When the project first began, we intended to plan and process the show as we went along, outlining strengths, weaknesses and improvements weekly. I believe I have carried this out rather well as I usually kept up to date with it all. However, it would have been more beneficial to me if I had evaluated as it happened, to ensure better accuracy of my weaknesses. Despite this, we carried out what we planned and roughly stuck to the pre-planned schedule, creating a show themed round the 9 layers of hell. Initially, our show was meant to run for 50 minutes in the first half and 45 minutes in the second. The show was actually, an hour each way but we have some reasons to back this up. We had more songs than originally and most song's length were between 4 - 5 minutes. There were some technical issues during some shows which elongated the process even more. Despite this, the show ran smoothly and we managed to peak the audience's interest.

 

I adhered quite well to my original concept to this project. I believe we kept the theme of the 9 layers of hell and included good visuals to enhance performance. We created stylish transitions that allowed the story of each layer to continue, making it seamless. one thing we added to make the theme clearer was voices at the beginning of each layer describing what that layer was. This created a good introduction and let the audience know that we were moving on. For the theme of heresy, we divulged greatly from the original story line and it just ended up about feeling trapped in general. Though it was good to have a song on religion, we decided not to focus on it, to avoid discrimination towards religions. We changed our ideas for visuals and used the live cameras for 'Take Me To Church' to get the emotion across, focusing more on the gospel church-like feel, rather than the turmoils of loss.

 

 

Technical Skills

My skills with sheet music has further improved since the last gig I have done and I have even started to learn some songs by ear, by playing with the original track and picking out notes or chords, and even used some skills I have picked up during my keyboard sessions outside of college, including using what key is the song in, but I would like to learn to pick out time signatures, since I do have a habit of doing things in 4/4. Ways I will go about this is to write songs in different time signatures such as ¾ or 6/8, and may even create my own, to get better at doing them and picking them out of songs.

Rehearsal Skills

As of the beginning of the new project, I have started to do my keyboard work during rehearsals, if and when I can do them whilst on my breaks, so that way I have more time at home to do other things and not rush things when I get in. Things I need to work on is to do a lot more practical work at home, so that I can have more time to do any academic work at home. I will also learn new songs for myself, from different genres, to learn a variety of new techniques, key and time signatures, so that I can be prepared if we are doing a song for a new project.

Personal Management Skills

Since I was working extremely late hours during this project, I have planned about how to manage myself, both food and sleep wise, eating a lot during the afternoon and eating a little in the evening, and resting as much as possible at home, due to the long hours. However, as before, I still have trouble balancing both my academic and practical work, leaving things to the last minute, and rushing them, making the quality of the work look less polished to produce. For the next term, I will start doing academic tasks, as soon as possible, by doing them at college, so that I have more time to do rehearsals at home.

Progress Towards the Show

Throughout the technical and dress rehearsals, it has been a long and painful process, since we had to work extremely long nights, waiting around for what felt like hours, whilst the technicians sorted out both the lights, visuals and some audio for some of the songs, which can be a boring affair, since we have to do nothing for ages, and we end up trying to play our instruments or talk whilst they work on the desks. Some songs ended being cut out of the set, since they either didn’t have the right members to perform on or meet the director’s standards. At one point, there was even an incident which almost compromise the gig.

Improvements

Ways to get around these situations would be to try to be patient during stage blocking, since at one point the technicians called it a night, enough due to the level of noise in the theatre. Another thing would be for the director’s to allow some musicians to take charge of absent member’s roles, to avoid getting rid of songs that were strong enough to use in the show, such as Take A Walk by Passion Pit. A note from the audience I was given was to try and have a mixture of songs, and not primarily focus on the lyrical content of the song and pick songs from different genres.