Practice Diary Working Towards a 20 Minute Performance
Week 1
Week 1 – 06/01/14
Today was the first lesson that we were told about the next unit. In this unit we have to play a 20 minute long set of song that show contrast and that demonstrate that we are technically advanced performers. We have to keep a diary on our blogs and then evaluate the whole process when we are finished. In the first lesson I had a practice with Harry Hood and we both worked out a list of songs that we could perform backing each other. These are some of the songs that I considered putting on to my 20 minute set: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, Wish you were here by Pink Floyd, Bloom by the Paper Kites, Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwitch, skinny love by Bon Iver and Heart of Gold by Neil Young. Some of the songs that I thought about putting on my set I have already learned in the past and I know quite well. However there are a few songs that have finger picking in them and I have never learned to play guitar with my fingers so those are the songs that I know are going to take more time to perfect. I am going to start learning learn Bloom by the Paper Kites and Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwitch tonight. I am not sure if I want to do this performance totally on my own or if I want someone to back me either on guitar or piano or vocals.
Today was the first lesson that we were told about the next unit. In this unit we have to play a 20 minute long set of song that show contrast and that demonstrate that we are technically advanced performers. We have to keep a diary on our blogs and then evaluate the whole process when we are finished. In the first lesson I had a practice with Harry Hood and we both worked out a list of songs that we could perform backing each other. These are some of the songs that I considered putting on to my 20 minute set: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, Wish you were here by Pink Floyd, Bloom by the Paper Kites, Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwitch, skinny love by Bon Iver and Heart of Gold by Neil Young. Some of the songs that I thought about putting on my set I have already learned in the past and I know quite well. However there are a few songs that have finger picking in them and I have never learned to play guitar with my fingers so those are the songs that I know are going to take more time to perfect. I am going to start learning learn Bloom by the Paper Kites and Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwitch tonight. I am not sure if I want to do this performance totally on my own or if I want someone to back me either on guitar or piano or vocals.
Song 1 - Bloom by The Paper Kites
In the video above I am playing the guitar riff from bloom. I have learned this using guitar tabs from ultimateguitar.com. I have found this particular guitar riff to be very hard to learn because I have never played guitar finger style before since I have learned electric guitar with a pick. I have also watched the guitarist from The Paper Kites playing the riff just to make sure that I am playing each string with the right fingers. I can’t yet play the riff at the same time as singing but I think that if I give myself more time to get used to the riff and really get it into my head I will be able to sing over it.
Here is the tab to the guitar riff I am playing in the video:
E|---------------------------------------------------
B|-----------1-----------1----------1--------------
G|-----------------0-------------0--------0--------
D|--------0-----------0------0h2-------2----0---
A|--2h3--------3----------------------------------
E|--------------------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------
B|-----------1-----------1----------1----------------
G|-----------------0-------------0--------0----------
D|--------0-----------0------0h2-------2----0-----
A|--2h3--------3------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------------------------
B|--3-----------3--------1------------1--------0-----------0----------
G|--------0----------0-----------0---------0---------0-----------0----
D|-----0----------0-----------0---------0---------0-----------0-------
A|------------------------------------------------------------------------
E|--3-------3------------3---------3-----------3--------3-------------
In the video above I am playing the guitar riff from bloom. I have learned this using guitar tabs from ultimateguitar.com. I have found this particular guitar riff to be very hard to learn because I have never played guitar finger style before since I have learned electric guitar with a pick. I have also watched the guitarist from The Paper Kites playing the riff just to make sure that I am playing each string with the right fingers. I can’t yet play the riff at the same time as singing but I think that if I give myself more time to get used to the riff and really get it into my head I will be able to sing over it.
