Dineo’s E.P
In February half term, Dineo emailed me to in order to hire me to play piano on her E.P.
This consisted of 3 songs, Feel it, Tears and I am Here.
After I had agreed to play piano on her EP, Dineo emailed me a pdf score for each 3 of the songs as well as a rough recording of each song. These files can be seen below.
Feel it –
Feel it was a song that Dineo asked me to make up a melody for, however after listening to the recording that she had sent me and playing it in a rehearsal, I brought up my opinion that I didn’t feel that I was adding anything but clutter as there was already the main vocal melody, backing vocals and Jordan doing fills on the guitar. After discussing this in the rehearsal, Jordan suggested that we should try the song with me playing the chords. I agreed and we had a go through the song, I thought it sounded better with me on the chords and everyone also held that opinion. This was the day before the live at the hive video in which we were only performing feel it, therefore it was hugely important to establish my part within the band. I did a lo of practice on the Monday evening to the backing track which gave me a lot more confidence to play on the song the following day. I felt proud of myself for speaking up, as I am usually quite shy in group situations with raising concerns and this led me to feeling more empowered and confident within the band.
Tears –
Tears featured a lovely little intro on the piano, this was relatively easy to get up to speed and the rest of the song wasn’t too challenging. Overall, we din’t have too many problems when practicing this song.
I am here –
I am here was by far the hardest song for me to play on this EP. Technically, I was fine with most of the playing however I wasn’t used to constantly playing arpeggios in this way so as to support a singer. It was definitely a very interesting song to play overall and opened my eyes to a new style of playing. There were a few parts that were slightly trickier in terms of fingering and I did my best to focus on these by using a metronome and slowing the parts down before building them back up to the required speed. I am here is my favourite song out of these three as I think I appreciate the writing much more having played it first hand.
Practicing the songs
As two of the songs were being played by the full band and one was me accompanying Dineo, I needed to do a range of group rehearsals as well as some individual practice.
When I received the audio and musical files from Dineo, I printed out the sheet music and preliminarily listened to the tracks. I attempted to play along with the backing tracks, however initially I was making a lot of mistakes as the music was quite fiddly. As I now knew what the tracks were supposed to sound like, I put a metronome on to act as a guide and slowed it down so as to deal with difficult sections such as the introduction in tears and I am here. I normally practice with a metronome on beats 2 and 4 as I usually focus on music in a swing style and therefore as I was playing straight music and needed to play to a click track in the studio, I changed the metronome to being on all four beats. It took some adjustment in getting used to, however it allowed me to strengthen my timing on the tracks and slowly build them up to the required speed.
Before going into the studio, we had multiple rehearsals as a band and with just me and Dineo. As I am here featured just me and Dineo, it was really important that my timing was on point as well as my accuracy as Dineo was relying on me to be the backbone of the song.
Live at the Hive – Tuesday 19th March
On the morning of Tuesday 19th March, I as part of Dineo’s band went to St Mark’s church in Leeds to record a live music video of the song Feel It. It was a beautiful place as can be seen by the pictures below.
The video shows the first mix of the video at live of the hive which consisted of a live performance of the song feel it.
The live video recording process consisted of us first setting up and plugging into an audio interface, I had brought my amp along with me as well as my keyboard as I wasn’t sure wether we’d be micing that up and into the mix, however we used this instead as a monitor for myself , so that I could hear what I was playing.
We did around three to four takes, mostly in order to get enough video footage as we did a great run through on our 2nd attempt. We were then free to pack down and the whole experience lasted about two hours between 10am and midday. Overall, I thought that the recording went really well and it was an interesting process to be a part of. My only criticism, was that I looked a bit out of place even though I had followed the dress code and maybe I should have asked other people what they wearing as I look a bit out of place. Dineo had asked us to wear black, white and brown for the recording and I wasn’t expecting everyone to be wearing black shirts, however it’s been and gone and I will try to learn from this for the live performance.
Recording in the Studio
Dineo had booked a five day recording and mixing process which would take place at Loom studios in Birstall. The time slot for the recording sessions were 6pm till 2am.
The structure of the recording process was to record the bass and drums on the Tuesday, the piano and guitar on the Thursday and the lead vocals and backing vocals on the Friday. Overall I was needed for two recording sessions so as to help lay down guide tracks for the drums and bass as I was playing the main rhythm of the songs.
- Tuesday 19th March
We arrived at Loom studios at around 5.30pm on Tuesday, in order to set up in good time to record. The drum kit was the first instrument being recorded and it took about 45 minutes for the sound engineer to set up the pro tools document as well as the drum microphones and assess the levels.
Guide Tracks
The first song that Taylor recorded was Feel it which starts off with 4 bars of piano, therefore I was required to play the intro as well as the rest of the song to a click in order to set down some guide tracks. We did this initial recording as a full band and then the drums were taken out and re recorded with more focus applied to the process.
