230 Live Music Performance

Brief:

Your school is hosting an awards ceremony for local community organisations. You have been asked to provide a 10-15 minute performance appropriate to the event.

TASK 1 Planning: 

My statement of personal aims:

Through my contribution to the event I would like to achieve the following goals:

• I would like to improve my musical timing by performing with a live band with live musicians (rather than relying on backing tracks).
• I would like to improve my confidence to perform in front of a live audience.

My skills:

I think that I have the following skills which I will use to help me achieve these goals: I have had many singing lessons that have improved my basic vocal technique, much as projection, pitching and vibrato. This is gone someway in improving my confidence, but I still try to avoid people hearing me.
I believe I am quite a strong singer when singing to a backing track, but have not yet had much experience with performing with a live band or another live singer. I hope to use my strong vocal skills to achieve my goals.

How I will know if I have achieved my goals:

I will know if I’ve achieved my improved confidence and timing goals because I will listen to the recordings of rehearsals and performances and will be able to see for myself. However, as I am often quite critical of myself, I will also proved feedback sheets for the audience to write what they enjoyed, what they thought and will ask them for their improvements.

How I will meet the expectations of the audience:

I will meet the audience's expectations by finding out what sort of music they listen to and trying to find a range of different styles of music to see which one is most popular. The audience will be of mixed ages, and I will need to choose suitable genres for them. I will need to also make sure that I provide them with a good performance that is professional. By this I mean that we are all rehearsed and we all know what we are doing. If we do make mistakes, we will need to be professional about it.

Plan of my contribution to the performance

The requirements of the brief and how I will meet them:

We have to perform 10-15 minutes of music from a range of different years to a group of people of different ages.  This will mean that I must perform between 3 and 4 songs, if each song is around 3:30s in length.

What I intend to do:

First we have a planning meeting as a band to decide which songs are suitable and what order we should put them in. My personal thought is that No Scrubs by TLC will be a good opening song because it's upbeat and will get everyone happy. This will be performed as a whole group. Another suitable song we will play is When You Love Someone by James TW, which will slow down the 'vibes'/mood we had from No Scrubs. I like this transition, and think these first two songs will link nicely together. However, I will need to agree this with the band. I will also need to hear what our other songs song like before be decide on a definite set list.

How will I do it:

To complete the brief we will need to plan our songs as a band, and plan out a rehearsal schedule. We will need to practise our set a lot as a whole band, but also as individuals so we know what we need to individually work on as a group and as individual. We will record ourselves to listen back to and assess if our songs are suitable, and if there are any issues. This will help us because we will then know what we need to do to improve, so it will help us before we do the performance.   

I will need to involve:

We will need to involve Mr Flowers, our Music Teacher, to help us organise the event. I will need to help organise our band members who we will do the performance with (Jake, Owen, and Bryony). I will also need to involve other music students and parents who we will perform the event to and my singing teacher to help me harmonise with Bryony, the other singer.
  

Resources I will need:

The singers will need two microphones, two leads (XLRs) and two microphone stands. For the drums we will need a full acoustic drum kit, and sticks. For the bass and keyboard we will need an amp, we will use a multichannel amp that we can also plug the microphones into. We will also need a tuned bass guitar for Wonderwall and a piano. If myself and Bryony use a backing track or a song together, we will need YouTube to access and find a backing track. In additional to this, for the rehearsals we will need to use our phones to record and listen to the existing tracks as reference. I will need to find lyrics and the rest of the band will need to find the music for their parts.

The time needed for each song/activity:

For each song we will need a maximum of 3 minutes and there will be 4 songs that are performed. This will ensure our set is within the time limit required.

Health and Safety Issues for Rehearsals and the Performances:

We will need to make sure that the level of noise is not extremely loud. We should take regular breaks during rehearsals so that our ears will have change to rest. We will need to be careful not to trip over the leads on the stage otherwise we might hurt ourselves. Before we perform we will need to know where the edge of the stage is none of us fall off. If my voice/throat begins to hurt I need to ensure I rest and drink lots of water.

My set list:

 First song will be: Thinking out loud by Ed Sheeran

 Second song will be: No Scrubs by TLC
 Third song will be: Wonderwall by Oasis

 fourth song will be: When We Were Young by Adele

Style and Image:

In my performance my image was a basic school uniform because it was to an audience of adults and children and young teenagers. So I thought staying in my uniform would be a good idea because its smart and also teenagers wear it. My style was modern pop because I believed it matched best with the brief and I focused on what people listened to. I found out that in 1999 No Scrubs was a very popular song and still people listen to it. Also Thinking Out Loud is played a lot by many different people of all ages.

Ideas for the performance:

I will make sure everything runs smoothly by being well prepared and no the set list with all the instruments ready next to the sets the boys are sat in. Also I will make sure the set crew know where to place things before the performance.

Staging and equipment needs:

We will need two microphones and two microphone stands, a full drum kit, amps for the bass and microphones, a bass guitar for Wonderwall, youtube for Bryony and I song and a piano. Also we will need the whole stage for our performance since there is a lot to put on the stage.

