Solo Music Performance Repertoire

After the Christmas break in December, we had to prepare for our second solo music performance for the middle of January where we were allowed to take our best 10 minutes from the last performance and then add another 10 minutes of new songs to the set for added variety.
The first solo performance back in November went very well, I chose 4 songs that each had some variety and were different from each other in order to show that I can play a variety of different genres.
My set list from the first solo performance consisted of:

• Vashaun Mitchell - Chasing After You (6:25)

I chose this song because as gospel music is my preferred genre of music to play, I thought that opening with this song would show off my playing ability the most.

•  Meek Mill - Maybach Curtains ft. John Legend, Rick Ross (4:52)

I chose this song because compared to the first song where the instrumentation and the lyrical content is very important, a rap song where the lyrical content is the main focus is the perfect opportunity to be able to stand out with improvised runs and riffs.

• Bruno Mars - Locked out of Heaven (3:53)

I chose this song because the bass line is the dominant instrument leading the song so it would be stupid if I didn't learn this song for my solo performance as well as adding my own runs on top of it.

• J Cole - Crooked Smile (4:37)

This song was chosen because it's actually one of my personal favourite songs because of the message from the song (which is basically that not everyone looks perfect but it shouldn't matter what people think of your appearance, as long as you're comfortable with yourself) and also the fact the bass is played live over the instrumental.

• Israel Houghton - I Call you Jesus (5:48)

I chose this song because I thought I should do another gospel song so I can have another chance to  play a song that I'm comfortable with. 

• Snarky Puppy - Lingus (10:44)

I chose this song because I'm a fan of Snarky puppy's music because of their preferred genre to play which is fusion jazz so I thought learning one of their songs would definitely make the set list more interesting and upbeat.

• Wale - Sabotage (5:29)

I chose this song because Wale is my favourite rapper and this song is one of my favourite songs on his album Ambition. Also it features a live band in the song so that just made it the perfect reason to add it to the set list.

• Bruno Mars - Treasure (2:58)

I chose this song because it links with Locked out of Heaven in the sense that they are both very upbeat with a mixture of Funk, Pop and R&B. Although the chord progressions in the verses and the chorus are quite repetitive, the chords and the movements themselves feature syncopation and chord stabs so it 's actually quite hard to get bored of the song.

• Marsha Ambrosius - Hope She Cheats On You (With A Basketball Player) (4:06)

I chose this song because I like the syncopation in the song as well as the message on the song. Although the song is filled with a lot of instruments doing different thing, there is a lot of room for runs, riffs and improvisation.

• Wale - Love Hate Thing ft. Sam Dew (4:28)

I chose this song because of the message (which is the personification of the rap 'game' in the form of a woman describing the love-hate relationship about his music career and about how one day people will love him then they'll hate him, a passive-aggressive type of love. Also the song features a live band which is why this is probably my favourite song on the list.

The rest of the performance consists of me talking to the audience and introducing the songs, saying the reason why I chose them and what they mean to me.

The Budget (Major Music Project)

There was a gig that took place on the 20th of May at Westminster Kingsway College and a graph was taken of the budget. The graph's left column shows the amount of tickets that were sold at the gig and how much money was made from it, whereas the right column shows how much money was given to the performers, sound engineer, lighting engineer, box office staff and how much was spent on the hooks and the chalk.
After adding up how much was spent and then subtracting it from the income made from the ticket sales, it was then that we was able to calculate our overall profit.

For the main headline act, it was decided that they would be given the most amount of money as they brought the most amount of ticket sales due to their fans coming to support them, as well as having a large number of merchandise sales.

For the supporting act, it was decided that they would get a smaller amount of money simply because compared to the headline act, they didn't bring as much of an audience as the headline act so that's one thing to consider, another is that as they also had merchandise to sell as well, they would be making a decent amount of profit.