Here is the tab to the guitar riff I am playing in the video:
E|---------------------------------------------------
B|-----------1-----------1----------1--------------
G|-----------------0-------------0--------0--------
D|--------0-----------0------0h2-------2----0---
A|--2h3--------3----------------------------------
E|--------------------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------
B|-----------1-----------1----------1----------------
G|-----------------0-------------0--------0----------
D|--------0-----------0------0h2-------2----0-----
A|--2h3--------3------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------------------------
B|--3-----------3--------1------------1--------0-----------0----------
G|--------0----------0-----------0---------0---------0-----------0----
D|-----0----------0-----------0---------0---------0-----------0-------
A|------------------------------------------------------------------------
E|--3-------3------------3---------3-----------3--------3-------------
This is the tab of the riff i am playing in the video above
e|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B|----3-----------3------------3-----------3------------3------------3---------3--3----3----3----3---
G|----------0-----------0------------0-----------0------------0-----------0----2--4----2----0----0---
D|-------2-----------2------------0-----------0------------2-----------2-------------0----0----0------
A|-3-----------3------------2-----------2----------------------------------------------------------------
E|----------------------------------------------------0-----------0----------------------------------------
Week 2
Week 2 – 13/01/14
On the second week I have continued to practice Pictures by Ben Frances Leftwich and Bloom by The Paper Kites. I have also had a few plays through Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. Out of those two I am not sure which song I want to play in my twenty minute performance. I have had a go at singing some vocals along with the guitar riff from Bloom that I learned last week and I have found that the original song by The Paper Kites is a bit high for me to comfortably sing without it sounding like I am forcing my voice a little. To fix this I have decided to move the key of the song down one semi-tone, so move the capo down one fret from position sixth to position fifth. The same also goes for Pictures by Ben Frances Leftwitch however I am unsure whether I want to move the capo down one or two frets on this song (one semi-tone or a whole tone). Benjamin Frances Leftwitch has a very nice voice and it is a bit too high for me to sing comfortably. This week I have also been thinking about different things I could do to back my singing and guitar like having a piano or another vocalist to help me. I have also been thinking about how I am balancing the program and how I don’t want all of my songs to be slow. I still have to decide on one other song at the very least so I want to make sure that it is fast and technically advanced. Some songs that I have been considering for this is I’m Yours by Jason Maraz and/or Drifting by Andy McKee.
On the second week I have continued to practice Pictures by Ben Frances Leftwich and Bloom by The Paper Kites. I have also had a few plays through Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. Out of those two I am not sure which song I want to play in my twenty minute performance. I have had a go at singing some vocals along with the guitar riff from Bloom that I learned last week and I have found that the original song by The Paper Kites is a bit high for me to comfortably sing without it sounding like I am forcing my voice a little. To fix this I have decided to move the key of the song down one semi-tone, so move the capo down one fret from position sixth to position fifth. The same also goes for Pictures by Ben Frances Leftwitch however I am unsure whether I want to move the capo down one or two frets on this song (one semi-tone or a whole tone). Benjamin Frances Leftwitch has a very nice voice and it is a bit too high for me to sing comfortably. This week I have also been thinking about different things I could do to back my singing and guitar like having a piano or another vocalist to help me. I have also been thinking about how I am balancing the program and how I don’t want all of my songs to be slow. I still have to decide on one other song at the very least so I want to make sure that it is fast and technically advanced. Some songs that I have been considering for this is I’m Yours by Jason Maraz and/or Drifting by Andy McKee.
Song 1 - Bloom by The Paper Kites
The video above is a video of me playing the intro and first verse up to the chorus in Bloom by The Paper Kites. I have had to move the capo down tone fret (one Semi-tone) from the original by The paper Kites because it is then more suitable for my singing range. I can now play the guitar part a bit more fluently but I don’t feel that I can play it well enough yet. I am still trying to get used to playing it with my fingers. I have progressed quite a lot from last week because I can now play the guitar part whilst singing the vocals. Even though the vocals in this video are not great it does show a play for me to start and for me to improve on in the weeks to come. I am just going to keep practising the song and hopefully by next week I will be able to pay the whole song through and I will be able to remember all of the words.
The video above is a video of me playing the intro and first verse up to the chorus in Bloom by The Paper Kites. I have had to move the capo down tone fret (one Semi-tone) from the original by The paper Kites because it is then more suitable for my singing range. I can now play the guitar part a bit more fluently but I don’t feel that I can play it well enough yet. I am still trying to get used to playing it with my fingers. I have progressed quite a lot from last week because I can now play the guitar part whilst singing the vocals. Even though the vocals in this video are not great it does show a play for me to start and for me to improve on in the weeks to come. I am just going to keep practising the song and hopefully by next week I will be able to pay the whole song through and I will be able to remember all of the words.
Song 2 - Pictures by The paper Kites
In the video above this paragraph I am playing the first section pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwich. The guitar in this is very repetitive and in the intro and the first viruses is exactly the same. This has made it easy for me to practice playing the song with singing. I am playing the song much slower in this video than the original is by Benjamin Frances Leftwicch. This is just because I am still getting used to picking with my fingers. In this video I mess up the words but that doesn’t matter at this stage. I hope that by this time next week I will be able to play most of the song if not all of it.
