Overall, I think the performance went very well! Minimal mistakes were made; if they were made we didn’t make a fuss and carried on, and in performance, the way you handle the mistake is the most important part of improving. I think we as a group were confident and well prepared. Walking into the room was quite daunting as I wasn’t expecting the full setup with lights and media students shooting the performance, but I managed to adapt well and ensure it didn’t phase the group and me too much. I think it helped that we had communicated well during rehearsals and out of college and we seem to work together very well, so our energies seem to bounce off each other; this seems to help in nerve-racking situations like this as we can all reassure everyone!
Group And Individual Strengths
In general, I think we worked really hard as a group to get to this place, and this helped our confidence throughout the set. Because we spent time rehearsing so much, I think that this helped our assurance that the set would run smoothly. We worked as a team and communicated well to make sure we all knew our parts and would be confident with each other on stage. I think that as a group, we aren’t the most confident performers, so it was good to be able to get out of our comfort zone a little bit, especially with me playing guitar, an instrument I am not used to performing on. Because of our confidence, it makes the whole performance more fun and we enjoyed ourselves. I prefer performing live to an audience instead of to a camera as you can see that the crowd are enjoying your set; playing to a camera feels more intense and makes the performance more serious .
Musically, we sounded very tight and in time throughout the whole set, which is a primary factor for being a live performer. If we struggled to stay in time and to a general tempo, the whole performance would b swaying in and out of time and would become very confusing for us, and especially the vocalist as they would begin to get lost with the lyrics. Asa drummer, being able to stay in time comes easily to me, and this rhythm is vital when not playing to a tempo or backing track
For an individual strength, the fact I learnt the majority of the songs on guitar and just either learnt them by ear or using a chord sheet is quite impressive. This was totally independent, and this allowed me to experiment with different voicings. I ended up learning new chords and shapes such as the B7 chord in ‘Take Me To Church’, used open chords in ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ and also used a different tuning for ‘Come Together’, this being drop D. this allowed me to play the lower, more rhythmic part of the song as a substitute for the important bass line, whilst Ellis played the main melody over the top, and these fit in harmony together.
Group And Individual Improvements
As a band, I think we could have spent time working on performance strategies. As there wasn’t a live audience, I think it would have been hard to implement certain things in to the performance such as audience engagement and call and having a response point with them. However, it would have been nice if each of us could have introduced who we were and what the next song is for example. This would have allowed us to do one full take pf the performance instead of having separate videos and would make us feel and look more prepared.
I would have loved to try out backing vocals for the performance as I feel like it would have pushed me out of my comfort zone more, as this combined with playing guitar would have been a really fun combination for me. I tended to harmonize with Lucy’s vocals during rehearsals but just to play around with and experiment, however looking back I feel like i could have worked on this more to make it a full part of our performance. This would have thickened the textures of certain parts of the song, such as the verse in ‘Take Me To Church’ where the dynamics stay loud.
Targets For Next Time
-Be more prepared and know our parts more so we don’t make as many mistakes and won’t need sheet music/lyrics whilst performing.
-There wasn’t an audience to engage with, however, I feel like we need to look more deeply into performance strategies and ways to look more positive and confident on stage.
-I want to learn more about guitar and become more comfortable playing an instrument that is far from percussion and drums, which I am used to playing.