Composition Portfolio - Final Two pieces

I previously posted my first piece for my composition portfolio.  What follows are the other two pieces in my portfolio.

In general, the tracks haven't been mixed as much as I'd have liked.  Since we are being marked on the composition more than anything, I only mixed/mastered the tracks very roughly.  Perhaps in future, I will produce them properly.

Both tracks were created using Logic 9.



Piece 1 - Urban Camouflage 



Urban Camouflage is an imagery based song.  A melody first came to me when I was reading about an 18th century family, who, like many rich families at the time, had a maid, who they treated like dirt.  The start of the song is the idea of the maid being left alone in the house with the piano, playing to herself; the chilling melodies and sounds represent her torment.

When I came to play this idea into Logic one day, I discovered a whole pack of warped piano settings.  I decided to create a piece of music with sounds only from this pack, apart from the strings which support the bassline at the end.

The song is split into four sections;

A - the quiet part at the start, where the recurring ideas heard in the rest of the song stem from.
B- The 'verse' if you will.  Heard when the drums enter and the song becomes more upbeat.
C - Back to a quiet piano line (based on a Bach prelude, to fit the theme)
B - the 'verse' again until the end.

The basis of the song is the melody that comes in at 0:18.  This melody is the song's main motif, and one that repeats throughout the piece until the end.

The 'B' section of the song represents this maid's desire for freedom - hence the soaring bassline and hard drums.  The C section represents The Maid playing 'nice' things - living the life her oppressing and abusive family are bestowing upon her.  The quick piano run up to the final B section represents her cracking and going for the freedom she's always wanted.

I added strings in the final part to give the bass line more of an 'oomph'.  When the strings come in and the drums stop, the bassline becomes a part of the main melody, until the end where the main motif rings out alone, almost eerily.





Piece 2 - Left Ashore




As stated previously, I am not a singer.  Left Ashore is a very personal piece, however, and I decided to sing it myself.

The song has a very basic, well used structure;

A - Verse
B - Chorus
A - Verse
B - Chorus
C - Middle 8
B - Chorus


It was written in a day.  Fed up of trying to write overly complicated pieces, I took inspiration from songs heard at the HND1 concert and decided to write a song comprised simply of vocals and piano.  The music (chords progression, vocal melody, tempo, etc...) were written first, and lyrics were added later.  At first, I hoped the piano in the recording would simply be a guide track, with the intention of adding more complicated piano parts once the song had been recorded.  I decided against this, however, keeping the piano part simple.  Instead of using strings at the end to boost the song, I filled the last chorus with my own vocals instead.

I used a Roland RDNX700 plugged into Logic to play the piano part and an AKG Perception 100 microphone to record the various vocal tracks.  The tempo speeds up after the first chorus, to represent the change in the character's mood; the lyrics in the verse are upsetting and pessimistic.  I sang them softly and as fragile as I could, to emphasise the meaning.  Once the tempo speeds up, the lyrics become polar opposites of the lyrics sang at the start, now optimistic.  I sang out more for this part.

The middle section of the song works effectively as I bring in a D major chord straight after a D minor chord, giving the song an edge.  It's a basic formula used by many artists, but one that seems to work.

The final chorus sees me sing many harmonies (11 vocal tracks were used in logic for the final chorus). Had I had more time to mix and master the song, I would have concentrated on making each harmony work together perfectly, as currently, there are some (ie. the highest one) which is very difficult to hear. Like many pieces that I write, the final chorus is filled with polyphony.   My vocals heard at the end were actually a mistake - I accidentally moved one of my vocal tracks while editing and didn't notice the vocals calling out at the end until I was mixing the harmonies.  While it sounds horribly cheesy, I felt it added a touch of personal emotion to the song, so I kept it.  I think in future I will mix and master this song properly.  The fact that I wrote it so quickly, as opposed to the weeks I've spent writing other pieces in Logic in class has allowed me to realise that trying to write a compacted piece of music is ridiculous.

Lyrics;

I am a stag without his horns,

alone in the woods

An old man without his eyes,

blind and lost in the dark

Like a sailor without a ship

forever ashore,

just a runaway child who wants to be found

Wouldn’t it be so sweet if we could be who we want to be

wouldn’t it be so sweet if we could see what we need to see

I am a stag who’s found his mate

king of the woods

A blind man who awoke to see

his grandson’s first smile

a sailor out to sea,

all the ocean he’ll ever need

Just a run away child who yearns to be found.

Wouldn’t it be so sweet if we could be who we want to be

wouldn’t it be so sweet if we could see what we need to see

please don’t pray for me dear,

let me ask Him myself

I feel like the old man,

who lost both his eyes,

or a sailor who’s drowning at sea

I never asked you for help, iso now im telling myself

to stop being a run away child

Wouldn’t it be so sweet if we could be who we want to be

wouldn’t it be so sweet if we could see what we need to see  

(runaway child who wants to go home, gotta little bit of love left so just come home)

Analysing Group Performance Throughout the Year

I have decided to analyse three of the performance pieces we did through the year.  I will focus entirely on my part of the performance, rather than the performance as a whole.

The three songs I have decided to do are 'Underdog' from the Funk month, 'Lullaby of Birdland' from one of our Jazz months, and 'Tu Voz' from the Salsa week.


Underdog


In underdog, I played the brass parts on the keyboards.  There is no piano, and the brass part is such a huge part that someone needed to do it.  The song starts with a brass melody, very similar to the french children's song 'Frere Jaque'.  The keyboard I played it on made the brass parts go quiet very quickly after I'd pressed the key down, so I had to play very hard and quick to make sure the sound for as long as it should have.

The rest of the song me doing brass stabs.  The challenge here was trying not to interfere with the off beat stabs the guitarist was playing.  For the pre chorus, I provided backing vocals, singing 'Underdog' with the two other singers.  Upon listening to the recording of us, I am very pleased at how effective our group vocals were.  For this part, I played the brass parts to go in unison with what I was singing.

