In preparation for my final recording, I had practiced for around a week. During the week, I was building on making certain sections more advanced, i.e. adding more movement into the left hand so the piece sounded more full. After I had all my parts down, I worked on the changing the structuring of it and put them into a sequence that I felt would be more emotive, i.e. putting most of the low end stuff next to each other so then I could add a range of dynamics to cause more dramatic emotion. After I had everything in the order I was happy with, and had a range of dynamics and added more movement in, I practiced for a week. Due to the fact that I had practiced for a week, I knew the piece off by heart so the only thing I had to do really was develop the emotion, which was just about feeling the music and that was easier to do because I didn’t have to follow a metronome.
I had to re-take my piece like 4 times, because I was working on a keyboard instead of a piano so it felt different. However, the environment was really relaxed and I had a lot of fun recording; I felt like I could really convey the emotion during the recordings. Also, I learnt a little more about the technical stuff and we were setting up. Recording through the keys, into Logic, meant that it didn’t matter too much if I slipped out of time, or hit the wrong key, or even hit a key too hard, because we could correct it in Logic. For example, because the keyboard feels different to an actual piano, I pressed the keys too hard in certain places that were meant to be soft. However, this didn’t matter because you can change the velocity of the note in Logic. Also, using Logic meant that I could change the different kind of piano sound I wanted, so I could add things like more reverb if I wanted to. The first few recordings weren’t bad but it was just that I slipped a key or I felt like I didn’t conveyed enough emotion in it. In my last recording, I had the least amount of errors, I think I just went round one too many times on a riff loop, so that’s why I chose the last one as my best one, because it’s easiest to fix.
Now, I’m going to rehearse for my live video recording so I can mime over the top of my recording. I think it’s best that I practice because I need to remember all of the different breaks I have, but also, I need to remember the tempo of all the little different sections in it. I’m rehearsing by listening to the whole thing a few times, so I can get a feel for exactly what it sounds like. When I listen to it, I’m going to be counting in between each break, so I know exactly when I need to start the next section again. After that, I’m going to practice along to the recording. Doing all this means that I’ll be as close to the recording as possible, and as accurate, so then it’ll look like I’m actually playing on the video.
I’ve now recorded my live video performance. During the live performance, we ran through the songs 3 times, so we could get different angels, and then we shot 4 introduction videos, in different angels too. For the introduction, I stood in front of the piano. For the set up, we had 2 big lights, at either side of the piano, and then 1 light behind the wall to get like a flood light effect. We also turned off the spot lights so the lights didn’t conflict with each other. It was very relaxed and we get several different shots of my hands, my face, the piano and just the whole scene in general. This means, when putting it together, we can see everything from every angle. I’m actually really excited to see the final product because I think it’ll look really cool, and I love to watch piano videos at home and see how they always close up on their hands and then their face etc, it’s just cool to watch and be apart of. This opportunity really gave me an insight to how it is for my favourite performers, like Costantino Carrara and Ludovico Einaudi.
I then played guitar for Faith’s performance video. I really liked playing guitar for my friend because she’s so talented and it was so relaxed, I can definitely see myself doing this as a career because I just really loved to perform with talented people. We sat on the sofa, so it was a relaxed environment from the offset, and I angled into towards her whilst she sang. It was a really chilled atmosphere and I think the couch really portrayed that through the video. We made eye contact a few times, and we were smiling at each other a lot so that showed the bond between us and it didn’t just look like 2 performers. It didn’t take long to finish her set list; we only ran through each song 3 times. If we were to do it again, I’d hopefully have a little more time to learn some of the riffs in some of the first song because I had to learn the opening few bars like on the spot, before we started filming. I’d also focus more on the timing of “Arcade”. Other than that, it was a really good experience and I’m really glad I got the opportunity.
Videos of Faith and I practicing for her live performances: