Learning Outcome 3

Types of audience: eg peers, friends and family, public

Communication: type eg verbal, physical, musical; with band members; with audience

Stage presentation: image eg costume where appropriate, stage make-up; stage presence and awareness; use of space eg movement, placing of equipment; sight lines

Musical competency: intonation; instrumental tuning; pitching during performance; tightness; tempo; handling of section changes; beginnings and endings; technical proficiency; critical listening and response to ensemble requirements eg balance; sensitivity and dynamics

Here are three of the many songs we performed throughout the musical. These are live recordings from one of the shows!

This is a good example of complex time signatures, as it starts in 7/8.

Go Go Joseph was fun for me, as it had a driving, energetic drum part with a drum solo towards the end.

I enjoyed playing this song, as I did my best to put my own reggae groove in it. I did not play the written part as I did not think it fitted at all. The song was meant to be stereotypically reggae, and so that's what I played. I made sure to use the reggae kit on Roland drum module. This was a fun piece to play.

Evaluation

I am really pleased that I took part in this. The week I spent practically entirely at the church was really good, as firstly I got to play drums a lot of the time which is always a bonus, and secondly I just got to know a lot of people from both the band - and the performers, and had a great time.

The shows were practically full every night, even sold out on some nights. The audience varied from kids, college students up to elderly people. They all seemed to think it was great.

Communication

The communication between band members was great. Because we were sitting at the back of the church behind the audience, we could whisper and signal things to each other without distracting anyone. David was perfectly in the centre, with us on each side facing him. I could see him perfectly and even talk to him from where I was. This made communication between us work very well. He could also see the performers from that position, which meant that he could communicate with them too.

Performance

I think that I played quite well on the whole. I didn't make too many obvious mistakes, and managed to stay well in time in stranger time signatures and so on. I was also pleased with my solo in Go Go Joseph. I think that everyone paid attention well, and there were no major disruptions or bad parts of any of the songs on any of the nights. The guitarists and other tuned instruments all made sure to tune up before each performance, and we always checked our levels each night to make sure it was all perfect and ready.

Self-Critisism

Something I found particularly challenging was all the use of rubato and ritardandos. I am used to playing music with a set beat/tempo, or recording to click tracks. However, a lot of parts of songs would suddenly slow up, and were controlled by the conductor. This is alright if you are playing something like a wind instrument, as you can slowly start blowing into it. However, a drum hit is so sudden and instant, that although I tried to hit them in sync with the conductor, sometimes they weren't all that accurate. I also had trouble slowing down properly at the end of some songs. I would like to improve on this for next time I do a show, and get better at predicting the changing tempos and ritardandos.

  Here is a review of the show from the Henley Standard:

The Monarchs

Earlier this year, I formed a band called The Monarchs with Spencer on guitar. We then recruited a bass player (Rowan Haynes) and a guitarist/singer (Mo Evans). We initially decided to aim for our first gig at Gig Night 2013 as part of the Henley Youth Festival. This gave us three weeks from starting the band to doing the first gig. We started practising immediately, with the plan of writing two songs before then.

Here is a video of us discussing part of a song we were writing at our first rehearsal:

We eventually got two songs roughly done. Here is a video of us rehearsing each one.

Can You See Me rehearsal:

One Step Closer rehearsal:

We had only had 4 band practices before the gig, and managed to get two songs done in that time. We then performed them at gig night. Because I didn't know them off by heart yet, I wrote out structures and had them on the floor by me in the performance.

Here is us performing both songs at Gig Night 2013:

It went surprisingly well considering we had been together for only three weeks and were very under-practiced compared to other bands. However, we were spotted and thus put forward to play at the Gala Night of the Henley Youth Festival - a night with a combination of some of the best performances from the festival (Could include dances, acting, singing, bands etc). This was really good.

Here is us performing Can You See Me at the Gala Night:

Unfortunately after this, we split up because our singer, Mo Evans, wanted to pursue a solo career instead. It was however a brilliant experience and a lot of fun.