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Bibliography

Here is all of the references and sources featured within this blog:

Youtube (2018) Queen - Full Concert Live Aid 1985. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngf1KF2_kPI (Accessed: 10th March 2020 )

Youtube (2009) Oasis - Don’t Look Back in Anger. (Live at River Plate Stadium 2009) [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7RSi9V7FZM (Accessed: 10th March 2020)

Youtube (2012) David Bowie Glass Spider tour live full concert 87. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9fQTQ6z324 (Accessed: 20th March 2020)

Sexton, P. (2019) ‘I Want You Back’: The Jackson 5′s Sensational Motown Debut. [Online] Available at: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/jackson-5-i-want-you-back-song/ (Accessed: 28th March 2020)

UKMix (2010) Jackson 5 Charts and Sales History. [Online] Available at: https://www.ukmix.org/forum/chart-discussion/artist-chart-analysis/70191-jackson-5-charts-sales-history (Accessed: 28th March 2020)

SongFacts (2020) Never Too Much by Luther Vandross. [Online] Available at: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/luther-vandross/never-too-much (Accessed: 28th March 2020)

ChartMasters (2016) CSPC: Fleetwood Mac Popularity Analysis. [Online] Available at: https://chartmasters.org/2016/10/cspc-fleetwood-mac-popularity-analysis/19/ (Accessed: 2nd April 2020)

Stavropoulos, L. (2020) How Billie Eilish Went From Bedroom Musician to Global Icon in 8 Steps. [Online] Available at: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/billie-eilish-introduction/ (Accessed: 2nd April 2020)

Scott-Healey, R. (2019) Engaging with Your Audience on Stage. [Online] Available at: https://www.openmicuk.co.uk/advice/engaging-with-your-audience-on-stage/ (Accessed: 7th April 2020)

Augustin, C. (2017) Donald Glover Speaks On the Suprising Success of “Redbone”. [Online] Available at: https://www.vibe.com/2017/08/donald-glover-redbone-success (Accessed: 12th April 2020)

SoundHouseStudios (2012) 5 Reasons Why Rehearsals are Important to your Success. [Online] Available at: http://www.soundhousestudios.com/musician-band-development/5-reasons-why-rehearsals-are-important-to-your-success (Accessed: 18th April 2020)

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Covid 19 and Its Effect on the gig

Due to unforeseen circumstances we have had to suspend our gig for the foreseeable future as we, like most of the country are having to go into isolation so that we can stay safe and healthy so that hopefully in the future we can get back to rehearsals and doing the gig. During isolation I will be making sure to rehearse my parts for the gig so that they can stay fresh in my mind so that when we hopefully get back to rehearsals we can proceed as normal. 

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Week Nine

This week as well as rehearsing, during practice periods and break periods we have considered what songs could we do that could replace Never Too Much, we have had talks of maybe doing something a bit more Indie/Britpop related such as Kasabian, songs such as LSF, Club Foot and Fire have been suggested but we have yet to come to a definitive choice. Its a struggle cause we would like to accommodate all members of the bands styles by picking songs that appeal to everyone and that we can get some gratification out of and not always feel like we are having to be out of our comfort zone musically. This is why the idea of doing a Kasabian song came up as it is a good song for one of the singers vocal styles and it also adds an extra layer of variation. 

During this process of picking songs and rehearsing we have had to pick songs that not only accommodate the band members but also the audience as we realise that we cannot play songs that are to obscure, for this reason we have had to recognise that our audience demographic will mostly be a normal music consumer which consists of mainly what is popular and has been popular in the past and what still holds up today. We have also had to take into consideration that our gig is on a friday night means that we have had to select songs that will keep our audience interested and that they can get up and dance and have a good time. We wanted the set to be in ordered in the best way possible as well to accommodate the instruments swaps throughout the performance so that the gig isn’t constantly stopping and ruining the flow of the set as well as putting certain songs that are similar to each other together so that the set doesn’t come across as muddled and inconsistent up to the audience. 