The chorus was the part where I noticed how strong the diminishing brass sounds were.  I had to play with the volumes during the chorus, to make sure that the brass parts sang out as I left the notes hanging.  The brass part is the lead melodic motif during the chorus, so it was very important that I made the notes ring out.  You can tell I got the hang of playing with the volume effectively in the second chorus, because the brass doesn't go quiet nearly as fast as it does in the first.

The second verse was exactly the same as the first, but we changed the dynamics.  I was very pleased, again, to hear how effective this proved in the playback.  There is definitely a change in dynamics, especially during our group 'Yeah, yeah' vocal line.

All in all, I was very, very pleased with this performance, and must give credit to Chris Anderson, the drummer who led us.  His skills at leading the band (very nitpicky (in a good way) and analytical) was nothing but professional, and the work we did throughout the rest of the year (Music for Scotland first audition) helped make him one of my preferred drummers to work with.

Lullaby of Birdland


I was surprised when I heard the recording for this.  At the time, I thought it to be disastrous.  Though upon hearing it back, I found that my piano playing was very effective.  A lot of this has to do with the fact that I played on the grand piano, meaning I didn't have to worry about an electrical 'bleed' of sound which one can sometimes find on an electric keyboard, nor could i worry about sound levels.

Again, credit goes to the HN2s (Andy McDowell and Ryan Sandison).  For the first couple of weeks, the two of them and myself went through the chords and voicings we should each play (the chords in that song were unlike anything I'd ever played before.  The first time I'd played flattened 13ths, etc, and they were all a chord a beat...)  Andy even compared this song to his final performance piece, saying it was more difficult.  We worked hard together and at home to make sure our voices didn't clash (there are so many notes in every chord, it being jazz).  I provided a jumpy chord based melody, while playing a vamp in my left hand for the chorus, with my right playing the vocal melody.  There were no solos in that song, but I threw the odd modal scale/arpeggio around for effect.  Though upon hearing the playback, I don't feel I played them as clean on the grand piano as I had practiced, but it doesn't really effect the song in any way.

All in all, I thought it sounded good, with my keys complementing the song well.  If I had done any more, I felt, it would have sounded too muddy.  That's something I've learned this year: too many players try to dive in and play complex solos in songs where they aren't needed.  As a keyboard player, it's important for me to know how to hang back, as in many songs, the keyboard is just there for (required) background.  Unless I have a lead part, or the song allows it, soloing or playing overly complex lines just because one can, is a bad idea, that often does more to hinder the song than help it.

Tu Voz


Unfortunately, there is no recording of the salsa month online, so I will have to write entirely from memory.

We had a large band for this.  A very large band.  John Cashman, the HN2 of the group, played the piano part.  Myself and Jake played the brass parts.  The song is almost a salsa big band piece.

The brass parts I played were simple - like Underdog, the main motifs were played with brass instruments, so it was very important that we played them correctly, which we did.  Apart from that, all we did was the odd chord stab when appropriate, and the melody played through the chorus.  There were many people in the band, so we all decided to play as little as possible each, as when everyone tried to play lead in practice, it sounded very, very messy.

I don't feel I played enough in Tu Voz to be analysed properly.  Had I played the piano part, it would have been a different matter, but Josh was more experienced so the band decided that he should do it. Perhaps next year I will be brought out of my comfort zone and made to play 'different' genres like Salsa for experience.  After all, playing things outside of your comfort zone is what makes you a better performer.

Solo Assessments - Overall Summary

I am going to discuss my solo assessments in one large post rather than have several medium sized ones.

When we came back from the February holiday and started working properly on solo material, I was very confident (proved by this post here).  In February, I began recording weekly video logs of my progression.  While this proved rather effective to start with, when my playing began to dwindle, I lost interest.  I didn't like seeing my playing get worse rather than better.

In terms of practicing, to start with, I did well.  1-2 hours a day, at least.  With my lessons, I concentrated on playing the improvisation and the structure of the jazz songs (apart from certain tricky sections in the other two pieces, there isn't much I had to go over with Steve, my teacher in Blue Rondo and Black and White rag as all I have to do is read the music and play what's written).  Steve was pleased with my progress.

Then when the exam grew nearer, I found that my playing had started to worsen, and my hands were regularly starting to hurt after playing for over half an hour.  Perhaps it was due to stress, or an extra work load from other things, but I started to get very worried.  If I had stopped practicing about two weeks before the exam, I would have passed at least.  The standard at which I was playing the pieces was worth at least a pass.  But as the exam date grew nearer, I started to worry and tell myself things.

"You're at the stage you should have been two weeks ago."
"This is pointless, you'll never be able to play this part"
"Why can't I play this any more?"

In the two weeks before the exam, I overloaded myself, and that's where the problem lay.  I made the solo exam my number one priority, ignoring my social life completely, even missing certain college classes to practice.  I began practicing five hours a day.  And every day, my playing got worse.  Five hours turned to eight hours.  By the final few days leading up to it, I was playing about 10 hours a day.  Which sounds like a good thing, but I was practicing in the complete wrong way.  I wasn't stopping my playing when I played something wrong, I kept going and then repeated it over and over.   I was practicing the wrong thing.  Which got me into wrong habits.

This is, I believe, the most valuable thing I've learned from the solo exam disaster; how to practice effectively.  I've read books on the subject, and have learned that when practicing, the best thing to do is to stop playing a piece and focus on a part you can't play until you can play it right 5/5 times, not 3/5 times.  By the final couple of nights, I couldn't sleep due to stress and stayed up all night practicing with headphones in.

Then I started changing what I was playing.  Simplifying them.  So when I went to perform, I was playing things i'd been practicing for two days rather than two months.  Which is where the problem was.

The solo exam was a nightmare faced by many musicians; you're on the spot, and you suddenly can't play anything.  I am just lucky there wasn't an audience there.  It was a disaster.

