Introduction:
The drums are kind of a leader in the group because their roles consist of ensuring the correct tempo of the whole group and because they’re quite loud, they’re kind of at the forefront for the band in carrying a lot of the timings too. They work closely with the guitarist and bassist, and sometimes keys, tend to carry the whole melody of a song so it’s important they all communicate very well to ensure a successful performance.
The guitarist is kind of the lead in melody, for the majority of most songs, so it’s important they’re nailing their timings otherwise it could throw the whole song off. The guitarist works very closely with the bassist and keys but also the drums, they all hold an important roll in ensuring the singer can sing on the right beat and time.
The keyboard player kind of plays backing a lot more than forefront. Because of this, it can be difficult because you don’t want to go too deep that you step on the bassists toes but also don’t want to play too much melody to the point that you take the light from the guitarist. They tend to play a lot of the same chords as the guitarist which kind of emphasises the melody of the song, probably why most people can really hum the melody to the song. However, it really depends of the song, in a way, of who the keyboard player plays closer to.
The singer has one of the biggest roles because they’re directly at the forefront of the song because they’re the ones who face the most criticism. They really need to work with everyone but also the audience. If the singer goes off then it can make it difficult for the band members to keep going because if they go off then the whole song sounds messy and out of time. They also can go off key incredibly easy so they need to make sure they watch that.
Successes:
We didn’t need a count in for this song which shows our timings are improving a lot. Everyone came in at the right time, for the most part, so it sounds almost like the actual song. The riff at the end of the song came in on the right time so the song didn’t struggle at the end.
Improvements:
There was a few technical issues with the mic, when it kept making a high pitched noise. Keys came in a little late when it came to the last chorus. Communication could have a little work but we haven’t rehearsed it much so it will come more when we are a little more comfortable with it. To fix the high pitch noise we’ll probably just have to move the mic a little further away from anything that can interrupt it and check the levels because it’s feeding back a lot. I need to work on my timing’s for the last chorus but that’ll come with practice, like playing with the song. Communication will come more when we are comfortable with our parts to play so that we can look up.
Live Aspect:
When we perform it live, I feel like lights would really make the whole song pop, especially for the drum solo. We also need to look up a little more but we have only practiced 2/3 times so we just need to get a little more comfortable with it and then we’ll be able to look up more.
Targets:
Next time, I think we just need to nail each and every timing and then possibly even start to look up a little more. The performance will look better with lights but as for the music aspect, we just have to be stricter with timings.
Conclusion:
Overall, I think we did really well to say that we haven’t really practiced it that much, everyone knows their parts and has good rhythm but timings still need a little more work, especially on my part on the last chorus and into the little riff at the end.
Live Example: