and i could only make the afternoon one so i had to make a huge effort to perform really good in sweet sugar, i feel like i did really good, performed with energy and sang the best i could, the harmonies worked really well and everything went perfectly, we listened to demver and ended the song correctly and there was no problems.
    the first song went alright, the vocals were not so strong and people were not showing any emotion to the songs. the instrumentals went good.
    the second song went really good one of the best ones, this song was really strong and organised everyone knew what they were doing and everything sounded really nice and tight together.
    the third song the timing was really off the whole song was off time and the singers were put off and everything did not go well if i am honest, hopefully for the second performance they fixed the problem.
    the fourth song was okay, it went really smoothly and had good energy.
    sweet sugar my song as i said went really good.
    we decided to take out tropicalia because no one was happy with it and everyone agreed as a group it was not strong enough and everyone would of just messed up so they just ended the set with one love which went really good had a lot of energy, harmonies were on point, and donavon brought up the energy by performing his heart out and related to the song.

    overall the set had its ups and downs but overall it went good and the crowd reacted good to our songs but all i have to say is for future performances the class has to put more effort in rehersals so before a performance there is no worries and everyone is feeling strong about the songs they are doing.
    for this performance people did not give 100 percent and no one was ready and no one was bothered and it showed throughout the rehersals but were all lucky that when it comes to the actual performance we all raised our game and it all went good accept for a few bits.








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