We have also had discussions of possibly replacing Bellyache with a different song as the more and more that we have gone over it in rehearsals we have come to realise that it sounds a bit clunky at times as well as the chorus build up being anti-climactic. We have tried to overcome this by using the sample pad to try and fix the problem of it being anti-climatic when the chorus drops but it just hasn’t worked due to the instrumentation not fitting in with this type of Pop track, but like Never Too Much it is staying in the set until we rehearse some possible replacements.

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Week Eight

This week was dedicated to mainly just rehearsing what we have so far and just getting everything as tight as possible and also letting certain members practice key parts of the songs such as the lead guitar solos in Big Love and the guitar lick at the end that is harmonised by the rhythm, lead and bass which is a pentatonic based lick that utilises both hammer ons and pull offs which resolves at the root note and has been quite tricky for us to time perfectly but every time we have rehearsed it this week we have used effective communication such as eye contact in order for us to be well prepared for the ending guitar harmony.

I personally have had some troubles with timing the intro riff to Money For Nothing as the song comes in after the ending of Hungry Like The Wolf were we build the song up like it does in the original intro of Money For Nothing but is shortened to about 16 bars. At first I struggled with knowing when to begin the opening riff as I was paying too much attention to the drum fills rather than counting the bars and after some helpful eye contact from the drummer and focusing on how many bars the intro is I have been able to time the riff better but I need to work on doing it consistently every time we rehearse it.

As well as the instrumentation, the singers have also been taking times out to work out how to best approach their parts and an effective way that they have been doing this is by going into a separate room and working on harmonies. This is good for us especially as it allows us to work on the song instrumentally and narrow down further issues that we have been facing during the songs. For example in some cases one of us might have been accidentally playing the wrong chords or a variation of the chords but incorrectly, like in our rehearsals of Money For Nothing when one of the guitars was playing the last two chords correctly the first time the riff goes round but the second time round was playing B# to C rather than the correct variation of the main riff chords which changes to an F power chord to a G power chord.

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Week Seven

This week our main focus has just been out rehearsing our set over and over again because of how important it is for us to become tighter as a band and go over parts that sound a bit rough around the edges. Rehearsals are a vital in achieving our goal of putting on the best show possible and to do this we have to take time to look at what each of us as can do to improve our set. We can achieve this by doing things such as “hearing peoples opinions and trying out new things” in the group and just by “making eye contact, everyone knows what they need to do in order to fix the problem” (SoundHouseStudios 2012), this means that for example if a member of the band is struggling with a section of a song such as the ending, we can make eye contact which in turn is a way of telling another member to be ready for that part of the song. Teamwork is very important and practising certain songs within the set until it is tight and nailed perfectly is what makes us go from being aspiring musicians to professionals.

Another thing that we took into consideration this week is the choice of whether or not to remove a song from our set-list. This could be a tricky thing to do because if we were to remove a song from the set, there would be an empty space that would quickly need filling with another song. The song in question that we are considering in replacing is Never Too Much by Luther Vandross and although we have rehearsed it quite a bit and have gotten it tight, some members of the band feel that we could replace it with something better and a bit more fitting. We have came to the conclusion that the song isn’t really something that shows off our musical capabilities and is rather a typical song that most cover bands usually play and the last thing that we want is for our audience to feel that are set is very cliched and boring. For now we have decided to keep it in the set so that it can be used in case our replacement ideas don’t work out but we have had a few discussions on what songs we could do instead, we are excited about doing something different and more suited to what we enjoy as well as what the audience may enjoy.