As for the sound engineer, the lighting engineer and the box office staff, it was decided that the sound engineer would get £30 (which is the most amount of money between the engineers and box office staff), as his job is the most important since he is controlling the sound quality for the performances. Without a decent sound engineer, it wouldn't be a good night for the audience members and could also be dangerous to their hearing.
It was decided to pay the lighting engineer £25 for his services because, although his job is equally important as the sound engineer's (e.g. making sure everyone on stage can be seen, choosing the most appropriate lighting for certain performances), controlling the sound at a live music event is the most crucial job.
As for the box office staff, we decided to pay them £25 as well which slightly seems like it's a bit much for them as all they done was sell tickets but, their job is pretty important too because they have to have good communication skills to be able to talk the people of the general public who come to watch the performance, also they have to keep track of how many tickets were sold on the night and how much money they've made so £25 seems like a fair amount.
Overall, after taking away all of the money that was spent from the original amount, we were left with a profit of £101.66 which is pretty good when you also add up the profit from the refreshments sold at the bar so overall it was a good night

Major Music Project

In preparation for our final gig called PLAYBACK on the 28th of May, the members of my class including myself were assigned roles to carry out in order for the final gig to be a success. Below is the list of roles that were vital for the performance to be successful as well as the member of the class who carried out that role:

Roles

• Press/PR
• Marketing 
• Art 
• Visuals 
• Lighting 
• Tech spec 
• Social media 

Press/PR

The person in charge of doing the PR was Garnett. The purpose of writing a PR (press release) is to promote an event by letting the press know about it and to encourage them to write about it in their newspapers/magazines etc.
Writing a press release for an event is extremely important in order for it to be successful because on average, roughly 21.7 million people in the UK read a newspaper or a magazine everyday. Judging from that information, if even 5% of that amount of people read a newspaper or a magazine and found out about an event that's happening, it's more likely that more people would attend the event through reading about it in the newspaper that they trust than just through reading a vague description of it on Facebook or Twitter.

Marketing

The people in charge of strategic marketing were Donavon and Yemisi, their role was one of the most important roles as most of the other roles revolved around marketing. Once the posters for the event were made, stating all the key information such as the name of the event, time, location and price, it was up to the marketing team to make sure that the posters were evenly distributed on notice boards and uploaded on social media sites to make sure enough people were aware of the event. Donavon took the promotion further but adding a countdown 5 days before the performance by adding a picture of the stage with the name of the event and what day the countdown was on.
Below is the official countdown poster for the day before the performance as an example of the countdown process:

On the 16th of May, my class and I hosted an event where we performed a set list of songs and afterwards when people started to leave, Donavon notified the audience about the upcoming performance on the 28th in order to promote it further.

Art

The people in charge of the artwork for PLAYBACK were Bianca and Demver, their role was important because without any kind of flier, poster or some sort of visual promotion, the marketing team , the social media team or the person in charge of the PR wouldn't have any hard proof of the event so promoting it would almost be impossible since most people would want solid information about an event before even considering to attend it.
Below is the official poster used to promote our PLAYBACK event.

Visuals

The person in charge of the visual aspects of the event was Dar. Dar created a video showing how our class has progressed over the two years and footage of our past rehearsals leading up the gig. The video was played at the start of the event before the live performances started, below is the official that Dar created:

Lighting

The people in charge of the lighting were Demver and Darlene, their job played quite a big role because certain lighting in a performance can change the mood of the performance. For example, if someone is performing a deep, emotional song and there are yellow and pink lights flashing during the song then it would seem like a joke and not some to be taken seriously.
Both Demver and Darlene asked the performers which colours they would like to shine when they're performing their songs so that it would fit the mood of their songs.

Tech Spec

The people in charge of the tech spec were myself and Shanice. Our job was very important because we had to take a list of all the equipment needed for the gig and then make sure that each piece of equipment was set up in the best position on stage from something as big as a bass amp to something as small as making sure there a guitar plectrums for the guitarists.
Another crucial part of our job was making sure the drum kit and the guitars were tuned properly for the best quality sound.

Social Media

The people in charge of the social media were La-shaun and Caitlyn. Their job was linked to the marketing and was very important because without them, there would be no promotion via social media sites so less people would be notified about the event and there would be a small audience.
La-shaun and Caitlyn have the largest social following in the group because of their musical statuses so this made it a much easier task for them. Posting the official poster for PLAYBACK on Twitter and Facebook combined with having a large social following meant that a lot of people would see it and be able to share it by retweeting it which easily helped promote the gig.

