As well as performing at Henley Youth Festival Gig Night with The Monarchs, I also performed with my other newly formed band Reverie. We did a cover of a song that we all really like called Lines by Lucy Rose.
It went well on each of the nights, and I think the performances overall sounded nice. I think that as a band we could improve on 'getting into it more', as we look slightly lacking in enthusiasm.
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.
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:
I am pleased as I have managed to secure myself a place drumming for this years college Christmas musical. Last year, I did the sound for it, and while doing that, I noticed how great it looked to be part of the band. For this reason I quickly volunteered to drum for this years one. I will be given the sheet music soon, and will need to start going through it.
Preparation/Practice
In order to successfully get all the pieces together ready for the shows, we made sure to start practices a couple of months before. We had practices once a week - on Wednesday afternoons after college. We also sometimes did Thursdays instead/as well as Wednesday. I made sure that I could make every single practice (I don't think that I missed one).
At the start I found it quite hard, as I was having to sight read my way through quite complex drum parts in varying time signatures such as 5/4 or 7/8. However, my sight reading soon started improving. I had various ways of practicing in order to get better at the pieces. One way was simply going through the music at home, learning drum patterns and fills, and generally getting to know my way around the drum parts and so on.
Something which I soon got in the habit of doing was taking a pencil to every rehearsal and making notes and annotations on the music. This was key, as there were lots of parts which David decided that we should miss out/play differently/add in and so on. I made sure to annotate everything and write reminders for myself and so on.
In order to get better at some of the pieces, I took them to my drum lessons to run through them with my drum teacher. This also helped to solidify them. He gave me tips on playing the shows and counting, as I was having difficulty concentrating when I had to for example count some large number of bars before the next bit I was playing in. Again, like my sight reading, I started improving a lot!
There were a couple of pieces which I had no music for, so I made sure to go through them and write myself a structure with David, our conductor.
The performances were set to run for five days - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with two performances on the Wednesday and two on the Saturday. We set up in the church (the venue) on the Sunday the weekend before. This gave us about two full days of practice of running through the entire show. This was really fun, because at this point, we all mostly knew the music, and it was about having fun playing with the singers and actors for the first time and simply tidying up the performances.
I think that this well organised practice worked well, and we were ready in time for the actual performances.
Here are some photos of me rehearsing with the band in the church. As you can see, I positioned myself so that I had the rhythm section behind me, and so that I was right by our conductor in order to have maximum communication with him.
Forming an ensemble can be a tricky task - finding the right combination of people who will click and in turn write and play well together.There are many different types of ensemble.
One type is a string quartet. String quartets are formed of a first violin, a second violin, a viola and a cello. They mainly play classical music written specifically for that setup. Choosing musicians for a string quartet comes mainly down to playing ability, as character and personality will not affect a string quartet performance.
A rock band can have varying amounts of people or instruments and is more open to interpretation and experimentation. It is important to find people who are not only good at the instrument, but have good personalities and stage presence. Typical instruments of a rock back are electric guitars, electric bass, drum kit and singer. However, often rock bands have other instruments such as keyboards, string sections, brass sections and so on.
Jazz bands again can vary depending on the genre of jazz, be it gypsy jazz or big band jazz. Jazz instruments are often piano, drum kit, saxophone, trumpet, double bass, electric bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, violin. It is quite open to interpretation. Jazz players should be very good at communication with one another as a lot of jazz is improvised and based around listening to the players around you.
When choosing repetoire as a band - whatever type of band you are, it is important to ensure the repetoire is varied so that you do not do too much of one thing while neglecting another. For example, it would be good to order your pieces so that you have a heavier song, followed by an acoustic song, followed by another energetic song and so on. This breaks it up and varies the performance. As a string quartet, it would be unwise to only pick Mozarts most well known repetoire. It would be a good idea to play a mixture of composers, and not only well known ones. Listen to CDs, search the web and see if you can find interesting material that might not be so well known, but would fit your performance perfectly.
It is a good idea to get sheet music if you want to perform a part accurately. As an ensemble you should make sure you are organised and get stuff like music sorted out.
The front person of a band should be good at converging and talking to audiences. If the front person has a great persona and is very positive, energetic and generally likeable/funny, then people will enjoy your performances much, much more.
If no member of your group is a natural leader, it might be an idea to get a band manager, as they can really help keep a band in order. Other people you might want to consider getting help from are administrators, publicists or choreographers - if your group type requires it.
1 Understand the elements of musical ensemblesElements: band members; organisation; communication eg musical
interaction, interaction with audience, listening skills; co-operation;
rehearsal; repertoire; strengths and weaknesses.
Emma needed some accompaniment for the next round of a singing competition - Open Mic UK. She asked me to play cajon for her which I was happy to do. Here is a video of us practising a week before.
The Performance
Unfortunately I don't have the video of the performance, however it went well and Emma got put through to the next round of the competition! It was great playing at what felt like a slightly high profile event.
