Rehearsal

The song that my band was given is “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies. This is an emotional song with powerful lyrics, catchy guitar riffs, and lots of other instruments to make the song as powerful as it is. I was given the part of playing the keys, and as there are no actual piano patterns within the song I had to watch different videos and experiment with different chords and keys to find something that fits. The song is best known and is often recognized in the famous film Fight Club. This film is one that is very emotional and captures the main character’s thoughts ad feelings while struggling with Insomnia and Multiple Personality Disorder. This song appears in the final scenes of the song where the main character looks like he is going to die. During our performance, we need to capture the raw emotion and sadness that this song carries. Playing it is not enough, to enhance the performance we need to make our audience feel it.

This is the first video I watched to try and find a chord or pattern that fit the song. The video was helpful as I took the left-hand parts of the song. I may have changed the left hand a little but the main idea was taken from here. I experimented by putting the right hand in as well, but it did not sound quite right with the rest of the instruments. I decided to take out the right-hand part and change it to another pattern that I displayed in later rehearsals. I am not an experienced piano player so this was tough for me. However, even this tutorial seemed far too simple and did not seem to do the song justice. I knew that there was a lot more I could add to make our version of the song sound better. I experimented and came up with a left-hand progression that I believed would sound good in the mix.

This is the first rehearsal we have as a full band. Everyone listened to the song and got familiar with the parts they are meant to be playing. There is much we need to improve on both as a band and personally. The piano part fit well in and amongst the rest of the instruments, and everything came together well. We were able to play the song up to the chorus, this is where we began to struggle and needed to work on it further. We needed to improve on the transitions between the chorus and verse sections of the song, especially if we wanted the song to run smoothly and play out till completion. Playing together as a band helped us to see what we were doing wrong, what parts people did know, and what parts people did not know. We could then address these issues together. The guitars sounded nice together and the drums were tight. We managed to keep a steady rhythm throughout the performance and at a similar tempo to the original song. An improvement we need to implement is the lack of stage presence. While we are rehearsing this does not matter too much, but we need to work on our presence and confidence a lot more this means straps for guitars so the guitarists can stand up and set up in a way where we all can be seen. This will improve our performance hugely. I added a left hand into my performance after watching multiple YouTube videos and also having help from others, however, it did not quite sound correct. This is something I need to adjust when doing the next rehearsal.

The main criticism that we got for this performance is the ending. We really needed to work on ending the performance as a band. We were all unsure whether we would end the song on a cymbal, a chord that was rung out, or even come to a halt altogether. In the end, we decided to come to an abrupt stop altogether. There were many criticisms that weren’t videoed as well such as stage presence, communication, and levels. We were told to go away and focus on certain sections of the song rather than playing the whole song over and over. The ending was eventually fixed as we focused on that part of the song in the next rehearsal. This became a problem no longer. We picked apart the song and really zoned in on the parts that were not up to standard. This improved our cover a lot.

The first piece of feedback that was given to all the bands was specifically focused on the singers. They were given the feedback that they need to focus on their microphone technique and diction. The microphone technique will affect how they sound when performing and will also add an element of stage presentation as well. They were also told to focus on their diction which is the pronunciation of their words. We were given the example of rap music and most people’s problems with rap music are that they can’t hear what words they are saying. The singers need to look at how they are pronouncing their words and how they want it to sound. The next feedback was for the drummers, and more specifically the tempo at which they are drumming. We don’t want to lag behind or push the song so we were told to practice against a metronome to make sure that the drums and bass are on time. They are the backbone of the song. Guitarists were told to play riffs at different parts of the song to get a different sound. They can play power chords or play rhythmically. Guitarists were told to let chords ring out or bleed to get different sounds. People on the piano were told to add both left and right hands to add different patterns to the song. We were also told to include live production within our performance to make it sound more interesting. For example, adjusting the volume mid-performance. Group feedback was to be confident in what we are playing. The performances are starting to sound good so we should have more confidence and play as we mean it.

