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.