Group Evaluation:
To begin with, it is very evident that none of us had properly analysed the original song. Dynamics within the band are unbalanced, bass and keyboard cannot be heard clearly. Vocals are somewhat muffled, too. The rhythm guitar’s tone isn’t as clean or bright as would necessarily be appropriate. The instrument parts throughout the entire song are inconsistent and does not alternate between chorus, bridge and verse sections. Our timing wasn’t all that great since none of us knew what would come next or what we needed to change to and we had very little confidence together as a band. The tambourine was very inconsistent with random pauses leaving the overall sound to be quite empty and dull. Our introduction was harsh and unorganised and the outro was the same as we were unaware of the number of bars following the vocalist’s last line. Every one of us missed a note or strayed off beat at least once here and our confidence as a group was minimal. Because of that lack of confidence, our stage presence could be described as quite stiff and uninteresting.
But after just one hour as a band together, we did quite a few things well. For the most part, our tempo was kept reasonably consistent overall and didn’t speed up gradually and we successfully learned and performed a loop of the basic verse with some confidence with reasonable tones. Following this day of rehearsals, we put time into talking with each other to become comfortable in this environment and noted several points of improvement, such as learning the variation in different sections, practicing individually to a metronome and being open about feedback to each other. Additionally, different guitar parts were discussed as to introduce more complex harmony between the rhythm guitar and bass.
Personal Evaluation:
During this rehearsal I played a simple four note loop consisting of exclusively root notes, which isn’t enough of a challenge for me. I think I could have turned my amp up a little bit as to equal out the volume and essentially build up the band’s overall sound. My rhythm was entirely dependant on Luke’s consistent kick pedal, which is fine but I would have liked to feel more comfortable as a band as to have the feeling of knowing I can lead the rhythm alongside the drums rather than completely based on them and play more complex parts in the chorus and bridge. To do this, I plan to learn a more complex version of the song through a video on YouTube displaying tabs, then playing the same thing along to a metronome until I completely understand the appropriate tempo while playing confidently.
Group Evaluation:
Our first run-through with Gideon on the drums felt quite rushed, as I think the tempo he was playing at was significantly faster. Hence, our rhythm guitarist fell behind and ended up playing out of time and our vocalist had a harder time keeping up. Throughout, it appears to fall apart due to the unexpectedly fast tempo. Again, our introduction and outro felt very rushed and none of the parts variated at all to match the original.
I think this is our worst rehearsal, just because no one really knew what they were doing, didn’t listen to each other enough to recognise the mistakes and no direct feedback was given other than ‘uh, yeah, let’s imagine that one didn’t happen.’ I think the biggest point of improvement would be practicing to a bpm of 80 individually here, and coming back together to practice at a steady tempo.
Personal Evaluation:
I think the duration I held each note for was inconsistent but my timing on each beat was reasonable. I got distracted trying to figure out where we actually were since the rhythm and lead guitar were playing a bar between each other, so my overall performance was negatively affected. I think I stop at one point as to say ‘Let’s try this again’ to our vocalist but wasn’t very clear with my body language.
Group Evaluation:
This one felt much calmer, more organised and some confidence was gained by the time of this recording as a band. Our overall timing was fairly good. The tambourine drops out during the chorus unexpectedly where it would feel necessary to build up the overall sound and our lead guitarist makes a few mistakes but this was later practiced and perfected. I think change in dynamics here between the chorus and verse, particularly between the last verse and chorus, would fit nicely. Our introduction was less harsh but still felt rushed. Our outro felt unnecessarily long but cleaner than previous run-throughs.
Personal Evaluation:
I definitely need to be more aware of camera positioning to display what I’m doing, especially for progress updates. As far as I can tell, my timing was quite good and followed the drummer’s kick. Listening to the original, the chorus follows a more complex pattern and I don’t think learning that would be too difficult, so I’ll be working on that both in college and at home.