Overall I think the performance was a success. The performance featured different song varying from covers to originals and spoken words. The show at 2pm was a great turn out because a lot of students from similar courses (e.g. Musical Theatre, Drama, Level 2 music) turned up as well as students from all around the college. Cover songs such as Ain't nobody and Say my Name were especially popular with the audience because they were very well-known and appreciated. Although it was a success, I personally think it could've been better, For example, there were a few faults in a few of the songs (e.g. timing issues, forgetting lyrics) but other than that, the 2pm performance went very well.
The 7pm performance was a lot better performance wise, everyone performed very well with a very small number of faults, the only issue this time was the turn out, not as many people as the 2pm performance turned up which was a little disappointing considering that we played a lot better this time.
In future, for a bigger turn out at our next event, whoever is in charge of promoting the event would have to step it up different ways, such as:

• Hiring a group of people (excluding classmates) to promote the event in different environments to hopefully attract an audience that wouldn't mind listening to their usual preferred genre of music.
• Depending on the persons social status, they might be able to get in touch with someone working in a record label to hopefully get them to promote the next event further

Video Killed The Radio Star

The music industry has evolved drastically over the years. From starting out only as a luxury for the wealthy to enjoy to appearing in everything such as TV advertisements, movies, games etc. It is extremely rare to find something that doesn't have a catchy jingle or an artists' music playing in the background. The main reason for this is that technology has become very advanced over the years, even changing the music industry itself, to the point where music can be made, shared and consumed with ease.

In the early days of making music, music wasn't open to the public compared to the present day. At that point in time, music was about quality. It wasn’t about what the artist had for dinner the night before. It wasn’t about what they wore to an award show it was just about the artist and their art. When the singles and albums got commercial success they were usually backed up by critical acclaim by reviewers. Nowadays a song could be panned by the critics but now as some artists are seen as idols their fans will buy anything they'll put out. Good or bad. Everyday when we look in a magazine or a newspaper there is some scandal going on about an artist. When do we ever really see and artist being spoken about in these outlets solely because of their work? In the past the public wanted albums to buy but it seems as if the general public wants to see drama more than art. Even MTV which started off as a channel which showed music videos now only shows reality shows. The public are now more interested in fame rather than music and visuals.

It seems like the digital era has made some artists and musicians lazy. When people had to record the analog way they had limited takes. With limited takes the players/artists had to know what they were doing. With digital recording you can record over 100 times and if you still don't like these recordings you can delete them and record more. In a way it's made some artists become complacent in what they do. As editing isn't limited either even if you make mistakes in the vocal you can use auto tune or melodyne to correct notes and many people wouldn't be able to tell. The digital era has made music much easier to make. We have Logic Pro, Protools, Garageband etc. With these you can record and create your own tracks. You don't even need to be able to play an instrument all the sounds of the instruments are in these programs. In the past these programs didn't exist. Along with limited takes, there was limited editing. For certain effects on the voice you needed to hook up your mic with pre-amps before hand instead of doing it after on a computer. Also you needed to record your instruments instead of using them from a program. With limited editing the singers/artists level of talent was much higher than it is now. Their sense of pitch couldn't be wavering all the time and they couldn't go flat when going for bigger notes as they didn't have 100 takes.

Branding has become a big part of the industry. Many artists and musical events have become associated with brands such as Pepsi, Coca Cola, H&M etc. It would be very rare to see a huge music event without a big brand backing it. For example: Glastonbury is sponsored by BBC TV/BBC Radio, the Superbowl Halftime Show is sponsored by Pepsi. Not only events use branding. Sometimes brands pay or sponsor a label to put an item of theirs in an artist's music video. They usually use bigger artists for this so when their fans see these videos they'll be influenced to buy it. So the artist in a way does the advertising for the product. Intern this makes up for the money that labels have lost in recent years due to the lack of record sales.