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Week Six

This week we decided on a song that was really out of my comfort zone as it is in a genre that I don’t particularly enjoy and struggle to grasp which is Electronic/Dance music. The song is called Touch me in the morning by Rui Da Silva and it has been quite difficult when considering the fact that as the genre of the track suggests, it is a heavy influenced Electronic song which can be tricky to replicate on more ordinary instruments such as guitar and piano but by manipulating and implementing certain techniques we have been able to make a somewhat similar atmosphere by using different effects on the piano and guitar sections. I have also had to adapt my playing style as I am now on the bass using a finger-style type of playing with some slap bass techniques. The most challenging part overall apart from obviously finding the right sound to fit the song is figuring out the best way to structure the song so that it doesn’t become monotonous and instead is very dynamically interesting. 

In order to make this song interesting we have had to incorporate different techniques such as having certain instruments drop in and out in certain sections as well as building up key moments in the song such as the pre-choruses and bridge. The drummer has also utilised the sample pad effectively by carefully switching from the kit to the sample pad in specific sections of the song so that it keeps that same electronic atmosphere found in the original track. Due to the fact that I am on bass, I have had a difficult time in figuring out how to incorporate it into the song as it is an integral part of any type of dance track. I have decided to approach the early sections by bringing the bass in after about 8 bars into the song after the piano intro and only playing the root notes so when the main bass-line comes in it will have a strong impact to the song. The trick to figuring out on how to approach this type of song is to listen to what the other instruments are doing as well as remembering the structure to the song so that you can effectively use your instrument to impact the song in a positive way.

This week we also picked another song that has similar qualities to the previous song but was a lot easier to grasp as it is a very straight forward song with an easy structure to figure out but at the same time it has some tricky qualities, mainly with the bass-line being quite tricky. The song we have chosen is called Don’t Call Me Baby by Madison Avenue and for this song I am back on the guitar but I have taken on a more simple role for the song which is just focused on playing power chords on the lower strings with my picking being similar to the bass-line melody from the original track in order to complement what the bass and other guitars are doing.

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Week Five

This week we decided on doing another laid back song but that is also very popular and very recognisable. The song we chose is Redbone by Childish Gambino. I originally had the idea of doing this song last year with our innovative performance module but for whatever reason we didn’t get a chance to try it out as much so when it came to picking another song that fits with this set we eventually decided on doing this song. Redbone is a very popular song, according to Billboard, it was “streamed over 16 million times” (Augustin, C 2017) and popularity was even more heightened by featuring in the hit Jordan Peele movie Get out. So because of this we decided that it would be a perfect fit within our set-list as it is a popular track as well as being a very laid back and funky soul song.

This song has been particularly difficult for us as it uses some instruments that we did not have at our disposal such as a synth bass but to overcome this we did our best to replicate what the synth bass does with our chosen instruments by staying tight within the arrangement. I have taken on the role of playing rhythm and some of the lead guitar parts such as the main guitar lick that has some delay and reverb on it and it is also harmonised with the electric piano which creates a very nice and atmospheric sound and helps add our own twist to the song.

Once we had gone through the set again we came to the end of Hungry Like the Wolf and the bass kept on playing this outro for it which after it ended I began playing the Money For Nothing by Dire Straits riff which we decided that it might be the perfect next song to do as it ties in perfectly with Hungry Like the Wolf due to the fact that at the end of the song it features a similar chord progression found in Money For Nothing and is a fun and recognisable song for our audience as well as it adding more twists for our set-list. So for this song I am playing the Mark Knopfler parts with some lead added in towards the end which utilises the blue pentatonic style of playing and even though it can be seen as a very typical style of lead playing, I have added a twist to my performance as I have decided stayed faithful to Mark Knopflers style of playing which is mainly fingerstyle. For someone who mainly uses a pick I have managed to adjust my style of playing in order to make the song sound and feel more authentic.

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Week Four

This week in keeping with the momentum, we decided that we should try and choose one or two more songs for the set-list and we ended up deciding on Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane. I believe that this song was chosen due to the fact that during rehearsals we remembered the cover of this song by Rascal Flatts in the Disney movie Cars and because of its feel good nature we decided that it might be a fun song to do for our audience. For this song I decided to use some distortion in order to give the song a blues rock tone which complements the musical arrangement well. Whilst i found that my tone fitted well with this particular song, it did take me a while to get perfect tone as i didn’t want to overpower the other guitarists in the band.

