Music Performance and Production Level 3
Jamie Gilham
We began with Pretender. One thing that needed work was the vocals, as they needed to figure out who was doing what in each section of the song. So they discussed which of them was doing what section. Tanya did both the intro and the pre-chorus, Ashley and Holly alternated between verses and choruses, whilst Ciara and Emily did harmonies in the chorus, as well as Tanya. We ran through the song with the designated singers, and it was a really good choice of the singers doing each section, although the drummer needs to end with the rest of the group. Then we did Take Me to Church. We also practiced going from that song to Pretender, in which I sustained the end chord, whilst the guitarists swapped instruments.
Then we looked at a new song to do. One suggestion was Dear God by Avenged Sevenfold, and while it did suit the vocalists, and would’ve worked in context with the story, being that it’s about the protagonist asking for forgiveness from god, but I felt that it wouldn’t work, since it wouldn’t make sense within the context of the story. One suggestion was Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, which would work, since it could be about the protagonist reminiscing about his time with his dad, and his dad asking him to keep a promise. One suggestion would also be to come up with a song of our own, which would be a lot more easier to do rather than learn a song.
Things to do for tomorrow are to come up with ideas for an original, and to rehearse the songs that we have.
23/02/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
Entry 5
Then we started looking into doing an original song. The group jammed out a song, starting with a bassline, with the guitars coming in, following the bassline, with the drummer playing a simple beat, looping the song over and over again. Throughout the song, the guitars played various licks and solos, with the bass and drums doing various fills, However the song never went anywhere, so we just ran through what we had, until we were all satisfied with what we got, although we do need an original composition in our set to balance out the content used.
Things to do for tomorrow are to come up with a composition, and to develop it into a song to use.
We began with Pretender. The drum patterns were finally down, although he still needed to work on the bridge. We ran through the bridge a couple of times, marking sure that we had it down tight, then we ran through the song itself, which was finally done. Then we went through Take Me to Church. Then we decided to run what we had so far, starting with Take Me to Church, then transitioning into Pretender. For Pretender, I decided to end with Am to G and then Am, since I discovered, by accident, that it worked really well. We ran through the set again, this time, with me filming it, and the set went really well, especially the transition as it was smooth.
24/03/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
Entry 6
In the next section, the rhythm guitarist starts it off with a chord, that I didn’t really recognized, looping it for 4 bars. Whilst this is happening, the drums hit the tom drums, playing to the guitar, until the whole band kicks in, making it sound chaotic for 8 bars. During both sections, the singers mimicked what the guitarists were playing, giving the song more texture. Our peer suggested for that section for me to play what the lead guitarist was playing earlier on. After that the lead guitarist ended with a little lick, sustaining the last note.
In the third section, the rhythm guitarist started it off with an arpeggio. The rhythm of the song was swung, and almost sounded swung or in ¾ or 6/8. The main progression of the song was Am, C and D. Both the bass and lead guitar came in, along with the drums doing a waltz-like drum beat. I mainly came in the choruses of the song, but in the second verse, I just alternated between A and D notes on the keyboard. Holly provided both the main vocals and lyrics, in which it tells the protagonist starting to question the existence of god.
We ran through the song a couple of times, to make sure that it was down tight. I was still a bit confused about how many bars each section was, but I was getting the hang of it. We then showed off what we came up with to our director. Feedback given by him was to try and transition from Pretender to the original song, within the context of both the music and the theme. He also suggested for this section to use religious imagery, since the lyrics do make reference about the book.
Things to do for tomorrow are to work on the third song and try to runthrough all three songs, for me to start coming up with visuals.
We began with Take Me to Church. In this song our director wanted all of the singers to participate in this song, forming a choir. Whilst our peer worked with the group, we rehearsed the song as normal. Once the singers were done, we ran through the chorus to see how the section worked. We began with rehearsing with the full band, but we needed to be sure that everyone’s harmonies were on point, so we ran-through with just the keys, then without them. I also recorded a sample of them singing for them to practice along with at home.
Once we were done with that we went to work on our third song. The song began with a melodic riff from the guitarist, alternating between G and B. Then the bass came in with the guitars, along with me using a string sound, alternating between the notes. The drums came in a light rhythmic pattern, to fill out the space of the song. For the lead guitarist, our peer suggested to her to use a slide, with a delay effect from the amp, to create a weird soundscape during the song. At the end of that section, I was told by my peer to sustain the E note.