Obviously, I didn't pass.  My saving grace is that I've been given a second chance, in 2 weeks.  I didn't play any of the pieces for the entire easter holidays, then came back to them after a long break and what a difference.  All I needed was a break from playing them, as opposed to cram-practicing.

I'm practicing slowly and steadily now, but have began to feel stressed again.  I am not going to ruin my performance (and chances of getting into the next year of the course) by stressing.  I am going to remain calm and practice efficiently over the next week and a half.   Though in that week and a half, I have so many deadlines to meet for other assignments.  I just need to work without over-working myself.

I will update with another post after the exam.  Which will hopefully be happier and contain more positive, constructive feedback.

Group Performance - Final Rehearsals and Performance Summary

Last night was the night of our group performance.  Before I talk about that, I will talk about our final rehearsals on Wednesday.

I had two rehearsals that day - one at 12 o clock in colour sound studios (where The Proclaimers rehearse, yaaaay...) and one at 5 in college.

Charlie didn't turn up to the one at 12, but I think the rest of the band knew this.  Owen had the car and struggled to park.  He was late and had to leave early, so we didn't get much of him.

The two hours we had to practice passed VERY quickly.  We only managed to get through Whitesnake about 4 times, and the Travis song a couple.  We played Caledonia to start with, but we all knew that anyways as it's very simple and it sounded fine.  Whitesnake was a worry, as we needed vocals for it to be structurally perfect, but we managed.  I found I was playing several wrong chords at that practice, and went home later that night to practice.  Since we played it a semi tone down from the original, I put it into Audacity and transposed the key, so that I could play along to the track in our key of Eb.  After playing along with the song several times, with one earphone for the track in one ear and another earphone for my keyboard in the other, I observed exactly what the keyboard player played and played it along.  I became very confident.  So long as the full band played it exactly as it was played on the track (which they did) I would have no problems with that.
The same happened for Travis.  I realised at practice that my piano melodies were clashing with Owen, so instead of relying on chord charts, I went home and listened to it all again, cross referenced what I heard with Owen's chord chart and learned that too.  Structurally, it sounded fine at rehearsal, so after fixing the part I was playing wrong, I had no problem with it.  I was very confident.

As soon as rehearsal there was finished, I went straight to college for a rehearsal I'd booked for my own band.  Aimee wasn't there, so we went over Mountains, Shout and Candy.

Candy was perfect.  It was fine.  I filled in for Aimee's vocal parts, and we nailed it.  We then moved onto Mountains.  With the addition of my piano instrumental part, it sounded brilliant.  I was originally going to do the harmonies at the start of the song (something we hadn't thought of earlier) but after playing it wrong at practice, I decided to ask Aimee to do it.  If I had more time to practice, I would have, but concentrating on singing in a high register while playing piano, which is the only instrument playing, made me lose concentration on what chords I was playing.  And since it's just piano and vocals at the start, a mistake there would be far too noticeable and throw the whole song off.  We went through sunshine on leith a couple of times even without Aimee, and it sounded very, very good.  Shout was the last thing we focused on, and like the rehearsal the day before, it went very well.  Dave gave us signals o when to stop, and Ryan, Oliver and I focused on getting the chord swap at the end spot on, which we did.  The last verse in the song is VERY difficult on drums, and Kelvin had a tendency to speed it up, so focused on making sure the tempo was kept steady.  After that, we went through every song again until Dave couldn't sing and Kelvin couldn't play (Lulu is a bitch to play on drums, especially in the Drum Room when the boiling sun is shining constantly on your back) then left, each of us looking very much forward to the following night, when we'd be performing.  Before I went to bed, I sent everyone on the Facebook group a good luck message and shared my excitement - I was pleased to see that the rest of the band was as excited and confident as I was for our final group performance exam.

As for how the performance went...

Soundcheck was worrying.  The piano melody at the start of Travis wasn't the same as I'd played the other day, Minton, the drummer in the other band thought, and it threw him off.  It turns out I was just playing it too slow (I know, what?) and after speeding it up it worked fine.  Travis went well.  Whitesnake went fine, and so did Caledonia.  Soundcheck for that band wasn't bad.

Soundcheck for my band, however, was worrying.  Ryan's guitar didn't come through enough on bubbles, and since I wasn't playing the verses (apart from certain bars) it sounded empty.  We beefed the guitar up, though, and it went okay.  We only sound checked two songs, which is standard, but for an exam, annoying - perhaps if we'd sound checked everything, things that went wrong during the performance could have been avoided.

As for the performance itself, I felt it went okay - maybe not as well as we'd played at practices, but it was by no means 'bad'.
For example, Candy felt slow and empty to me for some reason, apart from the end.  I thought this to be a bad thing until someone told me that it really emphasised the build up at the end, which was good.  Sunshine on Leith, however, had me terrified.  At the start, I began playing in 3/4 - which is the time signature the song is in.  I started it slowly, as it's a slow song.  After a few bars of playing I began to get worried.  Aimee hadn't started singing yet.  I was starting to think to say something but she started - on beat 2.  Confused, I adapted and quickly changed my rhythm to suit her odd starting time.   But then I started to get worried again - she was singing in 4/4.  I was playing in 3/4.  The band exchanged nervous looks - was I playing wrong?  Was it her?  I calmed down, thought about it, then realised that I was playing it correctly.  Aimee was just singing everything a beat too late.  It was just Aimee and me - Ryan wasn't in yet, so I began to wonder - will they come in and play it in 4/4 or 3/4?  Because we can't play it in 4/4 after having rehearsed it in 3/4!  I decided to try and bring Aimee into our time by singing the harmonies when they were supposed to be sung - hopefully she would click.  Dave seemed to have the same idea, and after a few terrifying seconds (or what felt like 20 minutes) we were all singing at the same time, in 3/4.  After that, I relaxed and concentrated on my playing.  It wasn't until we played it in the large auditorium that I started to wish I'd done more with the instrumental part - it sounded very empty.  But I wasn't going to risk trying anything fancier when 1) I was sober, 2) The rest of the band hadn't rehearsed me doing anything more, and 3) I was being assessed.  The song seemed to go down very well, and I was very pleased with all of us for the first two songs.  I am beginning to feel the group work - playing, performing and harmonising are definitely my strengths as opposed to solo work.  That is, after all, why I was picked for the music for scotland band.