There is a section in the original song where the guitar and bass drop out which allows the singing to take centre stage which we found to be a perfect thing to include for the performance as the singers can keep the chorus going with the drums keeping the beat and get people clapping there hands and joining in with the chorus. After 8 bars of this, one at a time we each begin to bring each instrument back in for a big finale which we found to be one of the most dynamically pleasing sequences that we have done so far as it this section allows us to bring in audience interaction which is “one of the most important parts of music” (Scott-Healey, R).

For the next song we decided to pick another song that everyone in the audience would be familiar with and the song we decided on was Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran. In keeping with the rock/pop element in that last couple of songs we have chosen this one as it fits well with the progression of the set-list and we felt that many people would enjoy this song as it was one of the biggest hits of the 80′s. I am once again playing the main rhythm section with some distortion and in the song there is a section which acts as a bridge were it breaks down and turns into a series of noises and effects which we have done are best to replicate with the use of long drawn out distorted power chords and dynamic plectrum slides to create a very atmospheric bridge that is in line with the original song. 

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Rehearsals So Far

For the songs we have got so far we have tried to focus as we are rehearsing to improve the intros and outros so that they can be tight as well as dynamically pleasing. In such as short time we have managed to box off nearly 5 songs which is something that we are very proud of. Even through some of the difficulties that we have faced we have still been able to have five songs down in less than three weeks which demonstrates how each of us are able to work well together when we focus on certain goals and put our heads together.

Even though we were able to work so well in a short amount of time we did have some trouble with picking songs, for example I had the idea of maybe doing Africa by Toto as I felt that it might be a good addition to the set-list but at the same time not everyone in the band felt the same way which is fine because through this process you will learn that being in a band is sometimes about compromise for the sake of the other members as well as the music. I believe that if we continue to keep with the momentum we have now that we will have more than enough songs at our disposal to choose from for the gig and that we will become tighter as a band and more confident in our abilities going forward towards the build up to the gig.

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Week Three

This week we went with a song that is recognisable but has a more laid back feel to it, the song is called Do it again by Steely Dan and this had been one of the most challenging songs so far as it is a song that is very heavy on the percussion side of things which is something that we have work round the best we can. We have sped the song up a little bit so that whilst it still remains laid back, people can still get up and dance to it because of the slightly sped up tempo and in general we just found it to be a bit better once we sped it up. For this song I have been playing the lead riff to the song and in doing this I have left open some space for improvisation within the song. 

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Week Two

For this week we decided to try and get two more songs onto the set-list and the first song we chose this week is a track by a very beloved band called Fleetwood Mac that is known and respected worldwide and has a sold album total of 84.55 million units (ChartMasters 2016) and the song we chose by them was Big Love. This song is primarily focused on the lead and acoustic guitar arrangements so my parts for this song are also rhythm based but in order to add another twist to my part I have started to use my distortion pedal with low gain and have begun palm muting power chords to give my tone a bit more of a punch and it has ultimately helped the rhythm sections sound a bit more interesting. 

The next song we decided to go with is more of a modern song so that it adds a bit more variation to our set as well as giving the audience a song that they can closely identify with as the majority of the audience will most likely be the more modern consumer of music which is mostly the younger generation and whatever is in the charts. So the song that we have chosen is Bellyache by Billie Eilish and when compared to our previous song choice it could be seen as quite a jump genre wise as this song is a very modern Pop song whilst the Big Love is more of a rock song, but variation is a very good thing to have in a set and we have realised that we can always switch the set around to make the sudden genre change less jarring for the audience. Billie Eilish is one of the biggest selling modern artists today due to the fact that she has racked up “billions of streams worldwide” (Stavropoulos, L 2020) so when it came to picking another song, we decided to go with this artist as she is very popular with the younger generation of today and is very well respected so if we were to play one of her songs to our audience, we would be guaranteed a good response from the vast majority of our crowd.

