Here is a practise diary of the various parts that I was rehearsing during the week prior to our performance-
Tuesday:
With there only being a week left until the final performance, I focused my practise more around the tricky parts of each song, rather than specifically my instrumental technique.
Today I was practicing the guitar riff in ‘Master Blaster’ as this small section proves to be quite awkward to play fluently. There is two variations of this riff, so I spent a good length of time perfecting both.
After practising this for the day, I feel as though I had more or less nailed it to a professional standard. I will continue practicing this throughout the week of course, but good progress has been made. The rest of this song is straightforward, and I haven’t had any other trouble with it.
Wednesday:
Today I was practising the songs ‘Lost in Music’ and ‘Notorious.’ As a band we have decied to medley these two songs, so the focus of my practice today was transitioning straight from one song to the other fluently. Something else to note as well is that I bring in both of these tracks, so keeping the tempo accurate for each song was a crucial focal point of my practise today.
I ran through this transition several times until I was eventually happy with the standard I got it to. It isn’t a particularly difficult changeover as both songs are in the same key, therfore they medley well together. Once I had the tempo of each track nice and solid consistently, I felt much more comfortable going straight into the next.
Thursday:
Today I will be running the main riff from ‘Cosmic Girl.’ Currently I have struggled with playing the chords ao rapidly for such a long duration of time, so I plan on building up my stamina as much as I can by playing this riff consistently. Another struggle I had with this was that I was constatly loosing grip of my plectrum, and often dropped it. I’ve already trie using a variety of different guitar picks, however I think this is more down to controlling my rhythm hand as this didnt make much of a difference.
After basically just running these chords over and over I eventlually maintained grip of my guitar pick, and became a little less stiff in my rhythm hand which I think added to the fucky rhythm of the song. As for stamina I can now get through the wole song twice consecutively, however my arm does start to get tired midway through the second time. This is fine though as obviously this is only beng played once!
Friday:
I haven’t had much of an opportunity to practise today as I have been our all day, and had one of my own gigs in the evening. I have however managed to run through the whole set once, although I didn’t get this on video. I managed to pull up on the final few sections of the set list that need developing on before next tuesday, and over the weekend I can focus my practise aorund this. The two songs I need to work on the most are:
- Human – Rag ‘n’ Bone Man
- Never Too Much – Luther Vandross
Aside from this the rest of the set is fine, I nailed my improvisational sections in previous weeks, and I already have a good feel for improv work already as I do this on a very regualr basis.
One more this to do is to just work on the tone of my amplifier for each song. While it sounds fine for the set as it is, I feel as though I could play around with the settings on it and try to get a suitable sound out of both the clean and distorted channels.
Saturday:
Going off of my targets from yesterday, today I am practising the song ‘Never Too Much.’ The thing that I need to work on here is the staccato funky guitar fills that are in the into section of the song. This section is all about timing and feel as I dont want to overcroud the sound of the piece.
I am pleased with the progress that I have made today, I feel as though I have a better perception of how to time my notes and fills on this song, and I also feel more relaxed playing in this funky kind of style.
Sunday:
Today I just want to increae my fluency playing ‘Human.’ This is the first song of the set list I learned, and found it incredibly easy to play. Because of this however, I have neglected to practise it as much as the other songs, and I want to get the feeling right on the staccato lines in the verse. These are only really short, single note sections, but can make a big impact on the overall texture of the piece. I also need to go over the bridge section a couple of times and just tighten that up.
Although this for me is possibly the easiest song to perform, I am really glad I covered it in more detail as I think it is now up to the more professional standard of the rest of our set.
Monday:
Today I plan on running through the set list a few times and just generally make sure I’m performing to a professional standard. I also want to have a look at my amplifier settings, and see if I can improve upon my tome at all.
Tuesday:
Today is gig day, so I’m not going to be going overboard with peractising as sometimes I feel it can throw you off if you overpractise on the gig day, but maybe thats just me.
I ran the set once alone and then once with the band before the gig, and both went superbly well. Now it’s just time to do it again live!