Rehearsal Schedule

Rehearsal 1: 4th January

In today's lesson Bryony, Owen, Jake and I choose the songs that we wanted to perform for the performance. We listen to them and picked up on certain parts of the songs that we could change to make it more suited to us and if we need to lower the key we could do. Furthermore we also pick out bits to make them our own. 
Rehearsal 2: 9th January

Started putting all our details down on paper so we did not forget them. Then we got all the lyric, chords and notes printed off so we could learn them as a group and in our own time. In this lesson we started putting together No Scrubs by TLC. Was not as good as we hoped but we will practise.

Rehearsal 3: 16th January

When we got into the lesson we went through No Scrubs so we could see what we needed to work on to make it better. Also we made a start on our second song Wonderwall the boys had leant the bass to the song and the drums to the song and Bryony and I had nearly leant all the lyrics. I think that this was a good rehearsal.

Rehearsal 4: 23rd January

We reminded ourselves of how to play Wonderwall as a group. Then we started practising the song together one after the other and timing it to see how long it lasted. After that we listen to " I want you back" by Jackson 5 this is because at first we were going to do "I want you back" but Jake found it to hard to learn on piano so as a group we made a decision to cut and change the song. We then changed the song to Thinking out loud by Ed Sheeran. It wasn't ideal but it was fine.

Rehearsal 5: 30th January

In the rehearsal today we went through No Scrubs and Wonderwall we also started looking at the song Thinking out loud so that everyone could go off and learn there own parts in their own time. When we listen to the song Thinking out loud we try to listen to the words that Ed Sheeran used to see if he was telling a story because we thought that it would make us more passionate about playing and singing in the performance.    

Rehearsal 6: 6th February

In Rehearsal 6 we went through all of the songs because we had our dress rehearsal in 2 day so we needed to make sure that we know what we were doing and when we were doing it. We also made a stage diagram to show us where everything needed to be so that we could get ready and set up as quick as we could. When we practised Thinking out loud i didnt go as well as i had hoped because everyone was very unsure of what to do. To improve before the dress rehearsal we need to practice so we know what we were doing. 

DRESS REHEARSAL ON STAGE and rehearsal in practice room: 8th February (2 hours)

I think the the dress rehearsal did not go as well as i hoped this was based on the fact that Thinking out loud was very sloppy and we did not know the timings for the song. But i feel like the other songs went well because we had practised them the most and next time i would make sure i give a equal amount of time to each song.

Rehearsal 8: After school Rehearsal

After school I rehearsed all the songs we have for our performance on my own and then i recorded myself and listen to them back to make sure that I hit every note and to make sure it sounded right. Then I practised the song Bryony and I are performing together so I knew that I knew all the words.   

Rehearsal 9: After school Rehearsal

All together as a group we met up to go through our whole performance set. We set up quickly and knew that we needed to nail Thinking out loud this was because in our dress rehearsal we did not perform it to the best of our ability and I was very disappointed with the way it sounded. So we all fouced on that song and then after that we fouced on the other songs.    

PERFORMANCE: WEDNESDAY 22nd February

TASK 3 Evaluation

Strengths Reflection:

What went well during the performance:

Owen knew what he was doing and played really well and to the right pace of the song. Jake did well on the piano and the bass because he remembered the chords and had a good pace. Bryony did well because she put in harmonies and sung loudly. Myself and Bryony had well rehearsed our parts together to backing tracks on youtube. So when we performed with Owen and Jake we could help lead the rehearsals.   

What I did well during the performance:

I think I did ok because my pitch accuracy was good and my audience eye contact and communication was also good. I also felt that i was very well in time with the band and my audience enjoyed the performance.

Improvement Reflection:

What could have been done better if I were to perform again:

To learn the lyrics off by heart and to practise more than once a week. also I think it would help if we read deeper into the songs and new the meanings of the lyrics. Finally we could off used a lot more movement on the stage to show we were enjoying it.

Improvement #1: Memorising the lyrics

Strategy: How could you make that improvement?: learn the lyrics more.

Improvement #2: Harmonising with another singer so we don`t rely on singing the same parts. It was good in no scrubs but could have been better in the first and 3rd song.

Strategy: How could you make that improvement?: sing different bits of the song at different times.

Improvement #3: Organising other band members to put in the same effort as myself.

Strategy: How could you make that improvement?: Next time I will encourage the other members of my band to rehearse more after school and at lunch times. 

Feedback from others:

Our singing sounded gorgeous and the harmonies worked well because they were high and lower.The movement when Jenna took the mic of the stand was good. Arrangements were interesting. At the beginning it was a bit messy and needed more movement. Make sure to move the mic stand and lower the mic away from my face so people can see me. Use more moments of harmony - work on this together with Bryony.

How this feedback helped with my evaluation of the performance:

This feedback helped me because I would know what to do for next time if we did it again. And also it gave me more confidence and made me realise how much I enjoy music and singing is one of my passions. 

Conclusion:

I feel that whilst I should have spent more time planning; I was too concerned about the performance and worrying about it but as we got close to the day of the performance I decided that I should not be worrying because it will be fine and then after the performance I believe it went really well.

If I was to do it again I would practise more and make sure I spend I good amount of time on the planning rather than panicking about it my performance. I feel the more planned i am the less performance anxiety i will have I very much enjoyed this unit and it hasn increased my love and interest in music.