After Taylor was happy with the first recording, we moved on to the second song which was Tears. Taylor did some incredible takes in that session and I believe it was his second attempt that they used for the final mix.
Tears also includes a four bar piano intro and is very piano heavy therefore we did a similar thing when recording the guide tracks. As we recorded to a click with the full band and then the drum tracks were rerecorded and tailored until they were perfect.
Due to Taylor’s proficient skills on the drums, both tracks were recorded within around and hour and therefore we moved onto the recording of the bass.
The bassist, Adam, was using the same guide tracks that Taylor was using and therefore I had quite a lengthy break. Adam also finished his tracks after about an hour which meant that we had around 4 hours left of unprecedented studio time.
Tears
We therefore decided that it would be good for me to use this time to record both Feel it and Tears. I was using a midi keyboard in the studio as Dineo wanted a grand piano sound. Unfortunately,they didn’t have a sustain pedal and the keyboard had an unfamiliar feel, however I overcame these minor obstacles to record a semi decent 3rd take of the song Tears. The sound engineer, Steve, then added sustain to the parts that it needed under my instruction, as well as adjusting the velocity and altering any wrong notes or slight off timings. This part really tested me as I needed to know the songs inside out in order to comment which parts sounded slightly wrong and what would be the best way to resolve them. Thankfully , I had spent enough time rehearsing the songs to know the chord structures inside out as well as any build ups or melodic parts and therefore was able to be on hand with some useful information. After about 45 minutes we had created a take of Tears that I was very happy with, so we moved on to feel it.
Feel It
The process for recording feel it was very similar to that of tears in that I got it finished in a similar amount of time. I did two takes of feel it which sounded slightly off in the bridge part to mine and the bands confusion. It turned out that I was playing a wrong chord and therefore I corrected myself and delivered a good 3rd take. Feel it didn’t have a fiddly intro like Tears and was mainly made up of straight chords, therefore it wasn’t too hard to edit and perform. We finished feel it in a similar time to Tears, but decided against doing I am here as well as me and Dineo still wanted to practice it a bit before Thursday. As there was still a couple of hours left, Jordan decided to try and record his guitar parts, however his guitar battery sadly died and therefore we decided to call it a night.
- Thursday 21st March
On Thursday 21st, we returned to record feel it and the remaining parts of the other two songs. I am here is the hardest piece for me to play on the E.P as it involves some very fiddly parts. Dineo had also expressed that it was her strong favourite and therefore I was slightly nervous and felt very pressured going in.
Overall it took slightly longer to record and edit than feel it and tears however I felt that I recorded quite well given the circumstances. This time , I had brought my sustain pedal and therefore felt more confident when playing as it felt more natural to play the song in that way. Although I did a good overall take, I needed to go back and replay certain sections so as to improve the fluidity of it. It helped massively that I had been practicing it with a metronome as I felt confident going into it and overall , I think it improved the consistency in my playing. We finished the whole recording an editing process after about 2 hours and after wards I was free to go. Below is my evaluation of the recording process.
Photos
Here are a couple of photos from me in the studio, unfortunately I didn’t take too many but my face is an accurate representative of the whole experience.
Evaluation of the E.P recording and rehearsal process
I am here – E.P
Here is a link to Dineo’s website where you can listen to the full EP.
EP Reaction
Recording an EP as a part of a band was a great opportunity as it allowed me to see and understand the required procedure for rehearsing and recording in a studio. The band consisted of a mixture of degree students and therefore , I felt privileged to be able to play with and learn from them. I made a lot of connections from this process for future music projects and I now have a much better understanding of some of the groundwork required to take on a similar project with my own music in the future. Having recordings of my own playing available to a professional standard and on professional platforms is a great way of advertising myself as a musician and has already led to a number of interested future collaborators. If session music is a career that I continue to follow after this project, then I will have already started my portfolio successfully and will have the confidence in my own playing going into future projects.
Performance
Dineo had organised an E.P release to happen at oporto bar in Leeds on the 22nd April. Initially this was really exciting, however by week 5 I had become really bogged down with work and wanted to commit myself to my own project and the Led Zep band so sadly I had to take a step back and decide wether I could commit to Dineo’s performance. After quite a lot of thought, I decided that if I was going to carry on with Dineo’s band, then I wouldn’t be able to fully commit my practice and my mind to the project as I just had way too much to cover. I therefore decided to message Dineo to tell her this and she said that she was disappointed but understood my situation. I was worried that Dineo wouldn’t be able to find a pianist to replace me, which would negatively impact her project. Therefore I decided to ask a friend of mine who is a great pianist, if he would cover for me and luckily he accepted.
Overall I am slightly disappointed that I didn’t get to perform with Dineo as I really enjoyed the whole EP process and loved playing with the band, however I am really excited about my other projects going on and looking forward to putting added my enthusiasm and work ethic from this project into those.