The second set with the other band went well again, I thought.  Travis was nigh on perfect, apart from the part between the second chorus - since it was unrehearsed with the full band, I was unsure when Charlie's vocals would come in, and hence I played by keys part during the quiet section a beat too late.  Apart from that, it went well.  Whitesnake went pretty much perfectly from my point of view.  I really enjoyed it, but I yearned to put the higher harmonies in over Charlie.  AGAIN, if we had more time to rehearse as a full band, I would have been confident putting the challenging harmonies in, which would have really made the song sound bigger.  Alas, next time...

As for the second set with my band, I was very pleased.  Mountains sounded a little empty again, due to the one lead guitarist, and my chords during the verses made it sound too muddy from where I was sitting, but other than that, it went very well.  Lulu also went very well  - almost.  I couldn't see Aimee for the second stop because Ryan was in the way, and played half a beat too much after they stopped.  While it wasn't disastrously noticeable, and didn't impact the song in any way, if I'd known perfectly when to stop, it would have sounded MUCH tighter.   Also, I did notice Kelvin start to speed up on the final verse, which is very difficult.  However, once the 'And I feel...' part came, I was totally buzzing - it was the end of any performance I'd have to do that night, and it went really, really well.  All in all, I was pleased with the performance, and utterly impressed by every act on the night.

I must say one thing, though - while I felt we played well, after watching some of the other bands, I slowly began to feel that we were one of the weaker ones.  Every single other band blew me away in some respect, be it for harmonies, song choices, performances, anything.


At the end of the day, I was very pleased with the performance night and look forward to receiving feedback from our tutors - which is ALWAYS helpful, critical and useful, no matter the outcome.

Group Performance - Rehearsal 3

Todays rehearsal was fantastic.  I am very, very confident about the performance now.

We whizzed through Candy with ease.  I gave Kelvin the nods when to build up, and it sounded terrific.  Dave sang the end brilliantly, and it is obvious we have all put the work in for this song.  This song needs very little work done on it, rather than brushing up rough edges.

Sunshine on Leith was also fantastic.  It was the first time playing it with Oliver and he had learned it off by heart - I am used to working with him due to Music for Scotland and am very comfortable playing with him.  I think this shows.  Today I added in harmonies to the 'Sorrow' part, and it sounded amazing.  We don't have anyone to play the solos, so I will alternate between playing octaves and thirds for it.  The solo will be reduced dramatically, but the idea is still there.  My only worry about this is forgetting chord sequences if I am not concentrating, as they are all very similar but different.  Also, I need to nod at Aimee for when she's to come in.  Two bars of 3 should be enough, but it shouldn't be a worry...

Mountains was fantastic, too.  I walked in late today (it's taken me two semesters to realise that leaving at normal times during peak time doesn't always insure I'll make it in for 9AM) to the band playing mountains, and I was incredibly pleased.  Everyone had learnt it.  There were no qualms over structure (minus the end, we had to go over it with Dave and myself because the vocals are different) and it went very smoothly.  I joined in, and while it was rough around some of the verses (people getting chord sequences wrong) it worked very, very well.  We just need to practice that at home individually and it will work really well.  Though I do wish we had another guitarist, it sounds slightly empty with only one.  I can fill it out on the piano, but it can sound dirty sometimes, and I really don't want to do that during the prechorus/chorus.  There's a fun and simple instrumental piano part in there which I am glad to have - something to play, alone, in a rock song!

The highlight of the day, though, was Lulu.  My Music For Scotland band don't play that live yet because it's easy to mess up due to the stops, but I instructed Aimee (and Aimee alone) to move her hands or something when the stops come - she knows the song inside out, and if everyone follows her, it can't go wrong.  We were right.  By watching Aimee, we played through the song perfectly, several times.  I requested a bigger gap at the end after the 'And I feel...' part, and after that, the song just gelled.  I am very much looking forward to playing this.  I get to vamp over two chords and sing at the same time, which is...easier than it sounds, actually.  Now that we've practiced it, anyways...

Half way through our rehearsal, I went down to rehearse with Charlie's band.  The performance is in two days and we were yet to have a full band practice.  We only managed to get through Caledonia before Annette and Dot came through.  They gave Charlie advice on how to sing it without worrying about the timing, and then I had to go.  I am slightly concerned about this (also due to the fact that I just found out about key changes to the songs I'd learned the night before) but we have a practice tomorrow.  Hopefully it will go okay...

Group Performance - Rehearsal 2

Today's rehearsal was our first with the whole band.  We had picked the songs 'Candy' by Paolo Nutini, 'Sunshine on Leith' by The Proclaimers, 'Mountains' by Biffy Clyro and 'Shout' by Lulu.

For today, we were each to learn our separate parts.  Apart from a couple of parts (David was unsure of the melody for the last part of Candy and I had to learn the instrumental part for Mountains during practice, for example.) everyone had learnt what they needed to learn, mostly.  However, I feel that we, myself included, should have went a bit further than learning the chords and structure and learnt our in-depth parts back to front.  Since we didn't, we had to sort out some wrong parts in the songs, so next time I will make an effort to learn every single song/part for every instrument like the back of my hand.

Practice today went well.  We nailed Candy, but I will keep giving Kelvin nods when we change parts, because it differs from the CD version (only in the way that the end is shorter).  Structurally, Candy is spot on.  Ryan just needs to learn the proper solo and David needs to become confident with the vocals at the end.  After going through Candy, we went onto Sunshine on Leith.