In the next section we added a build up. To start with, the lead guitarist played a riff which went G, F#, E, B and E, through out. She also added a chorus effect to bring it to life. As the song starts to progress, the drummer performed a tribal-like pattern, getting progressively louder as it continues. During the song, I used a synth effect, sustaining the E octave notes. In the build up, I use the mod wheel to slowly increase the sweep of the filter. I was confused at first on how many bars there were, but I managed to figure out it was 8 bars before moving into the next section.
Entry 7
30/03/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
We began with setting up our instruments, making sure that they were in tune and getting the sounds that we needed. We had some trouble with one of the microphones, but we discovered that it was plugged into the keyboard. Once we were sorted we began by starting with our third song, as this was the song that needed the most work.
In our first runthrough, we had trouble trying to hear each other, but we eventually solved it by adjusting the volume levels, and went through it a second time. Aside from a slight note out from the guitar, it went really well. One thing that needed work were the guitars on the intro, as one of them kept going out of time, so the drummer needs to keep them in time using the hi-hit.
During one runthrough, the guitarist forgot to come in during the second part of the intro and the drummer was doing a build up, rather than doing his normal pattern. After we ran through the song, we then went through Pretender. The guitarist was having trouble with his amp, since he didn’t want the amp to be over-distorted. During the runthrough, we were having trouble hearing each other. After the runthrough, we made sure that the microphones were coming through the monitors, which was difficult because our peer was having trouble establishing which singer was coming through the monitor.
After our break, some of us had to wait until our group to come back, since our peer was absent to help us with the sound. The group itself was in the smoking area, wasting rehearsal time, I needed to know how long the changeovers are in between the songs, so this was really hindering our performance. Once the group arrived we showed our director our third song.
Things to do for tomorrow for me to create a video for us to play along to, and to work out a transition from Pretender to the third song.
02/04/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
Entry 8
05/04/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
We began by setting up the room, since we needed a second guitar amp. Once that was sorted, we went to work. Our main priorities for this section are to play along with a video I had made yesterday, and most importantly, to work out a transition from Pretender to our third song.
We began with our third song. We had to stop before the second part because the guitar leads were cutting out the sound. Once that was sorted out, we continued with rehearsing the song. After two runthroughs, we focused on a transition between Pretender and the third song.
Jacob came up with a Jamie XX inspired riff, and decided to stay on the same guitar. For myself, he suggested to sustain and alternate between F and A. We practiced it from the end of Pretender, and another time with the changeover of guitarists.
Things to do for tomorrow is to learn the transition between Pretender and our third song.
Entry 9
06/04/2017
Today we continued with our set for our FMP.
We began with Pretender. Our peer realized that our bassist, although was playing the right notes, was playing the wrong rhythm during the chorus, as it’s meant to follow the bass drum. We ran through the baseline a couple of times, to make sure she had it down. Our peer was also confused about if we were playing the song correctly, but after listening to the song, he found that we were playing it correctly. Then we ran through Pretender.
Then we went into the cage to find videos to use in our visuals. I began by showing my video. I began by showing them what I came up with on Tuesday, but, if I’m honest, no one really took any interest in this. Then I went on the internet to find other videos to use. Our peer showed us two videos we could use, one was a continuous kaleidoscope and the other was of an animation with political tendencies.
Videos I found included, a bunch of conspiracy theorists, riots, church burnings, and famous civil rights activists. After that I went back into the booth to play along with the video.
Things to do for tomorrow are to rehearse the entire song to the film, ready to show to the rest of the group for Friday.
Entry 10
We began by setting up the room, making sure that everything was in working condition. Once the room was setup, I showed the group what I have come up with during the half-term. I added another section of the video, with a politically charged animation for our third song. We attempted to rehearse along with the video, however the drummer didn’t have a clear sight of what he was looking at, which caused us to come out of time with the video. One thing I have noticed with the visuals is that, the transitions from video to video was too quick, as the guitarists took an extremely long time to change over their instruments, so I need to fix that, by making the transitions longer.
Other things that some of us noticed was The Pretender was at a very slow tempo, and that one of the microphones was way too low, so you couldn’t hear the singers, forcing me to adjust the volume levels, mid-rehearsal. One thing we were suggested by our peer to do a new song, one choice suggested by a second year was Terrible Lie by Nine Inch Nails, to be flexible with our theme, since they thought we were just mainly focusing on religious heresy.
