On top of organising the “Amplified” event, we had a set to rehearse and perform. In this page I am only going to be analysing our cover of Adventure of a Lifetime as that is the only song I had the chance to contribute towards.
My role in our arrangement was to act as a percussionist, offering a simple but noticeable addition with the use of the claves, an instrument consisting of two wooden sticks – my first time using such an instrument and in such a role. To be honest, I was rather lost. I didn’t have a clear idea of what I was doing, as evidenced by the fact I needed to be reminded of the beat I had to play right at the start. I was just as unsure of when exactly I was playing and when I was to drop out, so I had to feel it out and just play where I felt I had something positive to contribute. Going forward I am going to listen to the song so I have a far better idea of when to join in and drop out, as well as finding out when to start clapping.
What I feel did go well was how quickly I got myself into the role and played good, consistent claves. The start was fairly rocky but as the song went on I made fewer mistakes, giving me confidence to play the instrument in the future.
Again, I was unsure of when exactly to play what parts and this led to what looked like an unrehearsed performance – which is exactly what it was as this was later in the day from the first rehearsal video above. We also had a general breakdown in the structure of the song where nobody seemed to know what they were playing, both issues can and will be solved after future rehearsals as we need to eliminate these mistakes.
For the breakdown, I would argue that we played it off really rather well. Whilst looking a touch confused, we played on thanks to a couple of us just maintaining a steady pace with our instruments which allowed us to just continue and go to a familiar section, led by Blake’s cymbal hits. This showed excellent problem solving and quick thinking to escape what could’ve been a far worse situation.
As far as my performance goes with the claves, I tried a few new rhythms out to try and get a feel for the song and the instrument and, to an extent, this was a success. I varied up my playing so it wasn’t the same beat all the time to give the song a bit more interest. Other than the claves, I decided to join in with Lucy on vocals. This was very much spur of the moment and I did it to add some life to the song, just having fun with it, as well as adding what was missing from the song. Of course, doing this again will be better as my microphone will be louder at that moment, because this was rather impromptu, Lewis at the mixing desk wasn’t aware of what I was going to do and had to react to allow me to be heard by the audience.
Firstly, the most noticeable difference here is that I didn’t have my claves with me, this is because I couldn’t locate them prior to the performance. If I wanted to use them, I should’ve spent some time trying to find them, rather than just presuming they would be in the store room. Luckily I didn’t need them for this performance. Besides the claves, my greatest responsibility was to act as – for lack of a better term – the hypeman. After improvising the backup vocals, Nic was keen to work this into the set properly as a method of interacting with the audience, so he gave me a general idea of what to say and how to go about it. Here, I ended up going a little bit too quick and rushing into it, rather than being as calm as I would’ve liked, this could potentially lead to audience members being unsure of what I’m asking them to do.
However, this was still a large improvement from earlier rehearsals where I flew through the speaking, so that was a plus. Also an improvement from beforehand was how I signalled to the band to move to different sections. The plan was for me to take the lead and have us move on only after I give the signal, so everybody is on the same page; when I started doing this I give the signal too late which lead to confusion. Here, although not perfect, I was vastly improved and guided us throughout most changes.
Going into the final performance with confidence is vital, and this is exactly what I did, this last dress rehearsal went really quite well and I felt great heading into the night.