In the video above this paragraph I am playing the first section pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwich. The guitar in this is very repetitive and in the intro and the first viruses is exactly the same. This has made it easy for me to practice playing the song with singing. I am playing the song much slower in this video than the original is by Benjamin Frances Leftwicch. This is just because I am still getting used to picking with my fingers. In this video I mess up the words but that doesn’t matter at this stage. I hope that by this time next week I will be able to play most of the song if not all of it.
Week 3
Week 3 - 20/01/14
In the third week of working towards our solo performances we all put on a small performance in which we played the first 30 seconds to 1 minute of each of the songs that we intend to play. We pretty much just performed our demo tapes. The video below was filmed by Natalie in my class. In the video the songs that I performed were chose a bit last minute because I am still not sure which songs I want to perform in my 20 minute performance. The songs that i performed are: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd (I skipped the intro to the song because I would be using a loop station if I play the song, I played the first verse), Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwich (in this song I performed the first verse and then ended), High Hopes by Kodaline (i played the first verse and skipped the second verse and played once round the chorus) and the last song which was Bloom by The Paper Kites(I played the first verse and then stopped before the chorus). The reason for playing Wish you were her by Pink Floyd is because it is from a deferent era of music than all of my other songs so it shows that I am varying my song choice and trying to balance my program because then my set will appeal to people from older generations as well as people from younger generations. The reason that I played Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwch is because I think it is a beautiful and meaningful song and because it has finger picked guitar which gives me a chance to play some other styles of guitar in my set so that I can show variety in my guitar playing. The third song that i played is High Hopes and the reason that I played this song is because the vocals in this song show a lot of variety and go from very low in my range to very high in my range. This song is a hard song to sing and i think i shows a lot of skill especially in the bit where I have to go in falsetto. I want a song that has more high singing to make sure that my set isn’t boring. The last song that I played is Bloom by the Paper Kites and I chose this song in my set because I love the guitar part and I think it shows a lot of skill in the finger picking. I love the finger picking and I did find it very hard when i was learning it. Also it has a faster tempo so it shows that i am trying to balance the program using different speeds to keep my set interesting.
In the third week of working towards our solo performances we all put on a small performance in which we played the first 30 seconds to 1 minute of each of the songs that we intend to play. We pretty much just performed our demo tapes. The video below was filmed by Natalie in my class. In the video the songs that I performed were chose a bit last minute because I am still not sure which songs I want to perform in my 20 minute performance. The songs that i performed are: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd (I skipped the intro to the song because I would be using a loop station if I play the song, I played the first verse), Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwich (in this song I performed the first verse and then ended), High Hopes by Kodaline (i played the first verse and skipped the second verse and played once round the chorus) and the last song which was Bloom by The Paper Kites(I played the first verse and then stopped before the chorus). The reason for playing Wish you were her by Pink Floyd is because it is from a deferent era of music than all of my other songs so it shows that I am varying my song choice and trying to balance my program because then my set will appeal to people from older generations as well as people from younger generations. The reason that I played Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwch is because I think it is a beautiful and meaningful song and because it has finger picked guitar which gives me a chance to play some other styles of guitar in my set so that I can show variety in my guitar playing. The third song that i played is High Hopes and the reason that I played this song is because the vocals in this song show a lot of variety and go from very low in my range to very high in my range. This song is a hard song to sing and i think i shows a lot of skill especially in the bit where I have to go in falsetto. I want a song that has more high singing to make sure that my set isn’t boring. The last song that I played is Bloom by the Paper Kites and I chose this song in my set because I love the guitar part and I think it shows a lot of skill in the finger picking. I love the finger picking and I did find it very hard when i was learning it. Also it has a faster tempo so it shows that i am trying to balance the program using different speeds to keep my set interesting.
Evaluation of my Small performance to the class in the Third Week
I have watched back the video that was recorded of me playing to the class and I have notice a few big things that I should change for the real performance. The main thing is that the songs I have chosen even though I have tried to show variety and balance my program are all a bit boring and a bit samey. I think that I should show more variety in the songs that I play. I think I should have some songs that have faster tempos so that my set is not just slow and depressing songs. Another observation that I made is that there were no real variety in the dynamics of my performance. I think that if I made my songs have more variety in the dynamics it will help me to make sure the songs do not seem to repetitive and boring. I have also noticed that the songs that I have chosen are too simple and are too easy to play. When playing easy songs it is harder to get the audience to engage in what you are doing because it is nothing special and it’s a bit boring. I have decided that I want to make my set into something that people won’t see and much and I want to choose some songs that make me stand out as a good guitarist and a good singer instead of just playing songs that I know I can do and that i know are easy. I also want to work on putting more emotion into my voice because all of the songs that i played in the video are sad songs that were written about emotional things. I know that when you are showing emotion and feeling in your voice then the audience will enjoy it more than if you were just singing the words like they don’t mean a thing to you.