SOL went well; Ryan and I had a discussion over disputes in the chords we were playing, and Ryan's version was correct, so we changed it there.  There are talks of getting one of the violin players to play the 'solo' heard after each chorus, but I may just play a shortened version on piano.  Today we started focusing on dynamics after Annette came in and sang it with us.  It is amazing how much of a difference the singer's effort into the song can influence the band members.  When Annette starting playing with dynamics, I naturally played up or down to support her, and it not only filled me with more confidence while playing, but it made it sound fantastic.  David and Aimee are to put the same effort they'd put in if they were performing live every time we rehearse it.

Lulu proved a challenge, simply because of the various stops between verses.  I had to explain to Ryan how the chord changes stop/double/half after each verse, and he caught on very quickly.  I feel that was the least practiced song, as everyone but Oliver (when he came in) stopped at different times.  We need to work on this.  Apart from the stops, the song contains 2 chords (apart from the end where an extra A is added) and is very simple.  We agreed simply to learn it properly for next week.

Mountains was a bit different.  We had to stop and go back over that several times, due to conflicts surrounding what happens after the first chorus.  Obviously, we hadn't listened to this one much either.  After settling that, we played through the song, stopping after each chorus (as each is different) until we had them right.  Mountains wasn't very tight at all, but we got the structure learned as a band.  For next week, we need to learn it properly, so that we can come in and just play it.

We went over every song a couple of times after that, until it was time to leave.  After this rehearsal, I was feeling a little worried about the performance.  We need to put in more work.

Group Performance - Rehearsal 1

Today we had our first rehearsal for our group performance exam in May.  We had been given two songs just before the Easter Holidays and had to pick two.  Naturally, we hadn't had a practice until today.  The exam is three weeks away.

My band is comprised of myself on keyboards, Aimee and David on vocals, Ryan on guitar, Oliver on Bass and Kelvin on drums.  The songs we had been given by Annette were Candy by Paolo Nutini and Sunshine on Leith by The Proclaimers.

We started off with Candy, since I know the song like the back of my head due to playing it with Music for Scotland.  Oliver was rehearsing with his other band, so I took lead.

Ryan wasn't there today, so I began to play Candy on the acoustic guitar, since it is a Guitar driven song, and it didn't feel/sound right when I played lead on piano.  We spent roughly 40 minutes-an hour on the song, mostly getting the structure right.  It is simple until after the guitar solo, where everything drops out. I had to spend time counting the bars between where the drums start, build up, and then come in fully.  When I play the song with music for scotland, we go through three lines of "i'll be there waiting for you" before bringing the whole band in; I decided to do the same here, for simplicity's sake.  I nodded at Kelvin when to bring his toms in, and eventually, the whole kit.  After much discussion and playing around, we decided to play the song for a bit longer at the end, to emphasise the build up.  Amy and I will do backing vocals while David sings the main melody.  It sounded strange because he didn't know the song properly, but we nailed the structure so it was a productive practice.  We are to learn the song inside out for next week.

Sunshine on Leith was a bit different.  I jumped back onto the piano for this, as it is a piano driven song.  The chords I had differed from the song.  Again, we focused on the structure, but only after listening to the song countless times.  For now, David and Aimee will be doing the vocals themselves, but I may provide harmonies once I learn it properly.  It seemed to go alright, but again, we need to each learn our individual parts before we can rehearse it effectively.

Oliver came in for the last half hour.  We forgot to tell him about the extra lines at the end, but apart from that, it went well.  Oliver will learn sunshine on leith like the rest of us for next Tuesday.

Once we'd rehearsed, we thought of two other songs to do - Annette picks two songs and we pick two songs, but they must have links to Scotland, for that is the theme of our end of year concert, where we will be performing.  Initially, we picked Mountains by Biffy Clyro and a song by Rod Stewart, but Annette had problems with that.  Aimee suggested we play 'Shout' by Lulu, as she is Scottish, and again, I had played that song in Music for Scotland.  Annette approved of this.

As soon as practice was finished, I spent time on my laptop in the Music Box foyer creating a group on Facebook; Facebook is perfect for social networking, and has been used by every band I've played with, be it outside or inside of college for the past year.  I invited the band members to the group, linked each of our four songs via Youtube and reminded everyone to learn their parts for next week's practice.

The songs have been picked, so Ryan will just have to accept them!

People and Music

In this post, I will be talking about two people; one, a man who I take a lot of inspiration from, "Yes" keyboard player Rick Wakeman, and legendary jazz pianist and composer, Bill Evans.

I have been tasked with comparing my own website with Rick Wakeman's.  I find this to be a trivial task. For example; Rick Wakeman is important enough to have someone design and write his own website for him. I am not.  Rick Wakeman's website is filled with details of his 60+ years of life (every year is accounted for individually in his biography), and is always up to date with his constant solo shows.  I have been in the music 'industry' for less than two years.  I don't gig enough or do regular work to warrant a huge biography.  Though I DID take some inspiration from his website.

For example, instead of having two blogs (one here and one on the 'news' page of my site, it's hardly ever used) I will list any upcoming performances I have coming up.  Since I am not Rick Wakeman, I only have one listed at the moment.  He has about 30.

Rick's Website is rather ugly, and some of the content isn't typed as professionally as you'd think - if he writes things, he does so very informally.  He isn't a teacher.  If he was advertising teaching, he'd have to keep the entire website very formal.  That is what I do (bar the occasional post on the 'News' section of my Website).

As stated in a previous post, there are not a lot of photos available online of me playing.  The ones I have, though, I have tried to put on the website.  As time goes on and my skills improve enough for me to start performing regularly, more photos, news posts and videos will be uploaded.  But just now, there is not enough content available online for me to use effectively on a website.