Things to do for tomorrow are to listen to this song and to work on modifying my visuals, to make the transitions longer, and to include visuals for our fourth song.
Entry 11
02/04/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
20/04/2017
Today we continued with our setlist for our upcoming show.
The rest of the group decided not to do Terrible Lie as our fourth song, as they didn’t like the song, and found it was hard to replicate, so we decided on a fourth song of our own. Our final choice was Club Foot by Kasabian. Whilst the lyrics are not to do with Heresy, they did fit the theme pretty well. The song makes heavy use of a bass riff, that is heavily distorted, so it makes it sound like a guitar. Whist the song does feature some keyboard sounds, they are only in specific sections, so I decided to double up the guitar and bass riff, with a distorted synth. One good thing about this song was that it had an intro with sustained strings, which was good as the song is in drop C tuning.
For the intro, the drummer worked on when he needed to come in. In the intro, it starts with both a snare and crash hit, then a snare and hi-hat hit. I decided to come in when the song starts properly, as it worked with just the bass doing the riff during the intro. When the song kicks in, both the Jacob and myself follow the bassist, whilst Calum played the first half of the riff. One thing that we didn’t get a chance to do was work on the vocals, as the singers didn’t really decide on who was going to do what in the song.
Things to do for tomorrow are to assign singers to the song, for me to work on my visuals, and to runthrough every song we have so far.
Entry 12
21/04/2017
Today we continued with our setlist for our upcoming show.
Entry 13
We began with Club Foot. Our peer was present to help us out with the song. One thing he added to our song was an intro from one of the band’s live performances, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNCx6i8lwZE), which featured the band palm muting their guitars. It took a couple of tries for Lily to get the part down, as she was struggling to get the notes to ring out on the bass. As the intro builds up the guitarists come in with them calling and responding with their down picking. The drummer was struggling to lock in with the other musicians, as he kept missing his cue to come in.
Another section that needed a lot of work on was the bass solo, as a lot of us were extremely confused about what to do in that section. So we looped the bass solo in order to get our parts right and on beat. The drummer and myself had extreme difficulty, as each time we did it, we kept overlapping the solo to the chorus section. For my part, I had to sustain notes using a string sound, which consisted of C, F, G, A, B and C, but it was tricky to get the section right, as I kept missing my cue to go into the chorus. Eventually, we somewhat managed to work out our parts.
Towards the end of the song, I play two additional string solos, the first one went A, B, C, D, Eb, E, whilst the second one went E, B and C. The second solo took a bit of work, as I was playing with the guitar. The main problem was how many bars it was, but we worked out it was 6 bars and then the notes sustain, indicating the song has ended. For this song, we brought Will to do this song. Will struggled with the pitch of the vocals, as he was singing it higher, but eventually, he brought his range down. We then ran through a couple of times, until we are completely locked in with each other.
Things to do for tomorrow are for Will to learn the lyrics to the song and for us to work this song into our set.
Entry 14
24/04/2017
Today we continued with our setlist for our upcoming show.
We began with working in our new group, with the song, Kiss From a Rose by Seal. The song makes use of a ¾ time signature. Whilst the vocalists were working on their vocal parts for the song, me and Katie went to a midi room and learnt the song via YouTube. For the first half of the song, I was using a combination of different tutorials to figure out what to play. In my part I am covering the piano section, whilst Katie does the string section. The main progression of the song was G, Eb and F, but I will need to transpose this up a semi-tone later on the keyboard.
One thing I had to work on a lot was the break during both the second and third verse, since it was something I was having a lot of difficulty with at home. So I played along with the track, practicing the break to make sure that I have it in my head. After practicing my part, I made sure that Katie also had her part down, although she didn’t have a lot to do in the song, other than play notes. Once we got our parts sorted, we went to the rehearsal booth to rehearse our parts with our group. Unfortunately, the group didn’t go through the song, since half of the time, they were not present in the room, so we individually rehearsed our parts. The drummer was especially working on his part a lot, since he needed to get the time signature down.