I have watched back the video that was recorded of me playing to the class and I have notice a few big things that I should change for the real performance. The main thing is that the songs I have chosen even though I have tried to show variety and balance my program are all a bit boring and a bit samey. I think that I should show more variety in the songs that I play. I think I should have some songs that have faster tempos so that my set is not just slow and depressing songs. Another observation that I made is that there were no real variety in the dynamics of my performance. I think that if I made my songs have more variety in the dynamics it will help me to make sure the songs do not seem to repetitive and boring. I have also noticed that the songs that I have chosen are too simple and are too easy to play. When playing easy songs it is harder to get the audience to engage in what you are doing because it is nothing special and it’s a bit boring. I have decided that I want to make my set into something that people won’t see and much and I want to choose some songs that make me stand out as a good guitarist and a good singer instead of just playing songs that I know I can do and that i know are easy. I also want to work on putting more emotion into my voice because all of the songs that i played in the video are sad songs that were written about emotional things. I know that when you are showing emotion and feeling in your voice then the audience will enjoy it more than if you were just singing the words like they don’t mean a thing to you.
Learning Alternative Tuning Songs
After I did my performance to the class I had a think about what kind of songs would show more skill on e the guitar and I learned a few songs that use alternative tunings and I fell although it is a bette direction for my set that the direction that I had before. The songs that i have been learning are Ben Howard songs. One of them is called only love and the tuning that only love uses is Bb, F, C, G, G, C. The other Ben Howard song is called Old Pines and the tuning that that song uses is C, G, C, G, G, C. The songs both have finger picking which is a technique that I have been working on for Bloom and Pictures which were songs that I performed to the class. I have also been thinking about other ways to make my set more interesting and one of the things that I think is a good idea is using a looping station for one of my songs. I am lucky enough to have a looping station so I am going to work on some songs on that and blog my progress.
After I did my performance to the class I had a think about what kind of songs would show more skill on e the guitar and I learned a few songs that use alternative tunings and I fell although it is a bette direction for my set that the direction that I had before. The songs that i have been learning are Ben Howard songs. One of them is called only love and the tuning that only love uses is Bb, F, C, G, G, C. The other Ben Howard song is called Old Pines and the tuning that that song uses is C, G, C, G, G, C. The songs both have finger picking which is a technique that I have been working on for Bloom and Pictures which were songs that I performed to the class. I have also been thinking about other ways to make my set more interesting and one of the things that I think is a good idea is using a looping station for one of my songs. I am lucky enough to have a looping station so I am going to work on some songs on that and blog my progress.
Only Love by Ben Howard
This week I learned a large section of Only Love by Ben Howard. I really like this song and I think that it will help to make my set less boring. The song is a very hard song to play on the guitar and I have found it hard to sing whilst playing so I hope that by this time next week I will be able to play the song and sing it at the same time. I have learned the guitar from a series of YouTube videos made by a man called Gareth Evens. I also think that playing only love is a good idea because in the song there are a lot of things that I can do with the dynamics. For example, I could start the song very quietly just to see how the audience react.
This week I learned a large section of Only Love by Ben Howard. I really like this song and I think that it will help to make my set less boring. The song is a very hard song to play on the guitar and I have found it hard to sing whilst playing so I hope that by this time next week I will be able to play the song and sing it at the same time. I have learned the guitar from a series of YouTube videos made by a man called Gareth Evens. I also think that playing only love is a good idea because in the song there are a lot of things that I can do with the dynamics. For example, I could start the song very quietly just to see how the audience react.