A link to Wakeman's site can be found here;
http://www.rwcc.com/index.asp

A Musician Who's Career Was Affected by Drugs

Bill Evans, on the other hand, doesn't have a website.  He's dead.  And if he wasn't, he'd probably be too old to be able to work one himself.  The cause of Evans' death is the subject of this half of this post - drug use.

Evans, like many musicians of our time, had a vice.  His was heroin.

Evans was addicted to heroin for most of his adult life.  This not only impacted upon his health, but on his career.  Yes, his career was fantastic.  But his heroin addiction led to terrible living conditions, two failed marriages (one of which tragically resulted in the suicide of his wife) and eventually, his death.  But it also affected his music, in more ways than one.

For example, his failed marriages.  They would obviously upset him.  So he wrote songs about them. Popular songs, like 'How my Heart Sings'.  The emotion felt would be the drive for his soloing; the thing that made him who he was.

The heroin made his solos...fly.  Kurt Cobain was the same (perhaps Kurt took inspiration).  When Kurt was on drugs, the audience could tell because of his playing.  Well this was the same case with Evans.

If Evans ever played live on drugs, his solos would be different.  He would be in another world.  This had its good and bad points; his playing would either be otherworldly good if he was high, or down right terrible.  This affected playing got him work, and lost him work.
It lost him a large part of work.  Although Evans played a lot with Miles Davis, one of jazz's greatest and most renowned names, his drug use got him left out of albums that could have made him even more successful.  While it's true that Evans was Davis' 'favourite pianist', and that he played on the critically acclaimed 'Kind of Blue', Davis went through a phase where he wanted everyone in his band to be 'clean' - without drugs.  Evans was addicted during this phase.  While he did temporarily kick his drug habit and work with Davis again, Evans was removed from Davis' band when he recorded at least two albums.  At least two albums worth of money and work was lost because of Evans' drug habit.

And of course, Evans died early.  He could have went on to become even bigger than he was; a name known to everyone, even those who have no interest in music at all.  But he died due to heroin related health problems.  His life, his career, was cut short.  He became a legend much earlier than he should have been.

Many artists get themselves riddled with drugs due to the stress of their work.  Sometimes they're just offered it and don't stop (it could be seen as an 'industry standard' for famous artists to become addicted to something).  It affects their career, their lives and their families.  Bill Evans life is a textbook case of this.

Wakeman, on the other hand, I have no doubt that after watching videos of him live, that he is on SOMETHING a lot of the time he played with 'Yes'.  But he didn't let it affect him as much as Evans did.  Evans said he had 'confidence issues'.  The heroin probably helped him get past these issues, to make him as successful as he was.  If this is true, Evans was a victim of his own success.

May he rest in peace.

Resources;

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=14599

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bill-evans-p6477

Wilson, John S. "Bill Evans, Jazz Pianist Praised For Lyricism and Structure, Dies; 'In Touch With His Feelings' Trouble With Scales"  September 17, 1980


http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=28148


Handouts given in 'Writing about Music' class.

Project; Tour

One of the primary reasons this blog is written is to document our project work.

I was involved in two projects; the forming of the Glee club, and the Sonic Thrill February tour.

The Glee club seen me play piano for the rehearsals when needed, organise a band for one of the performances, lead and then play with said band at the Christmas concert.  

All of the above was accomplished, though I feel I should have got more into the Zoho side of things.

Zoho


Zoho is a website based tool used for planning/carrying out projects.  It has several, very useful features for ensuring everyone works together as a group.
Without it, we would have probably used Facebook.  But not everyone uses Facebook.  Zoho was useful for its milestone and task applications.  Using Zoho, you can set different tasks and milestones for individuals or the band as a whole to accomplish by a set time.  For example, I could give Nic the job of booking a venue for the 24th of March.  If it go to the 24th of March and he hadn't marked the task down as 'done' in the Zoho main page, we would each begin to receive emails telling us that this task hasn't been done in time, and that it should be done asap.  You can choose for it to send you emails daily to remind you, so if you're putting the work in, there is no excuse for you not to have done what you were told to do by Zoho.  Zoho is a tool that allows a band/group/business to do something without the risk of one person doing everything.  If you are set to do something, Zoho will let you know via email, text, Facebook message, anything (if you know how to work the complicated preferences menu).
One little feature I liked about it was the little gauge at the side of the screen that measures how much of your project has been accomplished.  The more green this little gauge is, the more work you've done.  When it is fully green, everything has been done.  I must say, it was rather satisfying seeing the little red gauge get more and more green as time went on, letting me know that everyone was doing their part.

Though like most tools (which is what Zoho basically is: A complicated tool), Zoho has its ups and downs.  Its advantages are that IF you use it well, it can keep you up to date and make sure you don't miss any important deadlines.  We all had our individual tasks on it, but some of us did things assigned to other people anyway; while it's useful, it is difficult to get to grips with.  We didn't use it as much as we could have, and certainly didn't use it as in depth as we could have.  But as Annette said, this year was just to help us get used to it.  We've been told that Zoho is important for next year, not this.  We'll see.

The Glee club still runs, but we're needing an extra recruitment boost for future performances; something we're working on now.

The project that gave me the most work, however, and that was more valuable in terms of experience gained was the Sonic Thrill Feb 2011 Scottish tour.  

And that, I feel, was a great success.

To start off, we each worked toward the same goal; tightening, solidifying and then recording the songs we had.  Booking practices was a shared venture.  We each did that.

After that, individual roles were given; Nic booked gigs, Matt booked van hire, I booked accommodation, Hannah booked train times, Kieran did promoting and bus travel, etc.  There were some minor hitches along the way such as some tickets not being valid, meaning we had to spend more, etc...but in general, the tour was a huge success.

I will say this, though; it was very, very costly.  I didn't expect us to make a profit from the EPs and touring just yet.  I expected to pay and in return, receive lessons for future career moves, live performance experience, and a hint about what life as a musician can be like.