Since our group wasn’t doing anything with the song, I decided to work with my other group on a song we were revisiting from our previous gig, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. In this song, I did the synth parts, whilst Holly handled the piano parts. Since there wasn’t a second keyboard in the room, I watched the rest of the group performed the song and see where I can fit my part into it. One difference with this song was the addition of a second chorus, with a small instrumental break before going into the chorus.
Things to do for tomorrow are to practice Kiss From a Rose and Wish You Were Here, so that we have them set for Friday.
25/04/2017
Today we continued with our songs for our upcoming show.
We began with Kiss From a Rose. Since the group hadn’t even rehearsed the song, we really needed to step up our rehearsal time. One thing that needed work was the bassline. Once she got it down we ran through the song to see how it was. In this song, Emily was doing the lead vocal, with other vocalists to fill in the background and harmony vocals. One part of the song that needed a lot of work was the bridge, as we were all over the place. Before the bridge, our director suggested to me to switch to a flute sound to do the melody. As well as that I put a string sound on the left side to fill up the space. After going through the bridge, we ran through the song to make sure that we got it in our heads.
Then I worked with the second group on Wish You Were Here. In this song, we got one of our peer’s to cover the bass, as our bassist was not present during this rehearsal. We ran through the song, which went pretty well. In this song, I used a brass synth, and mainly played during the second half of the song, mostly on the choruses to fill out the sound of the band. Our director wanted the acoustic guitar on the song, however their wasn’t an acoustic guitar present in the rehearsal. We ran through the song a couple of times, but we were extremely confident with this song, as we have done it before.
Things to do for tomorrow are to return to rehearsing our original sets, in preparation for Friday’s showcasing.
Entry 15
26/04/2017
Today we continued with our songs for our upcoming show.
We began with working in the venue with the singers to do Take Me to Church. Before hand the singers did a warm up, doing various physical and vocal exercises. After their warm up we went to work on doing the song, with my piano to guide the singers. During the choruses, our director split up the singers into different groups, each doing a different note. The male singers did the low notes, whilst the female singers did the higher notes. Originally in each chorus, our director wanted the singers to do different background vocals, starting with Mmms, then Ooos and ending with Ahhs, but I suggested to do all of them alternating between the sounds.
Then we ranthrough the whole song. Unfortunately we were not in sync with the video, and ended up overlapping between clips, during the transitions, so I will need to edit the clips to make them work, and to practice the transitions so I can time how long it takes to transition between songs. One thing my director said to do was to edit the clips in Pretender, so they were fast paced to match the song’s dynamics. We also showed off Club Foot to our peer’s, however, because of how messy the song was, it was dropped, in favor of sticking to our three song format.
Things to do for tomorrow are to edit the clips and to rehearse the change overs, so I know how long it will take for the musicians to setup.
Entry 16
27/04/2017
Today we continued with our songs for our upcoming show.
We began with rehearsing our new song for Heresy, Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. In this song, I am mainly doing the synth stabs during the pre-chorus. As well as that, our director utilized using the electronic drum kit, to make it authentic to the original as possible. We began by rehearsing with the song, since we needed to figure out the structure of the song. For this song, our director also wanted to get as many musicians on this song, and to do a lot of orchestrated sound, similar to Beck’s Sound & Illusion, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyO5MRTbL2s), right at the start.
During this section, Will acted as the conductor of the group. To start with he enters the center. As he enters the center, we begin playing, getting louder as he progresses to the point. Once he gets to the center we stop and he proceeds to conduct in a circle. Whoever he points to, we will play and increase the dynamics of what we are playing. Then he raises his hands and we glissando the notes up to the highest octave. Then, as he puts his hands down, we glissando to the lowest octave.
Then each group of musicians play a note from the riff of the song, getting faster as it progresses, and ultimately ends with build up the wall of sound, until he starts the song with the opening line. We then rehearsed the song with the intro. We were still trying to figure out the structure of the song, but overall we did get the song down. We had to sort out the sounds of the instruments to get it similar to the record, especially the guitars, since the song was electronic based.
Then I went to work on Kiss From a Rose. Key things to focus on with this song was getting the vocal harmonies right and for both the bassist and drummer. There was a bit of conflict with the singers, since one of them was out of tune during the bridge, but we solved it by getting a different singer to do the song. We ran through the song a couple of times, to make sure that everything was down, and we were confident enough that this song was good enough to perform.
Things to do for next week are to learn my songs in preparation for the gig in May.
