Diary

Rehearsal Diary

Recently, due to exams since we were first given the task and put into groups we haven't had time to get together and rehearse but we have chosen our songs. 1949 (Mallory Knox), A Day Dream Away (All time low) and Magic (Pilot). In my group there is Connor, Nina and Kerry. This is a good group as there is a good variety of instruments as Nina plays the bass, Kerry the Piano and sings, Connor can play a variety of instruments and I play the guitar and also sing. During this exam period although we haven't been in lessons we have been listening to and learning the songs in our own time.

5/6/14

To make up for not being in school we all agreed to meet up on the 5th and rehearse for a few hours. As we all knew the songs fairly well individually, today we worked on getting the timing right. We also worked out the riff and solo part for Connor in our first song choice 1949. This is a semi acoustic song. Connor is going to play the electric guitar as he is playing the melody line at the beginning and certian parts of the song and the guitar solo in the bridge, so we decided it would sound better if he played an Electric guitar. I am playing the acoutic guitar and Nina the Bass. Kerry is going to sing. To begin with we struggled a bit to stay in time as its a fairly complicated song to play in regard to chord changes the rhythm but Connor knows the song well so I watched and listened to him playing and soon i knew it well enough for us to play together and Kerry sang along. While Kerry, Connor and I were practicing this Nina was looking for bass tab for this as she had not found any yet. Unfortunately she was unable to find any so Connor worked it out and tabbed it out for her and she was then able to start learning it. During todays rehearsal time we also listened to the song to work out the melody line which is played i parts of the song. Once Connor had got this we practiced playing it all together. When we got to the bridge part we stopped to dicuss whether or not we should do the guitar solo part and decided that we would to make it more interesting. We spent the last few minutes looking up tab for this but decided the only one we found wasn't correct so Connor is going to go home and work it out by listening to the song. During this practice sesson we have made good progress with this song and next time we get together to rehearse we will continue to look at 1949 and begin working on Magic.

 9/6/14

Today we started by running through 1949 again. As we hadn't practiced since the 5th it wasn't great to start with however, we continued to practice running through the first verse, chorus and 2nd verse. The second verse has a bit of a strange strumming pattern so Connor showed me how to do it and we practiced it. Nina still hasn't been able to find any tab for this song or work it out so we have decided rather than looking for it online we will just work it out as Connor is very good at doing that. In the second part of the lesson we decided to practice A day dream away by All time low (this was an original song choice) but when it came to practicing it and singing it we decided it would be too complicated to do successfully in the amount of time that we have to do this along with many others. So we moved on to practicing Magic by Pilot and are thinking about other songs which will be enjoyable and fairly easy but still challenging for us to do. Connor has suggested maybe a Paramore song but we are not entirely sure yet. Magic is a fairly easy song to sing and play on the guitar. Kerry will play the piano, Connor and I the guitar and Nina the bass. We have been able to easily find the chords and tab for this song and as it is a fairly easy song we have been able to easily pick it up, although Nina need to go away and practice her part on the bass at home before she will be able to join in. Next lesson we plan to get some harmonies for Kerry and I sorted in Magic, decide on a definite 3rd song to replace a day dream away and keep running through 1949 as it is a case of just practicing the song to get the timings right. 

10/6/14

Today we began by making a decision on our what our final song will be. We decided on Only Exception by Paramore. We decided on this songs as will fit well with our others and is well suited for the instruments in our band. It is also a nice song to sing therefore Kerry and I will be able to easily organize some harmonies. We began by looking up the chords, lyrics and vocals. The song is fairly easy to play on the guitar and bass. Kerry and Connor are going to play guitar, Nina the bass and I will be doing lead vocals with Kerry harmonizing in certain sections. As the song is fairly easy and we are all familiar with it we began by having a rough run through and attempting to work out some harmonies, it wasn't as easy as we first thought it would be so we asked another member of the class who is very good as harmonies to help us. By the end of this lesson we had harmonies sorted for this song and Magic. We are hoping to do a three part harmony with Nina as well however, i'm not sure whether Nina will have the confidence to do it on the day. Although it does sound nice with the three part harmony it still sounds good with just Kerry and I. 