And I must say, I learnt all of the above, and some.  For a start, we learnt the importance of organisation.  When bands read the Gig information for bands pages we'd made on Facebook, there were no issues; bands knew who was bringing what gear, who was using what, and what time soundcheck, etc, was.
When a band turned up an hour late without a guitar amp or their own snare drums, it was obvious they hand't taken the time to research the info we had sent them.
There was even a case where, at an over 18s gig only, we'd sent a message to all of the bands confirming that they were all of age and that they would bring ID if there looked like there would be any doubt.
One band was half underage, the other forgot to bring ID.  The result was that the lineup was shifted around so that one band could play and then leave, and Nic, who promoted the gig, received hails of abuse from the venue staff.

When bands read the information, however, everything went perfectly.  There was an understanding of who used what, and the nights became a lot more enjoyable.

We felt let down by some of the independent promoters, however (Nic promoted most of the gigs bar a couple).  We had sent flyers and posters to all the venues for them to display. A couple didn't bother.  We even found one of the opened envelopes under the sound desk one night, full of all of the posters we'd paid to send.

In most cases, everything was good.  We mixed with other bands, made friends, had a few drinks and then played music, which everyone seemed to enjoy.  In the venues where we had a decent audience, at least.  A couple of gigs on the tour may as well have been an open band practice.  In such a case, though, we tried other ideas in songs, seeing what worked and what didn't.  There wasn't really a 'bad' gig on tour.

We sold quite a bit or mercy too, especially at Electric Circus, in Edinburgh.  There were even people who flew from Germany just to see us.  They were given CDs for free.

As well as learning the importance of promoting, we learnt the importance of communicating as a band.  The tour was spent with us crammed together in the van (or a bus/train in certain circumstances) so there was plenty of time for us to bond.

"I think tonight we should skip this 5/4 part out and go straight into the bridge"
"We should try this part differently tonight."
"That's a terrible idea.  Shut up."

Many bands are scared to voice their opinions on songs, but touring and playing as much helped us start to get more comfortable around each other when discussing our songs.

I personally also learnt a lot about how I want my keyboard set up.  I was able to tell the soundtechs my specifications, and in some cases, provided my own back line amp as a monitor, which they appreciated.  They were also impressed by my use of MIDI on what would normally be a standard stage keyboard.  Which, to be fair, is very simple, but if others don't know that...

After every gig, we always took time to chat with the sound tech and were always thankful, no matter the sound.  I think they appreciated this.

Touring was an experience, and I probably haven't described it half as well as I could have.   Because of it, we were given a gig at King Tuts, one of Scotland's most popular venues, and our fan base is growing more rapidly since it.  Touring is what an independent musician needs to do to get themselves out there.  You need to spend money to make money.  People don't get this.
From this project, I have learned a substantial amount, about both gigging and myself as a musician.  There is still project work left to do for Glee, I believe, but if this is what my HND1 project has been, I can't wait to see what HND2 brings.

Now I need to begin work on my final exam pieces.  Fantastic.

Irony.

My first post here said 'I have nothing to do.  Nothing to practice.'
Now I've far too much to do and no time to practice it.

Touring, work, college, band rehearsals.  They all make my free time in the next two weeks basically non existent.  I have no time to practice for;

Exams, Music for Scotland, Improvisation, any class in college ever.  Once I'm free to practice again, I'll get myself set into a strict practice regime, using the 'Perfect Practice' strategy, found on this wonderful website I found; http://pianoaddict.com/

A fantastic site.  If you're a keyboard player, you should treat it as your second Bible.  Because your first Bible should be the Holy Bible.

Aye.

My Website...again.

I have discussed this before, but I have a website (which is still very much under construction, moreso due to Weebly (the host site) being a pain to use.  Really, I can spend half an hour setting up certain tabs or photo pages and 80% of the time it erases all the work I did when I click the 'Publish and Save' button.

But anyways, as with any website, there are various legal ramifications one has to consider when setting up a website, be it through Weebly or elsewhere.  

For example; photographs.  Some professional photographers do not allow people to upload photos taken by them to their Facebook/websites.  I was lucky, as there aren't many photos of me on the internet, and I only ever take photos from my own phone or my Facebook page, meaning they're allowed to be used anyways.  If I was to have a professional photographer take photos of me playing at a gig, for instance, the chances are I would have to ask his permission/buy the photo before being able to publicly put it on my website.  Normally for Facebook, no charges apply, but I did my research and discovered that since this website of mines promotes business, I'd be using his photo for potential financial gain, meaning I'd have to pay him and have his or her permission to use it for my site.
Another thing to take into consideration when hosting photos online is that if there are others in a photo you uploaded, who did not consent to having their photo online, they can seek legal action against you. This means either getting permission from anyone who may be in the photograph, gambling that they 'won't see it or care' or not putting it up at all.  Depending on the circumstance, though, some thing are more lenient than others.  For example, if you're at a gig and someone asks you for a photo with them, there is a very small chance that they will mind you posting a picture online.
Similar to pictures is information.  If a fan wants a photo of you with them, and you put the caption to the online photo to be "Samantha - Age 18, Galashiels" that is a breach of privacy.  Information like that being put up without Samantha's consent can get any website host/designer in trouble - it makes it easy for possible predators to locate her.  A legal rule of the internet is that you, a third party, cannot openly share the personal information of others with the general public.  That is why Facebook doesn't let you export your friends list to other people.

There are actually no videos of me online, so I didn't have to worry about videos, which unless taken from Youtube, have stricter restrictions on websites than photos (for example, you can't upload videos to Weebly unless you have a paid account; this is for legal reasons).  

Perhaps the most obvious thing to take into consideration is copyright of music and/or website names.  A website with a name too similar to one that already exists is subject to legal action of the original website and it's lawyers.  And if you host music on your website that isn't yours, without contacting the Copyright holder, there is a high possibility that legal action may be taken on you.  Especially if you claim that the music is yours, when it isn't.  