Week 4
This week I have continued to think about what I intend on doing to make my 20 minute set more unique and to make sure that my song choice is as good as it can be by not having songs that sound too samey. Last week i added some variety to my set by learning Only Love by Ben Howard which has very unique alternative tuning guitar playing in it. I have been thinking a lot into what other songs I want to add to my set to give it more variety and make sure it’s not boring. I have also been thinking about how easy it will be to keep the audience engaged with me and with my performance with the choice of songs that I am going to perform. I decided that as well as playing some songs that people may not have heard it would be a good idea to play some songs that they will have herd. One of the songs that I have though a lot about playing is Manny of Horror by Biffy Clyro which is a very famous song which has a very catchy chorus. I also think that this song would be a good idea to play because it would add a variety in my vocal because this song is right at the top of my range when I play it in a certain tuning. I think that it would be a good song to add to my set list. As well as thinking about playing Manny of Horror by Biffy Clyro I have also been working on a song of my own witch is called Pretty Scars. One of the reasons that I would really like to add thins song into my set is because the lyrics I wrote in it are they important to me and means a lot to me as a person. I hope that this will make the performance of this song a lot more emotional that the other songs on my set because of what the song means to me and what I wrote it about. This song is also right at the top of my range so I can work on my singing to help me with it in the build up to thins gig by doing a variety of different vocal exercises. In regards to balancing my pallet of songs I think that it is very good to throw in at least one original song so that you show your audience a little bit of your individual style as a musician, and you show the audience that you are not just a performer who performs other peoples music but you’re also a song writer.
This week I have not been practicing all of my original songs quite as much but I have not totally forgotten about them. I have been working on Bloom by the Paper Kites and Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwitch. I have mostly been practicing the guitar finger picking and trying to really hammer it into my brain so that I don’t forget it. I am not sure whether I am going to use Bloom in my set though. The reason for this is that the guitar picking from the song that I am writing at the moment and that I want to put in my set called Pretty Scares was inspired by Bloom and I wouldn’t want to put two songs that have some finger picking parts that are similar in the same set because I know that that would be boring and that it would not keep the audience interested.
This week I have not been practicing all of my original songs quite as much but I have not totally forgotten about them. I have been working on Bloom by the Paper Kites and Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwitch. I have mostly been practicing the guitar finger picking and trying to really hammer it into my brain so that I don’t forget it. I am not sure whether I am going to use Bloom in my set though. The reason for this is that the guitar picking from the song that I am writing at the moment and that I want to put in my set called Pretty Scares was inspired by Bloom and I wouldn’t want to put two songs that have some finger picking parts that are similar in the same set because I know that that would be boring and that it would not keep the audience interested.
Pretty Scares
The video below is some of the sections from my song called Pretty Scares. The picking with the right hand was inspired by Bloom by the Paper Kites. I have had two different picking ideas one of which is quieter and would probably work better as an introduction and the other one is a loot louder which is going to come somewhere later on in the song probably. I find this song vey had to play because I am not used to finger picking and the guitar finger picking in this song is very complex and in order to play the song with the right feel and the right vibe I have to play it quite fast. I am practicing it a lot though and I hope that the paying ‘practice makes perfect’ is true because I am practicing it a lot and I hope that I will soon be able to sing my lyrics with it without tripping over my fingers or messing up the singing. This song is in a very strange tuning witch is basically the DADGAD tuning down two semi tones or a whole tone. This tuning is CGCFGC and it is very hard and annoying to tune the guitar to since it is so low. It is also a pain in the neck because the more I tune the guitar to this tuning the more stings I brake because cheaper strings like the martin strings that I am using do not respond well to being dropped two whole tones. However my version of the song Many of Horror is not far of this tuning so I would be able to change the tuning of this guitar on stage because the only difference in the tuning is that the Low C string is tuned up a whole tone to a D.
Many of Horror by Biffy Clyro
This week as well as working on Pretty Scares and practicing Only Love by Ben Howard I have been working on my alternative tuning version of Many of Horror by Biffy Clyro. I think that this song is a very pretty song and it is easy to change from the Pretty Scares tuning to the right tuning to play this song. The tuning for Pretty Scares is CGCFGC and the tuning for my version of Many of Horror is DGCFGC. In the video I have recorded of me playing what I have worked out of Many of Horror this week I play the first verse very quietly and build it up a bit in the second verse and then go loud in both the pre-chorus and the chorus. I then go into the bride because they are the only parts of the song that I have worked out in this tuning at the moment. I hope that by this time next week I will have worked out the whole song and it will be staring to take shape nicely. When I watch back the video I have put below there are a few thinks that I can instantly see that I can do to improve the song and to improve my over all version of the song. One of the main things that I see that should do to make this song as good as I possibly can is using as much dynamic control as possible. I have thought of a few good ways to do this. Some of which I did a little bit of in the video but i don’t feel like I have done enough to make the song what I want it to be. I want to start the song very quietly and play through the opening riff like in the original without the singing. I will then bring in the singing very quietly down an octave to the rest of the song so that when I start singing in the higher octave and the guitar picked up to harder strumming it will really feel like the song has gone somewhere and I hope that my use of dynamics will have been very effective. I also think that this is a good idea because if I start the song very quietly I will know if the audience are engaged with me by the way that they react. If there are all dead silent and they listened to what I do and do not talk then I will know that the use of dynamics has been very affective. Where as if the audience pay no attention to me playing then I will know for the future what will happen if I play it the way I played it in front of certain audiences.