11/06/14

Today's lesson began with a meeting which I chaired. There were many things that needed to be discussed, for example, we needed to decide on important factors such as who would take control of what. We needed to know who would make the posters and tickets and their price, whether we were going to have refreshments, how long we wanted the concert to be and start and finish time. We managed to cover and answer all of these questions. It was decided that Connor would make the posters and tickets as he has some special equipment which will make designing the poster and tickets easier than just on the software we have on our school computers. We decided that after the meeting we would do some research to look at what kind of colour scheme and design we want the poster and then later all together as a group decide of a final idea. We decided that we would sell the tickets at £2 each. We also discussed refreshments and decided that we wanted to make our own food/snacks as a class to. We will be selling lots of different cakes and biscuits for a small price. We also discussed whether to provide drinks ourselves or ask the school cook to provide some and decided that it would be easier to get drinks such as tea and coffee from school rather than making and organizing everything ourselves. Due to our idea of selling refreshments we faced the problem to when to sell them. We thought about having an interval but then we worried parents may just leave if they have already seen their child perform which could lead to having a very empty audience during the second half. This led to idea of selling the refreshments at the beginning of the concert, because of this we have advertised the concert as starting at 6pm which would give parents time to arrive, buy some refreshments and have plenty of time to eat and sit down before the concerts start time of 6:30pm. Now we had decided the start time we needed to decide on the finish time. However, we could not do this until we had thought about how many and what acts we want in our concert, although, we thought we wanted it to be roughly no longer than 1hr 1/2. Once the meeting was over Lucy, Floyd and I worked with Miss Stephenson getting together a rough set list. We have typed this up and the people we want to perform in the concert will be asked and confirm closer to the date when we will write up a final set list. 

12/06/14

We began today's lesson by working on 1949, we ran through to the chorus as this is as far as we have got with it so far. To begin with it sounded fairly unorganized and all over the place so we ran through it one section at a time, beginning with the intro where Connor plays the riff as I need to know where to come in and according to what he is playing where to change chords. I also need to be able to listen to hear the strumming patter which will fit with Connors playing, once had listened to what Connor was playing a few times it was straight forward and we were able to move onto the verse section. This is also fairly straight forward and follows a similar strumming pattern and chord change progression as the intro does. From listening to Kerry singing and after playing through a few times I started to get a more solid idea of where I had to change chords as it is a slightly different and tricky arrangement, however after a short amount of time following Connors lead I began to feel more confident with the chord changes. Nina didn't bring her tab with her so she was unable to participate in this practice. Next lesson we will continue to run through this song, practicing what we have gone over today and do this with the rest of the song. We will also run through only exception practicing the harmonies.     

13/06/14

Today's lesson began with practicing what we had done with 1949 yesterday, although we all felt a lot more confident about what we were doing with it we still needed to run through it more, once we had gone through this a few more times, although it is not perfect, we moved onto going through the next section of the song. We worked on this part today:

We ran through this a few times and have found that we struggle with the verse beginning with 'So here we are' as this has quite a complicated strumming pattern and rhythm. Connor knows this song well so hasn't struggled but Kerry and I have found it difficult to play and sing. It may take a while and a lot of practicing to grasp this part. To try and help me I got Connor to play and I tried to match his strumming pattern, this did help a bit but I still struggled. Tonight at home I will listen to the song and play along, specifically focusing on the verse which I find difficult. Nina still doesn't know how to play this so she didn't join in again but practiced on her own. Myself and the other members of the group have tried to help Nina in every way we can by going through slowly the song slowly with her and writing her out the tab but it doesn't seem to be making any difference she needs to practice at home to she knows the song. Hopefully she will practice over the weekend.    

16/06/14

Today's lesson started with a concert organisation meeting. Today we discussed how we are going to arrange the seating in the hall as Lucy had suggested that we do something slightly different to get away from the traditional 'school concert' layout. Although we thought we wanted to do something slightly different we were unsure about what to do. Someone suggested maybe having tables so people could sit around these and listen to the music while eating and drinking their refreshments, however, although this is a nice idea it would mean that we wouldn't be able to fit as many people in the hall as we would if we arranged it in a different way because the tables would take up a lot of space. We decided this wasn't a very practical idea so thought about other ways to organise it. We also thought that we could have tiered seating, this had been used at a previous school production had looked good and we would still be able to fit as many people in, however, it would have to be hired and is expensive, so we decided against this idea as well. Another idea which was suggested was to set it out like this:

 

I like this idea as it is slightly different but still easy to arrange. The only problem with it is that it doesn't have an isle down the middle and we would like to have one to make it easier for people to get in and out. Hopefully we can still do an isle down the middle but we'd have to go into the hall to have a look in the hall and speak to the caretakers to see whether this idea would be feasible, if so hopefully we'll be able to do this as it is different enough from how we normally do it but not so different that it will make things complicated. We also thought it might be a nice idea to have extra stages down below the bigger one for the smaller acoustic acts but we will need to talk to Mr Lambert and Tucker to see if this is possible, we will hopefully have a bit more of an idea about whether we can do this or not in our next meeting. 

