video 1
In this video we wanted to make a start on writing a song but didn’t really know how to get going. Lewis started with a beat he was working on for a while before and then Jacob started playing some chords from E and thats how he found the chords E7#9, Dmaj, Amaj and Bmaj. After he had found a solid chord progression to try out we started to try add some lead parts or try find other parts to song I was using a simple minor pentatonic box to start with I then move up to a BB box and use the second pentatonic box to resolve back to where I started. (on the fret board)
This first video is clearly us at the very start of the production for this song, I feel it was a good first step to keep playing the same 4 chords over again because this lets us explore with our scales and get a overall feel for the song and what we want it to be. Right now Lewis has a pretty basic drum pattern but the more he experiments in rehearsals at college and at home then the beat will improve. I am sure we will make good progress with the sections of the song bit by bit.
Straight away what I get from this song is elements of Led-Zeplin in the guitars, a nice mix of say 80s – 2000s rock feel overall so I think we should do some research into rock songs between that time period to find out what made it so good and then take inspiration
We should all take what we have done today home and me and Jacob should both try to create more sections for the song, if we both do this then we will have 2 different results and gives us more to work with when it comes to applying the idea in the next rehearsal to the actual song and making sure it fits how we want it to.
What Went Well
Well straight away we had a beat and shortly after some chords to work with, this makes the process a lot easier than sitting around trying to find little ways to start so we saved time and got right to it. We have a foundation to work off and I am hopeful to see what happens to this idea in the next rehearsal.
What Went Wrong
For me personally I don’t like how long it took for me to find a flow with the song to feel comfortable improvising and using scales to create more for this song. I think it maybe Jacobs use of the scales and how comfortable he looks while going at speeds of the top of his head, I need to find a way for this to inspire me and motivate me to be more confident in my own ability to play and improvise as we have similar knowledge he is just quicker but I feel I will find a good way for it to benefit instead of hold back, we will see.
What Can I Do To Improve
For that entire session all we did was work on that 1 progression and I think thats the reason we didn’t leave with any thing more that a progression for 1 song. I think we can use our 1h30 mins a little better than that by splitting the time into 2 and using one half to practice on 1 idea and the other half to practice something else like a different song or possible new ideas, at least if we do this we do more with the time we have instead of overloading our selves with the same 4 chords for ages.
Video 2
It is crazy the amount of progress we made rehearsing at my house for the first time. We rehearsed and brainstormed for about 4-5 hours and now we have to other parts to the song guitar wise and also the drums are sounding a lot better now Lewis spent some time with the beat around the chords he has found some good ways for the drums to blend with guitar really nicely, don’t get me wrong I don’t even know if I am happy with the current structure but either way at least we have other parts to work with now. So after about 2 days we have a great start to the first song.
The video shows us just after figuring out what we wanted the other chords to be, so the next section is the pre-chorus with power chords G, B, D, and E x2. Although I am happy with our progress I will say I don’t know if I am happy with the structure of the song right now purely because of the x2 pre-chorus I think we could space it out a little more so it doesn’t seem so rushed but we can figure it out as we go. It also shows that we have got a chorus idea for the song that seems pretty catchy if I do say so myself, the chords are Cmaj, Dmaj, Bmaj G, F# E.
One thing I am really happy about it the fact that I wrote a crazy intro solo for the song, after listing to it for a while it reminded me of Rock You Like A Hurricane and they have an awesome intro solo to really set expectations high so I wanted that for our song so in this session I used the same scale I used before but with a lot more confidence and after seeing some of the stuff Jacob was doing with his scales I wanted to see if I could take little things what I hear and apply it to my solos. Then after a lot of improvising I played a solo that just clicked with me, now that doesn’t mean I played it perfectly or that I cant change any thing to make it smoother but it does mean 1 I am getting better and more comfortable soloing and improvising and 2 means I managed to find a good way to not be disheartened by Jacobs solos and can now play on different levels just as confident as one and other.
What Went Well
Rehearsing at home has proven to be a massive help when it comes to progress in writing songs and sections for our songs as we have doubled our work time and tripled the amount of work we produced in the last rehearsal in college compared to at home. We now have an intro, verse, pre-chorus and chorus to arrange into a almost finished song.
What Went Wrong
One big problem we faced was making sure all of our equipment was in the right place and working how it should. The night before I set things up to the best of my ability with the space we had available and found that the High-Hat on my kit sounds like it was made before christ and my snare sounded like it should be a Low-Tom, I will say we got the kit to a better standard when lewis came up as he has a drum key and more drum knowledge than me to help set things up. This could of cost us some valuable time if I had not done it the night before and if we didn’t have all the time we had this session we might not have produced such good work.
What Can I Do To Improve
Firstly I can familiarise myself with setting up the basics of a drum kit, that way the set up wont take so long and we wont have to worry about losing time to setting up gear or moving stuff around. I can arrange the room so I can easily move the keyboard form A to B along with amps and drums. Secondly I can sit down in my own time to try look at different arrangements for the pre-chorus so it doesn’t feel so rushed and out of place.
video of my fixing structure of doctor
video 3
Today in rehearsal I came up with a good on stage idea for the bridge on Some One Call The Doctor. The idea is if me, Jacob and Ben march to Lewis playing the kick drum, I feel this will show more personality on stage and will make us look more like entertainers instead of just shy on a stage.