Music Project 1: Live Music Performance For Charity
My name is Harry Farrar and I am a level 2 music student at Bradford College. My project is to perform in a live music event in the hope of raising money for the ‘Lost Chord’ charity organisation that invests money into people with dementia. Primarily, the charity uses interactive musical stimuli hoping to increase things such as self-esteem & general awareness. This charity will be the one we are donating to because the second year students here at Bradford College chose this charity. Some have been personally affected by the terrible conditions of dementia; therefor feel like a contribution to this charity is necessary. This particular project involves many things. For example, I have to rehearse and plan music with my band members. I have to learn the music to a good standard, preferably good enough to impress everybody in the audience.
Personally, I believe the important elements of a live music performance are; a good stage presence, good instrumental synchronisation (playing in time with each other), enjoying the music you’re playing and giving the crowd a great performance.
venue manager
Venue managers are responsible for the bookings of a venue or venue centre. The competitive market for venues, particularly in large cities, means that the venue manager is also involved in getting individuals and performance organisations to use the venue.
Live Sound Technician
A sound technician at a live gig is in charge of multiple things at once – they balance the levels of all the instruments on stage to find the correct blend and make sure that the sound is not only well balanced, but also matches the desires of the band and their respective audience. They’re also in charge of making sure the monitors work correctly, which is key because it’s the monitors that allow the band to hear themselves, and therefore stay in time and in key with one another.
Lighting Technician
Lighting tech’s are in charge of the placement, movement and usage of lighting equipment. Lighting Technicians may also lay electrical cables, wire fixtures, install colour effects or image patterns, focus the lights, and assist in creating effects or programming sequences.
I have attended two performances during my time here at Bradford College. Firstly, I attended a classical piano recital in the Henry Mitchell Hall performed by Mason Greenwood. This performance was very successful because firstly, the audience enjoyed it. Secondly, Mason performed amazingly making no noticeable mistakes. He also enjoyed the music he was performing and he performed it beautifully. The second performance I attended was a charity concert for the Manchester bombings, which was held in the Bradford College car park. This was also successful for some of the same reasons and the performance previously mentioned. The performers all played their sets successfully, again with no noticeable mistakes. This concert was outdoors however, so the audience was capable of a much greater size; which eventually happened.
My band chose 4 of our 5 selected songs, which were played at our gig. Those songs were; ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy, ‘Where is the love?’ by The Black Eyed Peas, ‘All Along The Watchtower’ by Jimi Hendrix, ‘Ms Jackson’ by Outkast and ‘7 Nation Army’ by The White Stripes. We chose to do Riptide because it was an easy song to learn in the time we were given. Also, our vocalist Lea already knew the song, which was very beneficial for the group. We chose where is the love because the theme of the son is very charitable which relates to what our concert was all about. We chose 7-nation army because it is a very catchy and noticeable song, which the crowd will most likely recognise in comparison to our other selected songs. Our tutor chose our 5th and final song, Ms Jackson. To my surprise, all 5 songs worked fairly well within our ensemble. We started off with Riptide, as it was our strongest track. Then we went on to where is the love as that was our 2nd strongest track. Also, we wanted to remind the audience fairly soon just why we were performing on that stage. Which is why we chose to play a charitable song second. The third song we performed was all along the watchtower. This song is very rock oriented and was a real mood changer. It is quite up beat and is very catchy. The 4th song we played was Ms Jackson. We played this song 4th because it was a challenge for all of us in the group. We played it 4th because by the time we’d gotten on to Ms Jackson the band was more relaxed and weren’t as nervous. Therefor we were able to conquer a challenge towards the end of our performance. Our 5th and final song we decided to play was 7 Nation Army. We decided to play this song last because we knew it would be the most recognisable for the crowd and so we wanted to go out with a song we were fairly comfortable with and one we knew would end the show with a bang. We had to change a few things in a couple of our songs. For example, in 7-nation army we had to play with a swing so that it didn’t sound too much like the original version. We didn’t want it to sound like the original because we thought it would sound way too rock orientated instead of what we were aiming for which happened to be more of a up beat, jazz/rock & roll/pop sound.
– On the 27th of September 2017 my band and I rehearsed. First however, we selected our set list. After deciding what songs we wanted to play we began to learn our first song “Riptide”. Once we had completed it to a good standard we began to learn our second track “Where is the love”. At the end of the day we performed Riptide to all the other music students.
– On the 2nd of October 2017 my band and I learned our third track “All Along The Watchtower”. After we’d eaten dinner we returned to the practice room and learnt “7-Nation Army”.
– On the 3rd of October we practiced all the tracks we had learned so far and made sure that we’d perfected them to the best of our ability by the end of the day.
– On the 10th of October we had all of our tracks completed and so we began to work on improving our structure of each song. We worked on intros and outros, breakdowns and build-ups and everything in between.
My role in the band was synth/keys. Personally, I had to work on playing in time with the bass for Ms Jackson and Where Is The Love. Generally, the biggest thing I had to work on was my timing. In some of the songs we played off beat so that was something I had to work on. When leaning material, we would learn by listening to the track and then picking out the key the song was played in and the notes used. After that we were able to put the songs together bit by bit.
Our Mock performance didn’t really go too well to be honest. In-between each song we wasn’t prepared for the following song to start, so once a track had finished we took quite a few minutes to start the next track because we weren’t organised enough. Throughout the songs however the band actually performed fairly well. Instruments were in time with each other and the music sounded fairly good. My role wasn’t the most important role in the band. However, without me songs such as Where Is The Love and Ms Jackson wouldn’t work and wouldn’t sound the same because they require synth and that was what I provided. Throughout rehearsal everybody rehearsed properly and everybody contributed just as much as each other.
Health & Safety
-List of fire exits/list of fire extinguishers
-wires tied neatly together and taped to the floor, this prevents tripping and falling.
– bodily fluids could cause floor to be slippy/ be careful for that/ no running on stage.
-working at heights/ make sure we have our balance when close to the edge of the stage.
Pro’s & Cons Of Our Performance
In our final performance we didn’t make any mistakes as a band. In fact, it was next to perfect. Our stage presence and our instrumental synchronisation could not have been faulted. The one thing that could have been improved is; during Where Is The love I hit the wrong piano key a few times when trying to transition to different notes. Besides that however, the Gig went excellent.
My role in the performance
My role in the final performance was important because I provided piano parts to songs and synth parts too. Without my parts the tracks wouldn’t have sounded the same. During rehearsals everybody had just as much input and impact as each other. I was no more or less important than anybody else. However i did make the things i played my own version so that each song wasn’t exactly the same as the originals.
Evaluation of our final performance
Our final performance went exceptionally well. Taking into account the fact that as a collective group we made no mistakes during the performance. When we performed Riptide. If i had the opportunity to re-do the gig there is a few things i would do differently. Firstly i would add more piano solo’s to make my performance more key and complex. I would have a greater stage presence as i didn’t feel like i had a great individual stage presence. As a band we did, but individually mine was not the greatest.