Order of songs
Breakfast At Tiffanys- 00:34:24
Save Tonight- 00:37:55
How You Remind Me- 00:41:20
Crocodile Rock-1:31:43
Crocodile Rock:
In this duo performance I sang crocodile rock with an accompanying piano role. One thing that I did successfully with this was audience engagement. I did this by speaking and communicating with them through eye contact, physical movements and verbally. This is important when preforming live as it can change moral in the audience and make people feel more compatible and enjoy it more. the effects of this were shown by the people singing along during the performance witch showed people were enjoying it.
Some examples of things we could have improved are dynamics; All of the song was rhythmically and technically very interesting but some change in dynamics and reduction in amplitude at some points could have massively helped making the song a bit more interesting for the audience. this would have fit well in the second verse where the dynamics could lower on the lyrics “well the years went by and the rock just died…” to give a sadder and softer timbre to contrast the up beat blues in the other verses, in future i will look to improve these.
In the rehearsing stages of the performance both of us learnt the parts well before practicing together so no massive improvements were made but we did agree that the notes had to be slammed down a bit more to give a really loose and powerful feeling to the piano. The rehearsal time we did have we used it well but in retrospect we could have done it more to really polish off some of the rough around the edges parts.
Vocally i could improve by doing warmups daily to strengthen my voice muscles and projection as well as hydrating more before the show because i noticed i did have a dry mouth. This could help me hit higher and more powerful and higher pitch notes.
The rhythm of the song is swung as it it inspired by 50s rock and roll craze and it brigs excitement. By swinging it Elton John brings memory to the times and this is reflected by the lyrics. the swing gives the song a forward momentum making it more lively and dynamic.
Overall the performance went very well and was well reciprocated by the audience. I’m happy with the song choice as well as it added a more happy and lively set to a lot off the other slower tempo and sadder songs.
How You Remind Me:
This was the last song that we learnt as a band but due to it all being in our skill range and us all liking the song we managed to learn it quickly. Some aspects of the song that we did well were building tension in the chorus and releasing it, this is most clearly shown accompanied with the lyrics “and I’ve been wrong *instrumental pause*” this makes the music more dramatic and interesting than just continuous playing. Another thing some of us did well in this song were movement, one thing that contributes to this is having a song with a heavier beat for us to move to. Unlike the other songs it was shown to the audience that we were enjoying being up there. The last thing that that i think we did successfully is differentiating textures and instrumental layers throughout the song; it starts with electric guitar then drums and bass then vocals, there is arias where the instruments stop witch adds effect then it returns to how it starts after a climax in the song witch releases tension in the audience.
One aspect that i think could have been done better on my part was finding a nicer guitar effect to use on this song because i think the distortion was too electronic for this type of song, in future i will make sure to spend more time picking out the tones that match the song. Another thing that could have been improved is having more passionate vocals especially with its themes of self refection, regret and the consequences of ones actions in a relationship.
However, the audience did respond well with applaud before during and in the middle of the song, this helped on stage to know that people were enjoying it and made me more confident while preforming, even though this wasn’t planned we just continued playing and didn’t let the applauding stop us.
Although the performance went well i did expect some of my single note plucking parts to go better as some of them were of time, something that i could do in future to prevent this is standing up more during the practicing stages so i can get used to playing these guitar parts with a guitar strap rather than just resting on my lap. Leading on from this in retrospect we could have just generally practiced more in our practice sessions instead of a lot of talking and noodling.
In conclusion, in this performance it seemed although the audience enjoyed it because of clapping and cheering but we could have done better with more vigorous practicing and better stage presence.
Breakfast At Tiffanys:
This was the first song that we learnt as a group and the most practiced of the songs so we did a good job at keeping it similar to the the original and we worked well together to put it together. Some things that went well in this song is the sound quality and lighting as there were no issues with guitar effects or sound issues in general such as the ones in previous performances.
In future projects i need to improve my rhythm guitar playing and keep moving my hand up and down in stead of only strumming the rhythm because it will help me be in time more as well as sounding more fluent, this isn’t urgent as it still sounded good but in future i need to analyse the original strumming pattern more. On top of this i could have also learn the lead guitar since i was the only guitarist, i could do this throughout the song to varie the texture.
Some arias that could be improved on throughout the band is more interesting harmony’s in vocals such as adding 5th or 7th notes on top rather than just octaves because it makes the song sound more impressive. The drums could also quiet at some points to differ the different part of the songs structure witch could be pared with the lead guitar part to enhance this effect. Lastly the tempo varied a lot in practice so this is one aria that we massively improved on in the days leading up the the show.
Save Tonight:
This fast paced song was the most rough around the edges but there were still parts that we did well. One thing that i did was palm muting the rhythm guitar in the intro and the start of some verses and opening up in the choruses, i liked this effect because it created a dampened and less bright timbre witch brings more focus to the vocals. Looking back i would rather i used this technique more just to bring even more energy to the chorus. I also liked the idea of the guitar solo as they can often express a lot of emotion when done correctly but it would have sounded better if i explored more versions of the scale to add more interest to the notes. I used tap on’s, pull of’s and pitch bends to make it more rhythmically interesting though witch i thought sounded good.
In future i need to set up my guitar pedals settings before the gig to adjust how it sounds with the amp that im using because when i started playing the guitar solo i couldn’t here myself due to the volume setting being too low. This being mixed with the drums carrying on during the instrumental means i had a very hard time being able to hear myself, this issue could have been worsened by not being able to hear much on the stage monitors. the drums caused confusion within the band but we managed to recover from it well and carry on. Finally, i started the song too fast witch led to the whole song being at a very fast tempo witch makes it harder for every one else, i can fix this in the future by practicing to a backing track or a metronome more often to help me remember the tempo.
Conclusion:
In conclusion i am happy with the performance as a whole as it was our first time preforming together as a band and we managed to recover from multiple mistakes. It was also good to preform in front of an audience of family and friends as there all very supportive to the performers. the order of the songs was also set up well as it starts with a very recognizable song to captivate the audience and has a lively middle song and a powerful and emotional closing song which ends the performance nicely.