Music videos weren't always around. Music videos actually weren't around until MTV came about in 1981. Before that other than buy music the way you would hear it is on the radio. Record labels basically controlled what we heard. They would pay for their artists to be played on the radio stations and that's what you heard but when music videos came about people were starting to focus on the visual aspect of music not just the sound so with that radio airplay started to decline.
Before the digital era of music began the sales figures of music were much higher. People supported there artists as there wasn't as many ways to illegally get music. In 1999, Napster was created. Napster was arguably one of the main causes for music sales going down. Napster was basically a way people could get singles/albums of an artist for absolutely nothing. The files were mp3 files and were shared easily. Napster had around 80 million registered users. Although it was sued and closed down people nowadays are more likely to illegally download online rather than buy something although we now have iTunes. iTunes is a legal way of getting our music and is one of the main ways people buy their music nowadays whereas before people would go to the store and actually buy physical copies of CDs/tapes/vinyls. Slowly the sales of physical music go down more and more every year while the digital sales go up. 

We are currently living in the Singles Era rather than the Albums Era. Blurred Lines a single by artist Robin Thicke was one of the best selling singles of 2013 selling 14.8 million copies worldwide with 7 million 5 thousand of those sales being in the US alone which is more than impressive but then on the other side of the spectrum his album of the same name has only sold 7 hundred thousand in the US which is a large difference in numbers. In the past single sales and album sales usually reflected each other but now you can have an amazing selling single with lacklustre album sales. This effects the artist and the label severely. Creating an album takes a lot of time and money. From booking recording studio time, planning promotion (which for bigger artists could mean live performances, talk shows etc), photo shoots, music video shoots all of this together is very costly. In the past the record labels would be getting back the money through the sales but now record labels are not getting their money back for all these things and aren't making as much profit as they would before the digital age.

With digital age being on the rise labels aren't just losing money because music isn't selling. Music can now be done as a do it yourself job. With all these new programs artists can do what in the past could only be done in recording studios at home. With Logic Pro, Protools etc we can create our own songs at home plus record our own instruments/vocals as well. We also have various websites such as YouTube, Soundcloud, band camp and more where we can put our music out there without the help of the record labels. In a way you could say that record labels could very well be out the door soon and the independent artists could be reigning over the industry. Doing things the independent way also means artists can keep majority of the money from their work rather than sharing it with their labels.

Tech Log

Tech Log

Loop Pedal

Originally starting with the tape loop, involving magnetic tape used to create a repetitive musical pattern looping continuously, now comes an evolved version of the tape loop called a loop pedal.


A loop pedal is a digital sampler built into a foot switch-operated pedal which allows musicians (mainly guitarists) to be able to make their live performances more interesting by layering melodies and riffs over pre-recorded chords.


During my first year of college, I learnt how to use a loop pedal for my 10 minute solo performance where I performed Stevie Wonder's song Isn't She Lovely on my bass guitar. I recorded the chords first on the loop pedal then proceeded to play the bass line and afterwards the main melody.


There are a few limitations to a loop pedal when it comes to a live performance. A few of those limitations include the amount of loops that you are able to create. For example, if you wanted to create a song from scratch and your pedal is limited to 3 loops, you would have to prioritise what parts of the song would be most important to record. Another limitation is that although recording the loops in time is crucial for the song to sound good, it also makes the music sound somewhat robotic, the recording loses the 'human' element that would normally give the music life.


There are many ways to use a loop pedal effectively in a live performance. For example a solo musician/artist (e.g. Ed Sheeran), who can sing and guitar would be able to record vocal runs, guitar riffs, licks and melodic lines and play them at will over the original performance all with the push of a button on the pedal. Another way of using it effectively, which is very similar to the first reason, would be for a singer to record each element of a song acapella to create the a piece of music through just recording different sounds with their voice.


The link below shows an example of creating a song from scratch acapella:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5eAW3rvRA




Roland V-Drums TD-15K V-Tour Series

"V-Drums is a variety of electronic drums, drum brain modules, and related electronic percussion product manufactured and trademarked by Roland Corporation."1

Although I have not used the V-drums in a live performance, my classmates have played them in a few of the college performances and the drums have given a good sound to many of the songs including music of different genres.