Week 5
Over all this week I have made a lot of progress towards finalising the songs that I am going to play in my 20 minute performance. I Have made a lot of progress with the song that I wrote witch I am going to put in the set called Pretty Scares and I have also made a lot of progress with another song that I am going to put I the set which is my version of Many Of Horror by Biffy Clyro. I have also decided to stick with the decision that I made last week witch as to cut the song Bloom by the paper Kites from my set. One of the reasons that I have cut it is that my song has got a similar finger picking sequence and at the end of the day I would rather put one of my own songs into the set than just play another cover, even though Bloom is one of my favourite songs ever. Another reason I have decided to drop it is because I have recently found out that one of my classmates, James Hancock is playing Bloom in his set for his 20 minute performance and if I were to be playing in the same venue as he is then it would not be good if we both went out to the same audience and banged out the same song, one after another. This week I have also been practicing my other song that I have been working on in the past 5 weeks and blogging about since week one. This song is or cores ‘Pictures’ by Benjamin Frances Leftwich. I think that this sing is truly beautiful and very meaningful so I hope that I do keep it in my set because it is such a good song to sing with emotion and try and get a connection with the audience. Would hate to perform this song if I did not feel although it was good enough because it is one of my favourite songs and I know exactly how it should go and when I hear people covering it and changing it I hate it, so I will make sure that if I perform this song that I do it justice. I think that since I last blogged about Pictures by Benjamin Frances Leftwhich I have made a lot of progress. I am getting a lot better at playing the finger picking guitar part and I am getting a lot better at singing the song too. I have been singing the song with a capo on the 5th fret as opposed to having the capo on 3rd or 4th which is usually where I would sing this song. The original by Ben has a capo on the 6th fret witch I hope that with more practice over the weeks to come I will be able to do without it sounding like I am straining my voice or that I am singing to high for my range. I have been doing a lot of vocal warm ups since last week. I have been doing them every time before I sing and I have been drinking a lot of water when I am singing which has also helped a lot.
As well as working on theses three songs this week I have also been working on Only Love by Ben Howard. I have made a lot of progress with the Ben Howard song and last week. I can now play the main riff and the chorus section very well whilst singing. I have had a lot of trouble remembering the words but that just because I have not yet taken the time to look them up and learn them properly. I also had a talk with Tom about changing the dynamics in this song to make it less boring and to add more variety into the song and the performance to keep the audience interested. If I were to play the whole song at the same volume and not using any forms of dynamic control I would run the risk of the song being very boring because the song has a very repetitive guitar riff in it. I can eliminate the risk of making the repetitive guitar riff boring by adding a lot of dynamics to the song so that when I play the riff it is not the same. One time at the begging of the song it might start up really quiet and there might be a massive build up to the chorus instead of playing it at one steady volume all the way through to the chorus and then playing the chorus at the same volume.
As it stands at the end of week 5 my set list is looking like this:
Many of Horror - Biffy Clyro
Pretty Scares - Myself
Only Love - Ben Howard
Pictures - Ben Frances Leftwich
I think that I Might have space to add in anouther song to the set because i think that there four will come to under 20 minutes but I will do a timed run through in the near future to see if I am right.
As well as working on theses three songs this week I have also been working on Only Love by Ben Howard. I have made a lot of progress with the Ben Howard song and last week. I can now play the main riff and the chorus section very well whilst singing. I have had a lot of trouble remembering the words but that just because I have not yet taken the time to look them up and learn them properly. I also had a talk with Tom about changing the dynamics in this song to make it less boring and to add more variety into the song and the performance to keep the audience interested. If I were to play the whole song at the same volume and not using any forms of dynamic control I would run the risk of the song being very boring because the song has a very repetitive guitar riff in it. I can eliminate the risk of making the repetitive guitar riff boring by adding a lot of dynamics to the song so that when I play the riff it is not the same. One time at the begging of the song it might start up really quiet and there might be a massive build up to the chorus instead of playing it at one steady volume all the way through to the chorus and then playing the chorus at the same volume.
