Before the dress rehearsal all of the performers had a walkthrough of topping and tailing their first and last song, This is so that everyone can get a good understanding of how to go the right way about entering the stage, setting their instrument up, possibly talking to the crowd and finally exiting the stage when they’ve performed the outdo of their last song. For me I am thankful that we had a walkthrough and a dress rehearsal because got the chance to think about and practice what I could say to the audience about my final project. This also allowed the sound tech to get all of the levels right for the instruments and vocalists.
Positives and negatives of myself for each song
To start things off, I think that in the dress rehearsal, I introduced the bass in the right manor, I provided a clear description to the audience to what I’ve done for my final project, I am glad that this went smoothly for me in the dress rehearsal and that I didn’t write anything to say and that I just said it how it was. I feel like if I had something written that I had to remember to say to the audience, I would just mess it up so instead I just had a ruff idea of what to say so that it went smoothly.
I enjoyed playing all of the songs with Clarke and lannie because it gave me a chance to collaborate with others using the instrument that I spent 9 weeks restoring and putting a lot of hard work into. I am so glad at how the final restoration turned out and stuck to the time schedule so that it was done before the showcase. I also think that I entered and exited the stage well because nothing went wrong and I felt a sense of professionalism when doing so. I also feel like I played all off the bass lines well and in time just as well as putting my own take on the songs overall.
The only negatives I have to say about myself is that I could’ve made sure that my guitar was properly in tune for the song that I did with lannie despite the fact that I tuned it on stage and double checked, This might just have been a problem with this guitars intonation or setup but I don’t know because it wasn’t my guitar. When listening to the recording I also couldn’t hear the bass that much so for the actual performance I will make sure to ask the sound engineer to turn the bass up a bit.
Positives and negatives for the two bands as a whole
For the two songs that I did with Clarke I think that all mostly went well because we all worked as a team which provided good communication and eye contact when it was needed. on the first song I started playing the bass line by myself after talking about the bass to show the audience how it sounds on its own. We also made sure to include dynamics in the quiet section of the first song and in the second song in a breakdown section. and for the last positive we all made sure to play the songs in time and end the songs at the same time. And I also think that the song that I did with Lannie was actually harder because they were more of us, in Clarkes band they were only three people which meant that it was easier to keep communication and time whereas in lannies band they were six of us so that’s twice the level of concentration that we all needed to not mess up and stay tight and in time.
In the dress rehearsal one thing that we needed to get better at is that well all need to enter the stage and set up as tidy and as smoothly as possible and that e all make sure to keep the same range of dynamics throughout the song and use these to our advantage. To solve these problems we will have a group discussion about them before the actual event.
Targets for myself to improve upon
he first target that I am gonna set myself is to better my stage presence and move around a bit more as well as smiling more and looking happy, I think that sometimes I forget to smile because it is a stressful experience which I have to concentrate a lot throughout my performance.
The next target that I am going to set myself is that I definitely make sure that my bass/guitar is in tune before I start any songs.
Targets for the band
The main target for the bands is keeping in time just as well as expressing dynamics all together. we could solve this by discussing when we need to get quite or louder and trying to listen to everyone else’s instrument and not just you’re own.
I would also say that we all also need to check tunings before we start a song and make sure that everyone is defiantly ready before we start playing, but despite these two minor inconveniences I think that the performances went really well because we’ve all put a lot of time and hard work into them.