The focus of my project is to massively improve myself as a musican, mainly my musical theory like knowing all the notes on the guitar, my major, minor and pentatonic scales, how to read tablature and learning to sing properly, along with learning to sing to lyrics, write good lyrics, and make good melody’s with my singing. Im also looking to improve my stage performance and my guitar skills like being cleaner at fast pace picking and also learning to play without looking at the guitar too often.
My plan of music choice is going to be blues, and rock. The reason for is because this is the type of music i love and will create, but also because this is what my band wanted too and agreed on. My main sources for inspiration are Jeff Buckley, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Ive chosen to sing and perform grace live by Jeff Buckley as I admire the talent and purity of his vocal work and have dreamed of doing the same as him since i heard it, so I want to try do the impossible and sing grace spot on for the showcase.. but only till the showcase will i know how that will turn out. And then doing Stevie Rays live version of voodoo child as to me its the best cover of Jimmy Hendrix song and want to push myself to do the being the back guitar playing and all the cool tricks that Stevie stole off Jimmy Hendrix to enhance myself as a performer. Below are the versions Im doing of the songs.
I was going to be in a band with my own group of people that i picked but then then i got asked by Lacey to be their lead guitarist as they had the rest of the members and needed a lead position, which i chose to do instead of my own band to make my life easier but also so i could focus on being a better musican instead of leading a whole band. Lacey is singing all the songs accept grace and voodoo child as i wanted to do them, Jospeh bass, Me lead guitar, Isobel rhythm accept for song Iron lung as she wanted to do the lead so I’m doing rhythm for that one. And then Franko on the drums from level 2. We have made a group chat on instagram will all the members insuring that we all know what were doing and what positions and versions of the songs were doing
The main challenges for this project for me will be keeping on track with how much work Im doing and ensuring Im making good and fast progress, as if i want to sing grace well Im going to need to work hard till the showcase comes. As well on top of that i’m wanting to learn all the stuff i talked about at the start of this page, and with living far away from college taking up nearly 6hrs of my day from travelling on busses Im going to have to do a daily plan everyday for what i need to do, use my time on the bus to complete unfinished documented work so i can just go home and focus on my main goals like the singing, songwriting, music theory ect..
Having a daily planner will ensure my progress if i stick to it and adapting it so everything is making fast progress at the same time and nothing is getting left behind as i did that last year with practicing only 2 songs at first and then realising i had 2 weeks left to the showcase and thus majorly stressing myself out to finish the songs for the showcase. Also learning tablature should be slow for learning songs at the start but then hopefully should speed up the process of learning the songs the more i get used to it. Also a lot of mind control and discipline needs to take place i get of track easily because of my ADHD and need to get back on track soon as possible what that happens. Ive already planned out a progress section and planner section on my project 5 page.
I for my showcase to be high quality i need my band to be on a similar page as me, this is why we have the instagram group chat so we can catch up on each other and see what progress were all on, but i also need to be on track with my planning and progress ensuring Im going to be performing the best i can with the time i have for the showcase.
Ill be displaying my progress and work at the final showcase as a live performance and with my band. But also explain at the showcase what i’ve been doing for the project with a little video to document my quirks and challenges. I will determine how well my project did by the energy of the audience which is difficult at the showcase as most of the people there are their for their kids not me so impressing them will be hard. And ill ensure that Im making progress as ill be making weekly videos on my progress with each task Ive set myself and watching them back to ensure Ive made progress each week.