Entry 17
02/05/2017
Today we continued with our songs for our show next week.
We began with Personal Jesus. To start with, we focused on orchestrating the intro, as it was sloppy the last time we did it. The first thing to do was to group each of the musicians, based on their instruments, with the keyboardists either side, the percussion near the drums, the bassist on his own, the guitarists grouped and both male and female vocalists in their own respected groups, along with a saxophone player on her own. As before, Will conducted the rest of the group, pointing at each group to sustain an F# note. Next, he raises his hands, indicating to glissando to the highest F# note, and lowering his hands so that we glissando to the lowest F# note.
Then, we go into a phase, in which we either whisper Jesus or Satan. Then he begins the riff of the song, by pointing to each of us, speeding up the riff as we progress. In this song we included the addition of another synth, with an arpeggio active, however, this required us to lock in with it, which took a lot of practice. Ways we went around this was having the person playing that part to use the cowbell to keep us in time. We ranthrough the song, starting from the intro. Things I need to look out for are making sure that I got the stabs right on the beat as I kept missing them during each runthrough of the song.
Then I went to work on with the final group on their song, Heartless. This song is a mashup of various different songs. Luckily for me I am just doing two parts in this song, so I do not have anything major to do. The song starts with Miss Jackson by Outkast, then Love The Way You Lie by Eminem and ends on Bad Blood by Taylor Swift. In the bridge I mainly play F, C, G and Am, whilst in the last chorus I play Bb, F, C and Dm. One section that had a lot work done was the Love The Way You Lie section, since the singers had to change key between sections, going a semitone up.
Things to do for tomorrow are to learn my parts and to have everything ready to runthrough.
Entry 18
09/05/2017
Today we continued with our set for our show.
In this session we went through a technical run, setting up lights, visuals and working on transitions, as well as trimming down any content that would take too much of the show. In the intro, Oli began narrating Dante’s Inferno, as the devil. Before hand, the technicians were trying to get the visuals sorted. In the first run, the lust group took to long to get on stage, when they should be coming on during the monologue. Throughout each layer, the technicians put various lights and colours to match the performance, as well as discuss cues for visuals and transitions. For Swimming Pool, the singer had a red lighting effect for a creepy atmosphere.
Heresy took a lot longer for us to setup. To start with, the technicians didn’t realise that I start when the visuals appear on screen. During Take Me to Church, the AV glitched out, forcing me to come up with a new cue, so I counted it in my head, two bars from the bass note and then eighteen when descending down the higher notes. During the song, the snare broke during the chorus, so we had to replace it. The transitions were also slow, especially for Personal Jesus, since the guitarists had to swap their instruments over.
Things to do for tomorrow are to finish the remaining layers in preparation for our show.
Entry 21
04/05/2017
Today we continued with our songs for next week’s performance.
We began by moving all of the equipment from the venue to the theater, where the technicians were setting up for the performance. Once they had everything setup, we went through our set, blocking each of our performances, knowing who was where, how we were getting off/on, as well as setting up the lights and visuals for each of the themes. Since their was a performance next door, we didn’t go through all of our songs, and we only went through four of our themes. On Kiss From a Rose, I was having trouble with the sustain pedal, as it kept sustaining notes and was not setup properly.
One embarrassing thing I forgot to do was to be on Calling All Crows by State Radio. Since the song was starting, I only had time to switch to a clarinet sound, so I need to make sure that it was an accordion.
Things to do for next week are to rehearse my songs and make sure that I have my visuals converted to the right format in time for the performance.
Entry 20
03/05/2017
Today we continued with our songs for next week’s performance.
We began with Take Me to Church. For this song our director wanted to see the other singers do a lot more on stage, than just remain stationary. One suggestion was to research choir groups and to employ those movements during the song. Then we went into Pretender. One thing they added was another guitarist, mainly to do the clean part, since Jacob was having trouble with his part. One thing that was suggested was during the bridge, was to have the live cameras focus on the audience. Then we worked on the third song. In this song, our director wanted to change some of the instrumentation, as he thought it was too thrashy.
To begin with, he changed Jacob’s guitar from an electric to an acoustic, then he put our drummer on the drum pad, for the whole song. He struggled with the song and if I am honest, we weren’t particularly happy with our peers changing our song, since we liked it the way it was done. Ultimately it was then dropped, much to our disappointment, since they didn’t felt it was up to par for the performance, meaning I had to change my visuals again, to make it fit within our setlist.