As it stands at the end of week 5 my set list is looking like this:
Many of Horror - Biffy Clyro
Pretty Scares - Myself
Only Love - Ben Howard
Pictures - Ben Frances Leftwich
I think that I Might have space to add in anouther song to the set because i think that there four will come to under 20 minutes but I will do a timed run through in the near future to see if I am right.
Pretty Scares
This week I have been working a lot on my song called Pretty Scares. I have been practicing the finger picking on the right hand a lot and I am begging to get the hand of it although as you and see in the video I uploaded to show this week’s practice I am still losing the finger picking pattern every now and then and having to try very hard to get it back. I find that sometimes when I loose the picking pattern I have to think very had to play it again but as soon as I start thinking about what I’m doing with my right hand I totally looses where I was and I just have to strum the guitar instead witch definitely dose not give the same effect as the picking dose. I am very happy with the improvements in this song that I have made since last week because as you can see in the video I am now able to sing the lyrics whilst playing all of the complex picking parts. In the video I had to strain my voice to reach the high notes. The reason for this is that I had been singing a lot on that day and before I sung this song I did not do much warming up witch would have helped. I am also very happy because the song is now beginning to have a better structure now that i can play all of the parts and I know the order to play them. When I look back at this video I can see that there are some simple goals that I can set myself for next week. They are just small things that I picked up on when I watched it back but I think that they will make all the difference for the actual performance. The most important think that I now know i will always have to do before singing this song is warming up because although most of the singing is in tune it sounds a little bit forced and it is hard to put emotion into you’re singing when you have to force out the words. I have also realised that it is not always as easy to understand the words that I am singing as I thought it was. When i watched back the video I also thought that the bridge section at the end of the song dose have some work that needs to be done. I am not quite sure at the moment what I’m going to do to make it a bit more interesting but I will hopefully write a more complex guitar part that might follow the vocal melody so that the song has some more variety. I am also very happy to see
that as it stands the song lasts 4 minutes which is a good amount of time out
my 20 minute performance but it’s not too long so there is a chance that I will
be able to add a fifth song to my set.
I am very happy with the lirics to Pretty Scares. I have been wrighing them over the last 4 or 5 weeks and they are now at the stage when I am ready to perform the song useing them. I have written them out bellow:
Pretty Scars Lyrics
Out of this, I’ve learned the truth or something else
That’s close enough, as if to say
That another day, tears us apart
And God I Hate, this twist of fate Leaves pretty scars
But they won’t hurt and they won’t bleed
What’s underneath cannot be touched
It’s in the ground, what’s in the past can’t follow you
It’s hard enough to get to sleep
When there’s alarm bells still ringing
A bitter taste leaves no escape from the feeling
You punched too far above your weight
God only knows you’re not to blame
If you spent another minute in that place
Then fuck fate, it took you’re innocence away
Yours are, Pretty scars
Yours are, Pretty scars
Yours are, Pretty scars
Yours are, Pretty scars
Ohh
You caught me off guard, but I ain’t got the nerve to say
Ohh
Leave you’re pretty scars, cuz baby they’ll fade away
Ohh
You can’t fight the past, you’re stories left beneath your skin
Ohh
Whatever you’ve lost leaves pieces to be colourd in
I am very happy with the lirics to Pretty Scares. I have been wrighing them over the last 4 or 5 weeks and they are now at the stage when I am ready to perform the song useing them. I have written them out bellow:
Pretty Scars Lyrics
Out of this, I’ve learned the truth or something else
That’s close enough, as if to say
That another day, tears us apart
And God I Hate, this twist of fate Leaves pretty scars
But they won’t hurt and they won’t bleed
What’s underneath cannot be touched
It’s in the ground, what’s in the past can’t follow you
It’s hard enough to get to sleep
When there’s alarm bells still ringing
A bitter taste leaves no escape from the feeling
You punched too far above your weight
God only knows you’re not to blame
If you spent another minute in that place
Then fuck fate, it took you’re innocence away
Yours are, Pretty scars
Yours are, Pretty scars
Yours are, Pretty scars
Yours are, Pretty scars
Ohh
You caught me off guard, but I ain’t got the nerve to say
Ohh
Leave you’re pretty scars, cuz baby they’ll fade away
Ohh
You can’t fight the past, you’re stories left beneath your skin
Ohh
Whatever you’ve lost leaves pieces to be colourd in
Many of Horror
This week I have been aiming to perfect the whole of many of horror. I have been practicing the song a lot and I can now run through the whole song from the top to the finish when I have the words in front of me. I have made a huge improvement from the level I was playing this song last week and I feel that if I keep improving this much every week the song will be up to a high enough standard very shortly. Because this is a new song to me I really need to keep running over it because I forget both parts of the lyrics and the orders of the verses and things like that. I also mess up the guitar parts quite a lot. They are not big mistakes that would ruin the performance of the song. They are just litter mistakes that I know if I got rid of them the overall quality of the song and of the performance would raise and it would be a lot more professional. I am also in the process of deciding weather of not to play this song with a guitar pick of to play it with my fingers and just see how good I can get it in the time running up to the performance. Because I have been playing guitar with a pick a lot longer that I have been playing guitar with my fingers I find it a lot harder to learn songs that have finger picking in them than I find it to learn a song with a pick. Evidently it takes me a lot longer to learn finger picking songs than songs with picks.