At this point, rehearsals started to sound really well. We were playing confidently as a band and it sounded like we knew the song. The only problem is we got stuck on the guitar solo part of the song and this threw us off for the rest of the track. We stopped instead of trying again. We now have to look at the guitar solo, and more specifically coming out of the solo. This is something we had to experiment with. Everything else sounded good. By the time we would rehearse again we aimed to get the solo sorted out. My piano sounds good in this part and the two hands complement each other nicely. They add a nice atmosphere to the song and add a different layer to make it sound more interesting. By this rehearsal, things are really starting to come together.

This rehearsal showed real improvement Everything sounded nice and clean and you can clearly tell we were starting to know the song well. I experimented with different piano sounds in this rehearsal to try and add a different sound to my performance. This created a nice atmosphere that complemented the song well. we worked on the guitar solo and coming out of it. This had clearly improved and sounded much nicer than it did the last time we tried it. The other thing we worked on was the ending of the song. The ending of the song was perfect this time round and completed the song right. The audience could tell that we were finished. As you can see from our expression at the end of the song, we are happy with what we have achieved. This cover is starting to sound really good.

After not rehearsing for a while it’s like we took a step back. We were only able to make it one minute through the song. The bits we did play sounded really good but there were some improvements to make. We needed to focus on the levels to make sure every instrument is heard. The bass was overpowering and the piano and vocals were not being heard much. To improve our performance we need to run the song back to back and get through it from start to finish. This is the next step in making our performance the best it can be.

The two things that we need to work on at the point in rehearsals are structure and communication. We all need to study and know the structure of the song to be able to play it from start to finish. This was the priority on the list of things we needed to work on. Although we had good communication as a band already, we needed to communicate while performing the song. This is important so we know how everyone is feeling through the song. We can also gauge when people are going to change chords or transition into other parts of the song. Without this, we will not be able to play the song as we would like to play it.

This was the second song we were given to perform as a band. Although I was not familiar with the song when we were first given it, I quickly got to know it. The song may be quite mellow and calm in the way that its played, but the song carries a happy, cheery vibe that we need to display in our cover of the song. The song is from Weezer’s 4th studio album released in 2001 called ‘Weezer’. Weezer has many good songs, but this one is amongst the best, and as I got familiar with the song I was really excited to learn it and include it in our already amazing set. The song has a mellow vibe about it, but this did not fit our band. We decided to change it a bit to make it fit our playing styles. We ended up making some big modifications to the song that you will see in later rehearsals.

This was the first video I watched. The chords and right-hand patterns are not too tricky and are manageable for me. However, when I played with both the left and right hands, the right hand clashed with the guitar. We decided to knock out the right hand and just use the left-hand chords throughout the song. The video also helped me get to grips with the structure of the song and how it changes in tone and feel. I was able to decide how I want to play this song to make it fit the feel of our band. These are not the hardest chords I have had to learn, so this was not much of a challenge to me. This video and my practice later became useless and you will see why.

I did not like this video and it did not offer me much help in learning the chords for this song. I found the video to be quite useless. However, if there is one thing that I took from the video, it is the calmness and mellowness that he plays with. This fits the song nicely and sounds like how the original sounds. That was my only takeaway from this video.

For our first rehearsal, it wasn’t a bad one. we managed to play the song from start to finish with only a few small mistakes coming up during the song. This being said, we still had a long way to go. Sometimes throughout the song, the guitar and bass sounded sloppy, this in turn made the song sound messy and unprofessional. The singing was quiet which made it difficult to hear. This could have negatively impacted our performance as well. My chords did not quite sound right with the song, so this is something that I have to now go away and fix. Apart from that, this was a really good first rehearsal, and it made me happy to see the song come together so quickly. This rehearsal is just what we needed to see how we can move forward with this song.

While our singer was ill, I filled in singing the song. This was a challenge, but it needed to be done to make sure the rehearsal ran properly. My singing was not the greatest, my pitch was not quite correct, I slipped in and out of key and I was not using the correct singing technique. But all in all, it was not bad for my first attempt. As for the rest of the band, this song was really starting to come together. The ending was starting to sound cleaner, and the bits that sounded messy and sloppy during our last rehearsal were well on their way to being fixed. This was a really good rehearsal that put us in a good position for our next rehearsal in the actual performance space. This is where we would be able to test if our song sounds good in the place we will be performing on the 18th.