In today's meeting we also discussed who of our list of acts had confirmed that they would definitely we performing in the concert, luckily most have said they can so we will have a full list of performers. We also talked about who was going to bring what refreshments in, we have made a list of who's going to bring what. If everyone brings what they have said there should be a large variety of different homemade cakes and biscuits. We aren't going to provide the drinks ourselves, we're going to ask the school to so we need to organise who will go and talk to the cook about that. We didn't get to deciding that today so we're going to have to decide that in our next meeting. 

18/06/14

In today's lesson we ran through what we had of 1949 last lesson going through the whole song up to the verse which we struggle with it all went well. Nina knows this a little bit but still not really well enough to play along with us. Once again we went through slowly with her helping her out and by the end of the lesson she seemed to be getting the hang of it. We're struggling a bit with having Nina in the group as she doesn't really get involved in anything or any of the decisions which we are trying to make unless we are directly making so normally Connor, Kerry and I make all of the decisions without her. Once we had done this we had a run through of Only Exception, Nina didn't really know how to play this yet either so went off on her own while the rest of us practiced Magic and Only Exception. We worked on harmonies in both songs, they are pretty much sorted however, we need to carry on working on it. We can all play all of the songs on our instruments but we need to start learning them off by heart as we normally have to get the chords up on my tablet/phone so this can take a while. We just need to practice more and will eventually get to know the songs without having to look up the chords and lyrics. So far our best song it Only Exception as is is a fairly simple song and Kerry and I have been able to work out some nice harmonies so it is sounding good. 

19/06/14

In today's lesson we began by running through Magic and Only Exception, as these are our two best songs we don't need to spend a huge amount of time on them (although Magic needs a bit more time) it is just a case of practicing the harmonies and keeping going over the songs so we can get to know them and their structure. This is the case with all of our songs really, we know them all but we just need to practice them! 1949 is the song which is causing us the most problems this is just because it has a slightly more complicated rhythm however, we are getting to know the song a lot better and it is getting easier. In our lesson we today everything was fine with 1949 (it is even beginning to sound good) until we got on to the second section of the song, this is where we always struggle so we just went over and over it until we started to make a bit of progress, I think it may take a while to get it to the standard we want it but we will just have to all practice individually and work on it a lot together during our practice sessions! Although we need to work hard on this song it is important that we don't neglect the others so we will practice them both every lesson and focus on any problems we have on those before we move onto working on 1949. 

24/06/14

Today’s lesson began with a meeting. We discussed the official set list (Lucy, Floyd and I had already previously put together a potential set list containing the acts we would like in our concert but these have now been confirmed) and worked out how long each act would roughly be playing for so we could have an estimated time for the length of the concert.  We also discussed the staging design. We were wondering in our last meeting whether or not to have a ramp coming down from the main stage to an additional stage. We thought this would be a good idea however we needed to discuss this with Mr Tucker the technician, so a member of the group went away and did this. Mr Tucker didn’t seem sure about the ramp but by the sounds of it he definitely thinks that the smaller stage below is possible. As a group we thought that it would be a nice idea to have a smaller stage below the bigger ones as we could have large acts more spread out and smaller acoustic acts could be on the lower stage. We thought it would make the concert more intimate as the acts could connect more with the audience if they were closer. 
As it was just Nina and I in lesson today for the second half of the lesson I decided that Nina and I would work on just her bass as she had mentioned that she was struggling to work out where the bass line was in 1949 so together we listened to the song and I helped her by pointing out the bass line and pattern so she understood where and how she had to play. After running through a few times Nina was able to play most of the song accurately and in time with the original track. We also had a quick run through of Magic for the last five minutes with me playing the guitar to check that Nina understood everything she had to play, she is unsure about some of it so next lesson we will run through 1949 and Magic together as a group. We will probably also have a quick practice of Only Exception but we have pretty much got it all sorted so we wont spend a huge amount of time on it as we need to focus more on the other two songs. 

26/06/14
In today’s lesson it was only Kerry and I so we decided to work on Only Exception and Magic as these are the songs which Kerry and I harmonize in so we wanted to run through this.  We decided that we needed to have a run through of these and when the rest of the group are in we will do 1949 as this is the one we needed to work on the most. We only needed to go through Magic and Only exception a few times as we have it ready to perform. As we couldn’t really do anything else this lesson I practiced playing my part on 1949 along with the song ready for next lesson when hopefully the other group members will be in to rehearse. I mainly focused on the section after the verse as I struggle to get the correct strumming pattern and chord changes at the right time so I worked on sorting this out. I feel a lot more confident with this part after spending this time practicing. 