Things to do for tomorrow are to rehearse our new setlist and to rework my visuals for Heresy.
Entry 19
Entry 1
16/03/2017
Today I began working with my new group on our new project, that will be our final performance for this term.
In this project, we will be based around first and third world problems, in the style of Dante’s Inferno. In our group we were given the theme of Heresy, and to use and produce songs based around the theme itself. To start with, we began with Take Me to Church by Hozier. The main reason we went with this song was because of how it talked about the singer’s frustration towards the Catholic, particularly it’s stance against sexuality, which is considered an act of heresy by their standards. The song is in the key of Em, and features both a gothic and gospel style in the song. We began with working out the structure of the song, since it heavily features piano in the song, and keeps jumping from chord to chord throughout the entire song. Although I did look at the song, and did run through the song, I only got as far as the end of the first chorus.
In the verse, it jumps from chord to chord, starting with Em, and going from Am to G to D and C. In the “Amen section”, it then goes G to C about four times. In the chorus the progression then went Em, Bm, G and A add 9. The second verse and chorus were more of the same as before, but during the bridge it then went C, G, Bm and E, and then went Em, G and C, then going into the “Amen section”, and finally going into the chorus, and ending on a crash. Through the song, the drums alternate from orchestral style beating of the tom drums in the verse to basic traditional rhythmic playing in both the chorus and bridge. The rest of the instruments followed the same progression I was playing, but one of the guitarist’s used a Mellotron effect, which he was borrowing from our peer during this rehearsal, to emulated the string parts, which sounded great but he had to change settings on the pedal during the song, which left gaps in his playing and would be better if I came in by layering strings on the keyboard.
Since we had five singers in our group, they had to sort out who was singing what section and what part of the harmonies they felt comfortable doing. Tanya started with the first section of the verse, then Ciara did the second half, accompanied by Emily doing harmonies, with all singers coming in on the ending of the first section of the verse. Holly then came in doing the whole of the next section of the verse, as well as the “Amen Section”. All singers then came in the chorus, each of them taking a different harmony part.
We went through the song bit by bit, to make sure that we know what we were all doing in each section of the song. For me I did struggle a lot, mainly because there were a lot of chord changes in the song, and even trying to learn them online was tricky, as each one I went to was completely different to the next one, notably the bridge, since it ends with the chord progression playing an octave up from where I was playing at, so eventually I went to the original and did it by ear, carefully picking out the chords. The drummer also needed to get out of the habit of doing complex fills and serve the song, especially during the bridge, since he kept doing fills and not ending the bridge normally.It took a couple of tries, but eventually he finally got it down. He also made sure that he stopped playing during the “Amen Section”, which wasn’t difficult to do, but was important to remember when running the song for real. We also ran through chorus with just me and the vocalists, to sort out who was better suited at singing what harmony, and to make sure they were locked down tight.
When our director came in to check on us, we showed him the whole song, which went pretty well, although I do need to get the “Amen Section” down, since I was still getting lost about what I was suppose to play. One thing our director suggested what to include all of the singers in the song, to beef up the vocals during the chorus, to make it sound even more gospel and gothic for the song, although that will have to wait, as right now, the major thing to do is to make sure the whole song was down and we were satisfied with the song. We ran through it a couple more times, and I still need to make sure that I get the “Amen Section” down as soon as possible.
Things to do for tomorrow is to learn the song and familiarize myself with it, as well as get the “Amen Section” down as soon as possible, so that I don’t get lost when we rehearse this song again, as well as think of ideas for new songs or what could happen during the song.
We began by running through the song itself. I successfully managed to work out the Amen section, which was one of the biggest things I had trouble with during the previous session, and managed to get it down for today. What I had to do was wait a few bars to come in, then play G, which I practiced at home until I managed to get it down. Once we got through the song, the singers went away to work on harmonies, rather than them all singing in unison, whilst the rest of us worked on the rest of the song. Since our guitarist didn’t have our peer’s pedal, I opted to layer my piano sound with strings, but only on choruses for added effect.
