Performance of ‘You’ve Got The Love’ by Florence And The Machine with me (drums), Niall (bass), Tia (guitar), Isaac (keys), and Lucy and Millie (vocals).
Overall, I think this performance went really well. As a group, we only had around 10 to 15 minutes to practice the song, after spending about 20 minutes individually to listen to the song and learn our parts. To say we didn’t have long to practice the song, the performance was very good already. This was our first time playing live in this group and in the year in general, so we were all a little bit nervous to start playing to a small audience and new students again. We also set up for performance space before, which you can see on the ‘Live Sound And Stage Setting’ page.
Group And Individual Strengths
As a group, to say we learnt and practised the song in such a short space of time, and performed it in the same day, is quite impressive. There are still areas to improve on, but in general, we sound tight, we know our parts well and we seem confident in each other’s abilities. We all remembered the structure very quickly, making the performance sound professional as we all knew exactly where we were at every point in the song.
As an individual performance, I would say I did very well. I knew the song already so I had a bit of an idea of what it would sound like, but not on drums. I listened to the song a few times and used an electronic drum kit to practice on a few times before we all played as a group. I learnt the song solely by ear and didn’t use any covers, tutorials or sheet music.
Group And Individual Improvements
As a general improvement for the whole performance, I think we could have put on more of a performance in general. For example, we as a group didn’t move much and the bassist and guitarist were sat down. Next time we perform, we need to look more confident in our own abilities so we are able to improvise, move and make more positive facial expressions throughout the song to show we are actually enjoying it. We can do this by practising the song together and making more of a point during rehearsing to move around and look more confident.
Making the song more of our own is important. This will show our skills in improvisation, songwriting and again, self-assurance as we will have changed the song to make it more impressive and suits our abilities. This might involve making the guitar parts more challenging or adding some effects, working on vocal harmonies or runs, adding more challenging parts to the piano or simply just working on the structure to perhaps include a different intro, interesting techniques like stabs or even a guitar/piano/drum solo for example.
As an improvement for myself, I think I need to make sure I play my parts like the studio version to keep the track’s authenticity. For example in the chorus when I move to ride, I tend to play the bell on the beat, when the studio version is on the offbeat. Also, the open hi-hats still play during the chorus; I need to figure out a way to play the hi-hat part while I am still on the ride whilst thinking of rhythmically interesting fills to suggest a change in structure.
Targets for next Week
-Decide on a few more songs that we can learn for the performance
-Work on this song to make it more interesting, eg harmonies, drum fills and licks.
-Decide on a band name and our image for the performance.