As you can see I was still singing, but this time our usual singer Aimee had returned so we decided to sing it together. The singing still did not sound right so after this rehearsal I gave the singing back to Aimee and focused on my keyboard parts. The rest of the song is starting to sound really good. This has become a really good addition to our set and is sure to get the crowd going. This is starting to sound like a really good cover. At this point, we have 2 weeks left to get our set finished and the songs we have played so far sound very professional and are solid covers. We just need to work on communication to ensure we are all on the same page. The song is sounding good and we are communicating well, but if we can go that one step further it will push our performance to the next level. This is what we needed to fix.

In this rehearsal, I returned to my original instrument which is the keyboard. Aimee had returned to singing and the song was starting to sound better than ever. The thing we need to work on now is the levels of all the instruments. The bass and drums are quite overpowering, and it drowns out the vocals. This won’t be an issue in our final performance as we will have people working on live sound to make sure we all can be heard. However, we may benefit from trying to do this in rehearsals as well as it sets us up better for when we do our actual performance. Other than this, the song is starting to sound incredible and is definitely one of the better ones in the set. We need to match this level in each rehearsal we do from now on.

With Aimee singing this song, we had to transpose the track up by three semitones. This meant that the piano chords that I had learned had to be changed. My tutors took me through the song and showed me the new chords I needed to play. This was a better fit for Aimee and her voice and made the song sound much better. This affected the rest of the group as well, as the guitarists and the bass had to change what they play. We did manage to fix this as a band and the song sounds infinitely better for it.

505 by Arctic Monkeys was our third and final song. The song comes from the band’s second studio album ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’ which was released on the 23rd of April 2007. Arctic Monkeys are one of my favorite bands and this specific album is definitely in my top 5 albums of all time. The album gave birth to classics such as ‘Brainstorm’, ‘Teddy picker’, ‘Do Me A Favour’ and last but certainly not least ‘Fluorescent Adolescence’. None of these quite live up to 505, as this is one of Arctic Monkeys’ most popular songs. I was so excited to do this song, as were the rest of the band. This was the song that we were allowed to pick by ourselves, so everyone was much more excited to learn this one than they were with any others in our set. Unfortunately, this song turned out to be the hardest one we had learned. But there is no doubt we would have this nailed by the time it came around to our final performance. The track starts off very mellow in the way that it is played. Alex Turner (the band’s lead singer) is recalling a story of visiting his ex-girlfriend’s house with the number 505 outside. The lyrics point to the fact that this wasn’t a pleasant visit, but Alex can’t seem to let go of this relationship. Throughout the 4 verses that are sung before the drop, the singer seems to get more worked up. The verses are sung with more and more conviction and confidence building up to the drop. This was something to be looked at very carefully. When all the instruments come in and the song reaches the climax that it had built up to, a huge amount of confidence, conviction, energy, and arrogance is needed. After all, this is the story of a man who is suffering a terrible breakup. We needed to show this in our performance.

To say this is one of our first rehearsals of the song, it could have been a lot worse. The singing was off from both of me and Aimee. This could have been from nerves or just a lack of rehearsal for this song. This is something we need to fix and quickly. The singing was also lacking the confidence and swagger that comes along with this song when Alex Turner performs it. If we can get confident with this song and allow ourselves to belt during the chorus, this song will be really good. We can try our best to make this song sound great. But unfortunately, none of us are from High Green Sheffield, so this is already something that goes against us. As for the rest of the band, it was also a decent run-through. However, there is a list of things that need fixing. The lead guitar before the drop needs a lot of work. The melody played by the lead guitar is a trigger for the rest of the band to count them in. This is why we missed the start of the chorus. That melody needs to be perfect as it is a vital part of the song. The drums and bass sounded good so there are just minor tweaks that need to be done there. This was the first song that we performed in B25 so we were still getting used to this performance space. However, I think the sound checks that were done at the start of our rehearsal were really helpful, and this is something we need to do in future rehearsals. All in all, this was a good rehearsal, but lots of work needs to be done for it to be performance ready.

After this performance, we started doing mock performances and rehearsals. All further rehearsals will be uploaded on different pages. we have a mock rehearsal and a dress rehearsal before the final performance on the 18th of October.