initial assessment

Evaluation

For my initial assessment, I have chosen to play one of the grade five pieces that I am currently learning, which is called rollin. I have chosen this specific song because I think it shows off my technical capabilities and accuracy, to how the RSL exam board would like their piece of music to be played in the blues rock genre and style. This piece also shows the listener that I can play sixteenth notes at 107 BPM (in the bass solo) It also shows that I can create interesting, fast paced solos on my instrument. I have chosen to play a grade five piece because this is the grade that I am currently at and learning, so I think this would represent my current skill better than a song I learnt a few years ago.

I learnt this grade piece by reading the tab and bass clef from the rock school grade book. and as I was learning this piece, I also learnt furthermore into the side of reading music, as the grades 1 -8 progress you’re reading skills. overall I think this piece went quite well, but it could always be better.

What was successful?

The most successful part of my piece was the bass solo. this is because it shows that I can improvise in modes such as ionian, it also shows that I can slap bass as well as playing chicanes and that I can also perform basic skills, such as fast paced hammer ons and pull offs.

Another thing that was successful was me keeping in time with the backing track for most of the song. I kept in time with the pushes by counting up to them in my head and learning how to phrase them by the sheet music in the book.

finally, I managed to put some feel and phrasing into the song by just reading the sheet music, I feel like this was a success because I don’t usually read sheet music, and I feel like I have learnt a new skill by understanding how to add feel and phrasing into the song.

What wasn’t as successful?

One thing that didn’t go to plan was the incorrect phrasing of a triad run. I was meant to start on the first beat of the bar but i always started on the off beat, but this is a unnoticeable minor imperfection on my performance, as the wrong timing still worked out for me as I didn’t play it as fast.

A second thing that wasn’t as successful for me, was that I didn’t run this through an audio interface into logic and record me playing it separate through a high quality camera. I didn’t run this through logic because I haven’t properly learned how to operate a DAW yet although I would like to in the future. and I didn’t record this in that high of a quality because I don’t own a professional camera yet.

The final thing that didn’t go well for me was that I didn’t use a really high quality camera, so I had to record this using my I phone. This resulted in me having to do a retake because the YouTube video quality ended up at 360p. I fixed this issue by researching the best I phone camera settings which was 4k at 30fps, and I also researched how to set up lighting either with natural light or led lights to enhance the quality of my video. I am now quite pleased with this because the YouTube video ended up being 1080p rather than 360p.

How could I improve next time?

If I had to do an initial assessment again, I would make sure to improve on the sound and video quality. I would do this by recording my bass through Logic Pro x so I then have a crisp sound quality. also I would also ask around to borrow a really high quality camera that records UHD so I then have cleaner visual representation of what I am playing. I think I would have to match the video up to the sound in a video editor, which would be quite hard for me as I would have to learn how the video editor works. finally I would wait till I have a good natural lighting so I get a crisper video with the camera.