Once the singers sorted out their harmonies, we ran through the song with the harmonies. We also ran through the chorus with just me and the singers, since they had to make sure that their harmonies worked, which they did. The group suggested an extended intro, rather than just come in with the song, so I used the song as a starting point. I began by playing a low E in the left hand, and then played an Em scale down, starting from G, and ending on E. I did the same thing, this time, an octave higher. Then I hit both the lower octaves in my left hand, and played both higher octaves in the left hand, sustaining them every step of the way.
Whilst this was going on, the drummer did some cymbal build ups, whilst the bassist sustained a note, and feedback their amp, then the drummer counts in the song, using the hi-hat. We did a couple of runthroughs, making sure that the transitions were smooth, going from the intro to the song. One thing the drummer had to do was to make sure that at the end of the intro, to choke the cymbals quickly, as well as myself to change from a piano and string sound, to just piano, trying to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Things to do for tomorrow are to make sure that the transition from the intro to the song are smooth, and to come up with a new song to do that would contrast with Take Me to Church.
17/03/2017
Today we continued working on Take Me to Church for our final major project at the end of the term.
Entry 2
20/03/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
We began by setting up the room, making sure that the volume levels were the appropriate level, so that we do not overpower each other. We did had some problems, due to the fact the mixing console we were using was really old and didn’t always work very well, so we got our peers to help us out, and eventually we managed to get the volume levels sorted, so that we can get on with our set. We ran through Take Me to Church, with the new intro we came up with during our previous session. After doing a couple of takes, we discussed what our next song was going to be.
We went through a couple of choices, all based around the theme of heresy. Our drummer suggested to do Shepard of Fire by Avenged Sevenfold, due to the lyrics describing the devil tempting people to stray from the path of god, and while it worked within the context of the music and story, and everyone was in unison of the idea, I felt that he only wanted to do a song from a band that he liked, and plus it would mean getting the appropriate singer to do this song, since this was a very heavy song, and most of the vocalist’s voices didn’t really suit the song.
Other suggestions included Worship by Years & Years and Bring Me to Live by Evanescence, which were more better songs to do, since the singer’s voices did suit the songs themselves. Eventually we settled on The Pretender by Foo Fighters, mainly because the lyrical content worked well within the context of the music and the story, since the song could be considered a heretic anthem by many, plus it contrasted with the melancholy and gloomy feel of Take Me to Church, since The Pretender was loud and aggressive, and really added a lot of dynamics to our set. However, since we didn’t had a lot of time, we decided to go away and learn it at home.
Things to do for tomorrow are to learn The Pretender, and to work out a transition from our previous song to this song.
Entry 3
22/03/2017
Today I continued working with my group on our songs for the final major project.
Entry 4
Before we began, we had to find various pieces of equipment, from amps to microphones, since they were missing from the booth we were using. Once we got the equipment we needed, we got to work on Pretender. Since the song doesn’t use keyboards, I decided to use strings, since I end Take Me to Church with Strings. For this song, both the guitarist and bassist swapped their instruments about, so we need to figure out what to do during the transition. The song starts off with a clean riff from the guitar, then goes into a heavy riff, so our guitarist used an amp with channel switching, using the clean channel for two sections, and then the dirty channel for the rest of the song.
The main progression of the entire song was simply, Am, D and F, although there is a small section before the chorus that at first I couldn’t figure out, but eventually discovered that is was, D, C, F and G. Once the clean riff ends, the second guitarist does the lead part, whilst the drums come in with a snare hit, followed up by the bass, and then my strings, playing in time with the rhythm guitar. However, their was a bit of a clash between the drummer and the guitarist, since the drummer, learnt a completely different drum pattern, than the one in the song, which got a bit heated, so whilst the rest of the group went on break to calm down, I worked with one of the singer’s on her lyrics, up until the end of the first chorus.
After the rest of the group arrived, we set to work on the drum patterns. The main focus was getting the kick drum in sync with the rhythm guitar and bass. Another factor was the pattern itself, as he was all over the place with his drumming, so our bassist showed him how the drums were meant to be played. It took a couple of tries, but he was slowly making progress with the pattern he was playing, but he really needs to play with the song, in order to be effective. After that we went through Take Me to Church. Then we tried out Pretender again. It was okay, and the drummer was making progressive, but was still all about the place, and not in time with the group.
Things to do for tomorrow is for the drummer to work on the drumming pattern for Pretender, and to work on transitioning from the previous song to this song.