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!
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