This song isn’t a very guitar heavy song so I have decided to bring my guitar in on the main build up sections and in doing this I have helped by leaving space for the singing and acoustic guitar sections to be focused on. Thankfully we have gained access to a sample pad for the drummer to use which significantly improves the our version of the song due to the fact that on the original track there is a similar piece of drum software used for the chorus.

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Week One

Since we have chosen the type set-list that we would like to do it was time for us to get some songs onto the set as soon as possible. The first song that we chose to kick the set off is I Want You Back by Jackson 5 which is a song that has been described as one of the classics of Motown and at release it “spent a week at No.1″ (Sexton, P 2019) with it also selling up to the figure of 1,250,000 million copies whilst in the charts (UKMix 2010) which only goes to show its incredible impact that it had on the Motown genre which furthermore helped boost Motowns popularity. For this reason we decided that its was a great song to kick off our playlist as it is a classic and is upbeat as well as it being fitting with the idea we have had for the set in which we select songs that are familiar to many people and are upbeat and people can dance to it. 

I began by playing bass on this song at first but later decided with another member of the band that I should jump on guitar instead and allow someone else to takeover on bass as his style on playing was much more suited to the song and I have began playing rhythm guitar on this song and this songs key has now been changed to F major in order to help the singers and make it sound a bit more new and interesting.

The next song that we have chosen is Never Too Much by Luther Vandross which is a song that “became his first hit single, topping the R&B charts and 2 years later charting in the UK” (SongFacts 2020). We believed that this song would be a perfect follow up song to I Want You Back as when compared to each other these songs both are big chart toppers and both have made their mark on society in becoming know as a classic. For this song I have taken to playing one of the rhythm sections an octave higher in order to add more variation to the rhythm sections of this song as it would sound overpowering musically if we all played the exact same chords with no variation.

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Choosing what type of setlist

When we first got together we decided that we needed to choose what type of set-list we would like to do, we all suggested different things with the most popular suggestion being a funky/dance set-list with popular songs from the past and present sprinkled in so that the audience wouldn’t have trouble joining in with each of the songs as they will feel familiar and recognisable.

We want the set-list to be very dynamic and versatile but have many elements that the audience will enjoy, we would like our set to be somewhat similar to how artists such as David Bowie have there set-lists and how they end up being very versatile by mixing in different types of genres together in a set so that it can be more interesting for the audience. Take for example how David Bowie has a song like Lets Dance which is a very upbeat and popular dance track  whilst at the same time he also has a song like Rebel Rebel in his set which has a more rock n roll/blues style to it on his Glass Spider tour. Although the clever thing he did with his set to make it work is that he spaced the two songs out with Rebel Rebel being the 8th song in the set and Lets dance being the 15th so it wouldn’t be jarring for the audience to hear two songs that sound very different next to each other. This is a very useful tip for us as it can help us with the positioning of the songs in our set. 

I think its very important for us to pick a set-list for everyone but at the same time I believe it should be as versatile as possible so that it stays interesting for the band as well as the audience.

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Introduction

In this blog I will be detailing the process of learning and rehearsing the different songs that myself and the band have chosen for the set-list for our last major performance. I am hoping to show off my musical capabilities in the final performance and hopefully will be able to show that i am capable of playing different types of musical styles and genres.

It is important that we put on the best show possible and in order to do this you have to take a look back and see what artists in the past have done to make their performances special, be it by simply interacting with the audience to getting them to join in. An example of this can be when Freddie Mercury got the crowd to join in on the Radio Ga Ga chorus at live aid or when Noel Gallagher told people to sing along with Dont look back in anger at the River Plate Stadium in 2009. Simple things like this is what help make performances special and this is what we aim achieve with our performance, we simply want to play songs that the crowd will love and interact with so that we have a great time and as well as the audience.