Performance

Introduction

For this project, I was part of a group of six others that decided to form a funk band. We decide to pick 4 classic funk songs and to each learn our parts in order to come together in practice sessions so as to maximise our productivity in the rehearsal slots. We decided to take this approach as in a professional environment, musicians would be expected to take their own responsibility for the instrumental parts as well as to use time to the maximum as time equals money in the professional music field.

Instrumentation

For this project I was tasked with transposing and learning the saxophone parts of a song. A challenge I faced with this was that for some of the song sI needed to cover other pats of music for example string sections. The rest of our band was made up of Lars on kit, Cain on bass, Blake on keys, Sonny and Jensen on guitars and Leah as a vocalist.

Here is a rather dashing shot of me playing the saxophone at the final performance.

Set list

Here is the sheet music that I was using for young hearts run free, the only part we changed for the structure of this was the ending as after the sax break we played two choruses and then finished on the introduction riff. This differs to the original song where it fades out after multiple choruses.

  

Here is the sheet music I was using for superstition, this song was relatively easy to put together. The main point of discussion was the ending in which we went from a fade out ending to a sharper ending for the final cut.

Here is the sheet music that I used for rehab. It was an interesting piece to play as the verse and chorus parts for myself were contrasting as in the verse I was doing short stabs compared with the chorus where I held on the notes.

Here is my final transcription of uptown funk. It was a challenge for me transcribe a song by ear but one I enjoyed doing. I originally started by playing nothing in the verse of pre chorus section and only the main riff in the chorus, however as I became more confident within the band I started the double with the bass on the main instrumental riff as well as playing the oooos that would usually be sung by the backing vocals in the pre chorus.  Overall this piece was probably the funnest to play as the energy of the piece is incredible and by the time it came to the final performance it sounded very tight.

Stage set up and presentation

In order to understand how we acted when we were on stage, our tutor suggested an exercise which consisted of us miming with our instruments to a backing track in our stage set up. Although this was very amusing at first, it made me focus profoundly on what I was doing. Below is a video of us miming to young hearts run free. A challenging part of this was that I was not used to playing with my back to most of the band including the rhythm section and therefore my community with the band was very limited. This prepared me for our final performance as it allowed me to understand different methods of communication as well as to how to act when and when not playing.

http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16792~5m~eYAzXhcxPd

A key part of our bands presentation was our dress code. We decided that we would all suit up and look smart for the final performance as wearing smart clothes makes a person feel more confident in my experiences.

Originally I was relying on sheet music as a back up, however this looked unprofessional on stage and meant that I needed to look down at my shoes which was not very engaging, therefore I made it my priority to learn all of my parts before the final performance.

Here is a picture of us during the soundcheck.

Above is a video of funk and soul legend James Brown playing his hit I feel good. As you can see his band are all suited up and look and sound incredibly sharp. James Brown has so much energy on stage that it becomes infectious which is what he was famed for, being an incredible performer. The saxophonist is very modest especially when in his solo. I have found that people act very different when soloing across genres and depending on their personality, for example in Jazz, soloing is a huge part of the genre’s identity meaning that it becomes quite a regular occurrence compared to a rock band where a solo is more treasured opportunity.

 

Practice Sessions

Although we did lots of practices in the run up to our final performance, we only filmed two of them. Hopefully you can see the progression we made throughout the project.

Rehearsal 1

Part 1 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16793~5n~GLQbHgnSm3

Part 2 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16794~5o~hmeArfzfK5

Part 3 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16795~5p~JaucbfKBgU

For the first rehearsal we filmed, we were without Jensen on guitar and Lars was using an electric drum kit. Although we performed to a decent standard, I felt that this practice was lacking energy and still needed to be tightened up in some areas. This included my playing on uptown funk, where the riff for the chorus could have been tighter, as well as some of the timing on the other songs. My solo in young hearts was some wild improvisation which wasn’t great looking back at it, but was part of just trying to boost the performance. Stage presence and my participation in rehearsals was something I looked at in quite a lot of detail throughout the project as I wanted to put as much positive energy into the process as I could.

Rehearsal 2

Part 1 -http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16784~5n~GLQbHgnRm4

Part 2 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16786~5p~JaucbfKAgV

Part 3 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16787~5q~jKJNMqVVEX

Part4  – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16788~5r~Lx8dwpg6bN

Part 5 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16789~5s~m8nPgorrzP

Our 2nd filmed rehearsal sounded a lot better in my opinion, especially with the addition of the full drum kit. The main areas we worked on throughout this process was the structure especially beginning and endings as we felt it was very important to start and end a piece as best as possible. There was a great energy in our band during this project and everyone trusted each other with their parts as well as there being simple discussions when problems arose to overcome them. For example with the structure of superstition, we adapted this throughout the process as can be heard in our rehearsal here.

Performance

Mock –

Part 1 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16776~5o~hmeArfzdK7

Part 2 -http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16781~5k~cAWxC7GZUm

As I have previously stated, a main part of my mock performance that I changed for the final performance was memorising the songs hence allowing me to perform without sheet music. Listening back to the recording my intonation needs some work as although I’m in tune most of the way through I could work at improving my technique and therefore the overall sound quality for the future. I thought that our stage presence for the mock performance was to a very good standard, and that we all looked smart. Overall I think the mix sounded decent and my solo in young hearts wasn’t too bad.

Final performance-

Part 1 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16790~5k~cAWxC7H0Ul

Part 2 – http://estream.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/View.aspx?id=16791~5l~EnkXm6Snrb

Listening to the final performance I believe that I was slightly out of tunes which is very disappointing to here. I was very rushed for setting up my saxophone before the gig, and therefore next time I perform I will allocate myself a larger amount of time to set up. Aside from this I was proud of how I performed as an individual and how we performed as a band. I ran into no issues when performing without sheet music, I kept excellent timing, my solo in young hearts was to a good standard and overall I think we performed a good set. I would love to use a clip on microphone in the future with the saxophone when performing on stage as I felt that I was very restricted when it came to movement due to me having to face the dynamic microphone in front of me.