I really enjoyed this entire project. Since I knew this will be my last final showcase at college, I really wanted to put all my effort into becoming a better musician and start making money out of it.
The acoustic duo was really good, even though the songs we are doing aren’t hard songs, it was definitely difficult to manage learning that many songs in a short period of time. We had a rough patch about 2-3 weeks into the project where Faye really struggled with the songs we were doing and so we had to spend more time getting them good which put us behind schedule a lot. I also feel like the further along in the project we got the harder it was for us to want to practice just because it was so draining to practice the same songs over and over again. This caused us to have to cut down to only an hour set for our paid gig, giving us more time to work on the songs we have rather than learning new ones. It also meant having an opener in which I asked another college friend to open for us which actually gives more inclusivity and will get more people to the gig. The setlist we originally had changed so much throughout the project as we realized some songs are harder than we thought and we didn’t want to sacrifice the little time we had on songs that are too tricky (which we should have done earlier on in the project whilst we were struggling with songs instead of wasting time on them when we aren’t even playing them anymore. Me and Faye will definitely keep doing gigs however once I go to Uni it will be way more casual and we wont be actively reaching out for gigs but instead waiting for opportunities to arise since I will be so busy when I go. Alongside all the practicing, I really enjoyed making the logo and poster for Izzy and Faye and am looking forwards to getting to make more. We have 3 gigs booked between May and June and we plan to try get more during July and August, I am really excited to see where we end up.
Doing band work in Crimson was definitely more fun to me than doing the acoustic duo, purely because I pushed myself a lot more and definitely got myself out of my comfort zone by doing more of a lead role in some of the songs. The songs Grace and My Iron Lung definitely pushed me the most, and I could happily agree to doing a solo part in a band now instead of getting anxious. I also really enjoyed using the pedals, I’ve never really used pedals before and it was interesting to get used to but once I got it, it made me really want to invest in some pedals and look more into tones and amps as well. I think if some of the band members weren’t so unreliable at times, I would definitely work in this band again, as the final outcome of all the work we did was really something to be proud of. I’m really looking forwards to doing more band work in the future.
I feel like I stuck to my weekly plan fairly well and the only thing that was completely off was Little Wing with Clarke. I was really excited to play it with him however he only just managed to get in playable a day before the showcase so we didn’t have enough time to rehearse it as a band. It is a shame we could however I know in the future he’s wanting to play it with me so we will still work on the song but in a duo instead of band project.
Overall, this project went really well despite the tiny changes we all had to make. I would absolutely do it again and I’m glad we are keeping the Izzy and Faye going as it will push us to be more professional and know how to act and what to say on stage. If I were to do this project again I would definitely push Clarke more to get Little Wing done because I don’t think he realized how hard it was going to be until it was too late, and I would have also not wasted as much time on songs that are too hard for us and work on easier songs instead so that we would have been able to do a 2X45 minute set instead of only a 60 minute set in Izzy and Faye.