Sunday Chaos’ first live mock performance, with me (drums), Niall (bass/guitar), Tia (guitar/bass), Isaac (keys) and Millie and Lucy (vocals).
Overall, this week, I felt like the group has progressed a lot. We have learnt another song, worked a lot on the previous songs so they are perfect, and are starting to make our own musical changes to the songs. In the mock performance, there are quite a few areas that I thought could have been better, however, all in all, and given that this was our first time we managed to play our set back to back, I think we played very well as a group, and my drumming stayed consistent throughout. Next week, we could do with another keyboard being set up for Millie as she plays it in some songs, but in this performance, there wasn’t one for her to use.
Group And Individual Strengths
As a group, even when things didn’t go to plan in the performance, we still stuck to the song and solved whatever issue we had, whether that be forgetting your part, losing where you are, getting lyrics wrong or many other things. This shows that we have good problem-solving skills and perseverance as we are determined to make this a great performance no matter what happens. An example of this would be when Isaac played the wrong arpeggio at the start of Love on the Brain but quickly got back to the song by the next chord. In the final performance, we don’t necessarily want to have these problems anyway, but if it does happen we can confidently turn it around and carry on playing the song.
The timing on a whole seemed very strong, and there were very few moments where we lost the meter or someone fell out of place. Most importantly, this is due to everyone knowing throw own and a general idea of their band mate’s parts, structures and rhythms of the set to a tee. As well as this, I feel like we all have a natural sense of rhythm and don’t seem to rush or drag through the songs, which is a great skill to have as a live performer. We also have a broad range of tempos, with Transparentsoul being very fast and energetic, but Love On The Brain being a little slower and ballad-like.
my drumming felt very tight for most of the set, and I felt confident in my own playing. I use dynamics to help move the song and suggest a change in structure, especially in Love On The Brain where I play crotchets and gradually get louder in time for the chorus and that loud crash, indicating that the song has moved on. This also happens in Transparentsoul, where I play quavers from mp to ff at the end of the intro and into the first verse. As well as this, m drumming felt extremely tight, particularly during the semi-quaver groove in Transparentsoul which I have been working on as I couldn’t quite match the pace of it last week, so I just played quavers.
Group And Individual Improvements
I feel like our group communication could be better, and we could take different requests and recommendations on board more seriously. For example, the band members were complaining that my drumming is too loud in Transparentoul, which it is, as it’s hard to play quietly on drums with such an energetic and heavy part. As I wear earplugs, it is hard for me to determine how loud I am. On Monday, I told them all to get earplugs to make sure they are comfortable and so I don’t damage their ears, however, on Wednesday, nobody brought any and complained again that the drums were too loud, so I had to tell them again to make sure they bring earplugs. Also, communication with the audience could be better, as as of now most of us are looking down at our instrument/lyric sheet, but as we progress further in our mock performances and get more satisfied with our parts, this will become lesser.
I feel like the transitions between the songs could have been better, seeing as we were running this performance as an actual set. In an actual performance, you don’t want to be waiting for others to be ready or talking between songs as it looks unprofessional and the silence it brings can be quite awkward! I feel like we need to figure out a better and easier way for Tia and Niall to swap their guitars during the set, as this took about 50 seconds for them to swap and make sure the settings were correct before we started the next song. We could either practice this changeover more so they become more fluent in it or have both a guitar and bass amp connected to their respected instrument, ready for them to pick up after Love on The Brain. This means that all the sound engineer has to do is unmute these amps and mute the previous ones, which would take all of about 5 seconds.
To improve my own performance, I think I could start to add my own personal touch to the songs. I could work on improvisation skills, adding my own fills that aren’t in the original song, or playing licks here and there to keep the song flowing well, to make the rhythms more engaging, to keep the audience on their toes and to show my talent behind the kit. However, I want to make sure I don’t overcomplicate and lose the style of the song if I do too much!
Targets For Next Week
-Start rehearsing ‘Life is a Highway’ as our fourth song.
-Keep working and perfecting our other three songs.
-Work on performance skills, e.g confidence, set transitions, audience engagement.