Week 6
This week I have been continuing to practice Pretty Scares and Many of horror and also I have been running over only love by Ben Howard. As well as practicing all of these I have decided that I am going to conceder another song to put in my set and that song is Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales. The song is another alternative tuning song but I think that it would be a great song to add into my set because it has interesting guitar parts throughout the song and the vocals are not in a challengingly high register and I feel that once I have perfected this song and I have practiced it to a good enough standard it will sound very good. I have downloaded the sheet music for the song and I have been learning it of guitar tab websites on the internet.
This week I have also been thinking a lot about the venue that my twenty minute performance is going to take place in. I have decided that the best place for me to do it is Henley. This is because I know a lot of people in Henley who are around my age who would be interested in coming to see me play. Also I could involve other people in my class who would be able to bring their friends. I have been talking a lot about it with one of my class mates called Ted. Ted and I have been talking about the different venues in Henley and we have decided on one. We think that the record shop in Henley would be a very good place to play because it is very small and it’s near the town centre. We emailed the man who owns the shop and we then went in to talk to him and have a look around and see where we would set up. I have attached some photos so you can see the venue and where we are going to be playing.
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The pictures below are pictures of the area in which we are going to perform in the record shop. It will be a lot cleaner and there will not be lots of boxes living around so the shop will seem bigger.
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The pictures below are screenshots that I took on my phone. They show the message we sent to Andy asking about the possibility of us playing a hour long performance in the back of his shop. We did also talk to him in person and he was very helpful and said that that’s fine for us to play in his shop and we arranged a date, the date for our performance is the 20th of march.
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Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales
This week I have learned a lot of the different sections to Heartbeats. I am still struggling to get them into my head because the whole song is finger picked and I find that it takes me a while longer to perfect finger picked riffs than it takes me to perfect riffs with picks. I have tried the song with singing but at the moment I just loose where I was in the song. I know that if I keep practicing the guitar as much as I can then I will not take very long before I have the guitar part in my head well enough that I can do it without thinking so that will be able to sing while I play the guitar part. This song is in an alternative tuning as well as a few of the other songs in my set. The song is in DADF#BE. I am currently in the process of deciding where to put the capo and how high to have the key. The original has got a capo on the first fret. Once I have perfected my guitar part I will be able to figure out where I need the capo by singing the song but since I cannot song the song with the guitar.
Week 7
This week we have decided that one of the most important things that we could do in regards to making sure the gig goes as well as it possibly could is making the posters and putting them up around henley collage and in the record shop. Now that we have got a date for the gig we have decided to make the posters on the collages computers and using the colleges kit. I have taken picture of the process of making the posters and i am going to upload them below. I have also recorded a video of us editing the poster.
Kit
This week we have also talked about the problem of what gear we are going to use to do the performance and we have decided that we will rather use two speakers that are a part for my PA system or we will use bits and bobs of the colleges kit. If we are going to use the collgfes kit we will have to ask for permission before we take it all so it could be easier for us to just use my own kit.
This week we have also talked about the problem of what gear we are going to use to do the performance and we have decided that we will rather use two speakers that are a part for my PA system or we will use bits and bobs of the colleges kit. If we are going to use the collgfes kit we will have to ask for permission before we take it all so it could be easier for us to just use my own kit.