The limitations of the V-drums are quite obvious, the main reason being that it is electronic and lacks the 'human' element as opposed to an acoustic drumkit even with all of the different added drum kit sounds.

There are many ways for an electronic drum kit to be used effectively in a live performance. For example, if there is a set list of songs of different genres, you are able to switch to different sounds on the drum kit (e.g. Latin drums, Djembe, Steel pans etc.) to cater for different genres of music.

Another way of effectively using the V-drums in a live performance could be to create your own sounds, sample songs and assign the sounds to different parts of the drum kit to create your own song from scratch.

The link below shows an example of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR43J-Xb3AE


1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_V-Drums

The Joy of Disco

The Joy of Disco

Disco was one of the most important musical and social movements in the last century in the late 1960's through to early 1970's which occurred just after the sexual revolution in 1969. Disco started with a community consisting of black people, latinos and homosexuals finding a place to socialise, enjoy and express themselves to music while being hidden from the rest of a society that would discriminate them because of their sexuality or race.

In the 1940s, two small basement nightclubs called La Discotheque and Whiskey A-Go-Go opened up in Paris, which made them forerunners for European night life and future nightclubs in the disco era.
In 1965, the trendy Arthur (one of Manhattan's most popular celebrity nightclubs) opened and it was there that DJ Terry Noel became the first DJ (disc jockey) to mix records.
From then on, many nightclubs started opening up in larger numbers with DJs to the point where DJs playing their records became a normal and it was mainly to just encourage the black, Latino and homosexual community to enjoy themselves and socialise.
Further down the line, a Jamaican-born American DJ named Kool Herc was a disc jockey at a party in the recreation room in Sedgwick Avenue and that's where the Hip Hop genre was born.
Like the homosexual community, black people are attracted to the disco scene as well because they were also the social outcasts of society because of their skin colour.
Music of the disco era is heavily influenced by Funk and R&B which both derive from black origin. Even though black people were seen as the underdogs of society, not being successful in their music careers because of their race, the disco scene said otherwise as black artists started to see more success in their careers and even making some songs that are well-known today such as:



Disco was on the front line leading up to the sexual revolution. Now that the discrimination against black people and latinos had finally calmed down enough for them to actually have the same equal rights as the white community, it was now the homosexual community that was being discriminated against.
During the 1960's and 1970's, if someone was a homosexual, they would be looked upon as though they had a mental illness or a disease and as America's most common religion is Christianity, being a homosexual would be committing a sin.

'Boys Beware' is a good example of how homosexuals were perceived in the 1960s, coming to the conclusion that homosexuality was a mental illness as well as being mistaken for being a child molester.

Beyond the sexual revolution, homosexuality has been accepted in some communities to the point where they are seen as just normal people now. In comparison to 'Boys Beware', an advert that was released by Channel 4 protests against anti-homosexuality, showing that people should be proud to be homosexual. There is a big contrast between the two.


Disco changed the world, not just musically but fashion wise, different styles of dancing and the way women were seen at that time. 
As well as homosexuals, women were also victimised and discriminated because of the sexuality of their gender. Before the disco era, female artists were never seen as sex symbols, in fact, female artists were expected to stand up by the microphone singing about love and relationships (i.e. Andrea True) and would never think of acting the way artists of today would act on stage. 
Artists like; Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and Madonna sing and perform their songs while wearing revealing outfits, performing sexually provocative dances to the audience and overall their songs being lyrically inappropriate. 

Here are some examples of the way female artists are perceived nowadays in contrast to female artists in the disco era;
Andrea True - More More More 
Compared to;

  Rihanna - Rude Boy

The videos above show the contrast in explicit behaviour during the two songs. Although most female artists of the disco era weren't as sexually 'open' during their performances as the ones of today, there were a few artists such as Donna Summer who sexually expressed themselves on stage.
Donna Summer was one of the first women in disco to sing about sex and dance on stage. 


At this point in the disco era, Women started to become sexually objectified. Putting half naked women or fully nude women on album covers was normal when trying to make money selling music because women were just seen as sexual objects used to show off or take pride in but at the same time there was also misogyny.
The Ring's Savage Lover album cover is an example of the sexual objectification on women at the time of the disco era.