Many people create fan sites, or include fan site work in their own websites. Most of those are actually illegal.  Calling yourself someone else online is again, punishable by law.  It's just not often you hear about people getting prosecuted for it, because "everyone" does it.

The website can be found here;

jhopemusician@weebly.com

As I said, I make changes to it often, but Weebly doesn't seem to like me.

Resources;


http://www.brightlabs.com.au/page/Web-Design-Blog/Social_Media_and_Legal_Implications/


News Scientist, 2011 issue.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19284_5-seemingly-innocent-ways-you-risk-your-identity-every-day.html


http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-without-even-realizing-it.html

Semester 2: A fresh start. A confident start.

Semester 1 was a funny one.  For a start, I finally realised I wasn't the only keyboard player in the course, be it HND1, HND or even the DFM year.  I realised that I had to start working.

Last year, my feeling was that I had nothing to worry about.  I was the only keyboard player in DFM.  Bands who wanted a keyboard player had no choice but to ask me to play for them, and I happily did.  The amount of experience I gained last year was phenomenal;

I played more genres than I ever thought I'd play,
I gained more performance experience than I'd ever had before,
I gained a certain degree of confidence,
I gained a certain degree of competence when it came to recording and setting/gearing up for performances.

I began the year working at Grade 4 theory, requested to be transferred to Grade 5 two weeks before the exam and received a 94% mark after two weeks of solid work at it.

I jumped from playing Grade 5 pieces (my audition) to Grade 7 pieces (my final exam) without practicing all the 'recommended' work in-between.

The latter of which, I found unbelievable.  I went from playing Grade 5 pieces at a Pass level to playing Grade 7 pieces at Merit level.  I achieved an overall distinction for my work over the entire year.  As a musician, I progressed more than I ever thought I would in my first year at college.

That was last year, though.  This post is about this year.  And this year, for my first semester?

I was a lazy bastard.  For the first two months of the course, I still lived in Hawick, which meant regular travel (2.5 hours from home to college, each way) was my most common option.  It destroyed my will to attend.  It destroyed my will to work (who wants to practice after being at college for 4 hours and travelling for 6 hours in a single day?).  The only thing I felt improving was my theory knowledge. I was making a start on the jump from Grade 5 theory to Grade 7.

I will admit that I didn't do half the work I could have in the first semester, especially during our performance blocks.  Not to say I wasn't busy; I had pieces to learn for group performance classes, Glee club, my solo classes, new band work, etc...I got through them all, just not as well as I could have.

I then joined Sonic Thrill, a band comprised of people from inside and outside college.  The musicians in this band are phenomenal.  Playing a few gigs with them not only gave me more valuable live performance experience (I can now speak to a sound man confidently about how I want sound, along with how my keyboard setup can best be used) but playing with them made me want to be able to play as well as they did.  That was the start of my inspiration.

Inspiration; I'll stop there.  I think that's the main word I should use to describe Semester 1.  It gave me the inspiration to start doing that work I'm doing now in Semester 2.

I mentioned at the start of this post, other keyboard players, in my year and the year above.  I decided to speak to them all, even if I didn't know them.  Each one of them has more technical ability than myself on the keyboard.  I know this, I have heard all of them play off the bat.  They can improvise and make it sound good on the spot.  I can't.  But I asked them questions.  I may have got jealous and worried when our performance groups (our year and the year above) were merged meaning we'd be playing with more experienced players at the start, but I soon saw past that.  I saw it as an opportunity to learn and then challenge myself.  Which I have now done.  Every one of the fantastic keyboard players in the years/levels surrounding mine, be it above or below, I have questioned and learned from.  And I now do not find myself nervous playing in front of other keyboard players - last year I was the only one, so I didn't have to worry about people hearing my keyboard related mistakes.

Of course when talking about keyboard players, I should mention my new teacher, Steve Grossart.  Steve is a fantastic teacher.  From the way he talks and explains things to the way he plays, I leave every lesson inspired, with an optimistic buzz.

Steve is fluent in every genre, from classical to blues to jazz.  I can play the start of ANYTHING, be it a Bach Prelude, a melody from a less known blues track or a even just simple chord progression played to a certain rhythm, and he will say "oh, that is this, isn't it?" and play it through.  Like most piano teachers, he uses it as an opportunity to show off ["or you could play it like THIS..."], but that's what excites me.  It makes me think "I will can play that soon."  He was happy with my Merit reward for my Grade 8 piece two weeks ago; he now aims to bring my final performance mark up to a Distinction.

Which brings me to the main point of this post; work.  Last Semester I was sloppy.  This semester, I am letting no such thing happen.

I started the semester, as I said, achieving a Merit in my Grade 8 solo keyboard piece.  I am over the moon with this.  Last year at this time the very thought of performing a Grade 8 piece made me feel sick.  Now I have learnt that with the work, I will be able to play almost anything [note: anything is a strong word.  Not anything.]

The pieces I have chosen for my final exam are difficult pieces.  Stupidly quick ragtime, overly complicated pieces in 9/8 with a separate 4/4 swing section, more complicated Jazz pieces...it's daunting thinking that I have only two months to perfect them.

But I am confident.  Because for the past week now, since timetables have returned to normal, I have been practicing at least two hours a day.  Receiving such a good mark with my Grade 8 piece has made me realise that I can do anything I want, providing I put the work in.

For example, improvisation will always be a struggle to me.  My solution?  Buy a Jazz piano book written by one of history's most esteemed Jazz pianists, rent out books on improvisation from the college library and destroy all music saved on my phone so that it can be replaced by jazz songs.  Then transpose a selected few of said jazz songs.
And then practice my theory next to the piano; playing through every chord, every scale in every key.  Every night, before I even think about playing tunes.  If I do this, by March, hopefully myself and my tutors will see a huge improvement in my performing.

I have a lot of work to do.  And rather than spending my time blogging, I should be playing.  Expect more updates in future.

o/