Throughout my journey towards the college Christmas gig. I made clear progress in improving my practical skills in vocal harmony, especially through consistent rehearsal and listening to records. At the start i found it difficult to stay confident on my harmony line without drifting back into the melody, but by breaking down my parts, practicing with recording and rehearsing in smaller groups my melody became more accurate. In the final performance, my harmonies were more controlled and balanced. Reflecting on these processes shows not only technical improvement but also practical skills in teamwork and self-discipline. If I were to develop this further, I would spend more time practicing harmony’s independently and work on sight singing to reach a higher standard.
Another important part of my development was singing and playing guitar in outdoor weather conditions. Witch added new challenges compared to all the indoor rehearsals. Cold temperatures affected my finger movement and stability, which made it harder to play Sparks. To adapt, I focused on maintaining consistent strumming patterns and projecting my voice more. Performing outside improved my concentration and resilience because i had to stay calm and professional despite distractions. The experience showed my ability to apply musical techniques in a real-world setting.
My existing practical skills matched well with what was asked for this project, which gave me a strong foundation to build on. Skills such as basic chord knowledge, steady rhythm on guitar and vocal control meant I could learn the material easier and focus on musical expression rather than just technical accuracy. Being able to quickly apply my musical skills meant I could adapt quickly, take feedback on board, and support the group more. Although i already had knowledge on many of the skills I still improved on some during the duration on this project such as maintaining timing in a group, staying in tune, and contributing positively to the overall sound in general.
Vehicle Practice:
The first practice offered a good base line of things we needed to improve on and to figure out structure. As a band one of the major issues in this session was timing and general fluency between bandmates. This is common with the first run-through because everyone has practiced at different paces. one way that we tried to improve on this was practicing to a backing track or metronome in solo practice as well as in a band.
The main aria I wanted to improve on was dynamics and timbre of my voice, listening back I realised I sounded very dynamically flat with a harsh timbre as if I was struggling so working on the technique is crucial. My presence in this video was week, I stayed sedimentary throughout and it comes across as looking bored and makes It more difficult to engage the core when singing more soulful songs.
This practice went a lot better because we all took times to work on it separately. As a band we flowed a lot nicer and our timing was more on point, dynamically it also improved with the crescendos in the chorus. There where still some parts that where week such as the beginning and ending in tearms of confidence in who was doing what but we resolved this after the video was recorded by tuning through it a couple of more times.
My singing got better as well, I practiced singing more powerfully without putting strain of my voice which you can hear me trying to apply in the video. and I also focused on dynamics to keep the listener engaged, its important I do that because its a very loud song and the instruments are quite often very loud.
Final practice-
During this rehearsal we had some people from the marketing team to come and video us so we recorded through the desk into Logic. In the recording I sang the middle verse because we decided some one else in the band had a really good voice for the song. We had a really strong confident start and ending from practicing and comparing our cover with the original song. It also sounds fun and exiting which is achieved by us having fun at the time, one part where this is apparent is at 1;19 in the video where you can here lead guitar and keys playing a similar melody together (doubling).
From this recording there is limited arias to be improved but we could get tighter on the tempo as a band and increase dynamics further.
Some Practice:
Me, nial, and Jaheem already played this song in a previous project so this practice was just to strengthen the song and relearn what we might have forgotten. As a band I don’t think there was much to improve on that wouldn’t be fixed by generaly playing and becoming more confident in the song. I had to learn lyrics and learn when to come in properly.
Final practice-
This was recorded when the marketing team came to record us. I decided to improvise some Christmas lyrics because it was for a Christmas marketing video they wanted to relice. incrementally it was succefull and the lyrics where more satire but it was fun to boost morale