  

Up to this day, nothing much has changed, female artists are still being sexually objectified, although now some female artists actually objectify themselves or allow themselves to be objectified. 
Lady Gaga is one of the biggest examples of sexual objectification, to the point where she actually allowed an artist to drink paint and regurgitate it all over Gaga on stage for pleasure for the audience.
Before the fame, Lady Gaga looked like the most average person in the world, but as soon as she got used to the lifestyle of being famous, she changed her persona as well as her appearance completely.

Before                                                                       After

Here are some examples of Lady Gaga's music, you'll notice the various outfits and sexually provocative dances included.


Disco in the US was happening at the same time as Punk was in the UK. Although they are quite similar in the sense that the 'outcasts of society' were drawn to these genres of music in order to make a statement or to make a stand against the government. However, the differences between the two is that Disco music at the time was made for homosexuals, black people and latinos for a way to express themselves, socialise and to evade the harsh treatment from society. 
Punk however, was seen to be for lower class or 'ruffians', which not a lot of people really liked. Also, the lyrical content used in Punk is very coarse compared to Disco music which normally lacks lyrical content but is mainly used for dancing. Whereas in disco music where people actually need to have knowledge of their instrument, Punk music encourages having no music training. In Sniffin' Glue (a magazine focusing on punk or punk zine), there is a line that says 'this is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band'[1], this gives most people the impression that anyone can start a punk band just from buying a guitar and learning a few chords. The Sex Pistols are a prime example of what Punk is made out to be, even off-stage they were a very rude bunch of people who didn't have a care in the world about what people thought of them.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffin'_Glue

Solo Performance Evaluation 2

Solo Performance Evaluation 2

My overall 20 minute solo performance went very well, although there was a slight issue that occurred with my Macbook Pro concerning Logic Pro X running slow which caused one of the backing tracks to stop working, it was a very good performance overall.
About a fortnight prior to my performance, I started gathering some songs together which was quite challenging since keeping an audience interested with bass covers is very difficult if the the songs are are repetitive, but after a few days I came to a decision.

The songs I chose for my solo performance were Chasing after you - VaShawn Mitchell, Locked out of Heaven - Bruno Mars, I call you Jesus - Israel Houghton and Crooked Smile - J.Cole. I chose these songs because they each play a part in adding variety to the whole performance which keeps it interesting. Also, each song that I chose either had the bass guitar naturally being the dominant instrument in the song or it had a simple bass line which could easily be manipulated in a way that I could make the bass the dominant instrument that could stand out the most.

I moved the selected songs onto Logic pro X and I used the equaliser to take out as much bass and low end of the tracks that I could in order to play along to it. I practised for about 2 hours everyday so that I could play each song without any problems as well as recording the whole set to check how long the whole performance would be.
The 2 hours of practise each day mainly consisted of sitting down listening to one song out of the 20 minute set and breaking it down into sections (i.e. verses, chorus and the bridge) and then learning each part that way which made it a lot easier to play the song the whole way through in the performance. Also, going through songs in sections helped because it showed me where there were spaces in the song that could be filled with runs and riffs to make the song overall a bit more interesting.
My practice schedule consisted of the technical excersises such as practicing scales, arpeggios, modes to create new runs for the performance. Using technology, I picked the songs that I was going to perform for the performance and moved them into logic pro X and equalised the the bass out of the songs.
I tend to focus on the areas which could be filled with runs, riffs or if it has a complex bassline (i.e. Chasing after you), I would practise the runs that could fit nicely in that section of the song so that when I come to perform the song, it won't be difficult which, I was able to do during Chasing after you and Crooked Smile.

During the performance, each song went well and the change and introduction for the next song was smooth and flowed well apart from I call you Jesus - Israel Houghton. The backing track for I call you Jesus kept crashing so I was forced to skip it which did cause me to lose some time on the rest of the performance but I managed to handle the situation well without showing the audience that I was worried.
The method of breaking each song down into sections that I used to prepare for my solo performance ensured the actual performance to be a success and I'll definitely use it again to prepare for future performances either solo or as an ensemble.