27/06/14

Today's lesson began with some concert organisation. We cut out mini posters and stapled them to consent forms to hand out to people in the younger years performing in the concert. Once we had done this a few of us went around and delivered them to the students and invited them to a meeting which will be taking place Monday lunchtime. This meeting it to instruct the students about what will be happening on Thursday, (the day of the concert) as students will be taken off time table for some parts of the day for the dress rehearsal. After this was sorted we had a short amount of time to practice, luckily the whole band was here today so we were able to have a run through of all of our songs. We had a quick run through once of Only exception, as this is our strongest song. Although this is very good and definitely our strongest song by far, Kerry and I have decided we need to have a look at the harmonies at some points during the song, as we aren't happy about how they are sounding in some parts so we will do this next lesson. Nina also hasn't learnt this song completely yet so she needs to do this asap. We moved onto Magic, all of us know this song well, although I need to learn the chords off by heart but i'm going to practice until I know all of the songs, tonight and this weekend. After running through Magic we moved onto our song which needs the most work, 1949. It is sounding fairly good although once again, we all need to learn the chords and tab off by heart but we have all said that we will go home and practice hard this weekend. Unfortunately, like in Only exception Nina does not know the tab off by heart and had forgotten her sheet with it on so could not join in with us. Hopefully by next lesson she will know it. When running through we were happy with how it was sounding until we got to the 2nd verse section which was very disorganised. So we stopped and went over this part a few times until it was sounding a bit better. Unfortunately we ran out of time. Next lesson I have said to everyone that we need to discuss how we are ending the song. In today's lesson we also decided that the order of our set will be 1949 followed by Only exception and ending with Magic. We also briefly discussed how we will communicate with the audience in between songs although we'll go over this in more detail closer to the time.   

30/06/14

Today's lesson began with a run through of all of the songs. Nina still doesn't know her part so Connor, Kerry and I practiced alone while Nina ran over the songs by herself. As we hadn't made a final decision about how the end part of the song (after the 2nd chorus) would go, we organised this. This section in the original is the bridge, it has a fairly complicated riff so we have decided not to use this but repeat the riff and chord progression which is played after the first chorus. After this we will repeat the chorus, this will end the song. We ran through this making sure that we had the song structure sorted. Kerry, Connor and I have this song ready we are just waiting for Nina to also be so we can add her in. I know all of the chords for this song well from memory apart from the 2nd verse which i'm a bit shaky and unsure on, but i will go home tonight and practice to make sure that i am 100% certain with it for tomorrows lesson. About halfway through the lesson Nina joined us and we helped her with the 2nd verse which she said she was struggling with as she could not hear where she needed to change notes so we went through it very slowly with her, Connor playing the guitar, Kerry singing and me shouting at the points which she needed to change. By the end of the lesson she could confidently play this section but is going to go home tonight and practice until she knows all of the songs confidently. Tomorrow we will rehearse all of these songs in the order we will play them in the concert. 

01/07/14

Today's lesson went very well. We ran through all of the songs fluently with hardly a hitch. Earlier, when I was listening to Only exception, I noticed that there was a riff played in the bridge, at the moment there are only chords played so i suggested to Connor that he play the riff to make it more interesting to listen to, as currently it is fairly basic. We listened to the song and worked out the riff, we had worked it out and Connor could play it well before the end of the lesson. We also ran through 1949, which we Nina was now confident with, and Magic which are both sounding good. We are very happy with how all of our songs are sounding and are feeling confident that we have prepared ourselves for the concert as well as we can. At this stage it is just a case of running through and tweaking any small problems we find as we go, we will continue to do this next lesson. 

02/07/14

Today's lesson was our last practice session before the concert. We once again ran through our whole set to pick up on any problems or hitches which, were thankfully very minimal, and just required us to run through harmonies. In Only Exception when running through Kerry thought that it didn't sound quite right so we practiced a capella and decided that it did sound ok so we didn't need to change anything. Then we moved on to 1949 as this is our hardest song so we just had to run through this until we were 100% happy that it was ready for the concert. Tonight, we will all go home and practice to make sure that our own parts are ready for tomorrow.   

03/07/14

Today was the day of the concert. We were off timetable all day to have a last practice and organise the last few things. We spent the first hour or so running through our set making sure that we were ready for the concert that evening. Once we felt confident and well practiced we went into the hall to help out and do anything that needed to be done. We sorted out the stage taking instruments and racks up and preparing it for later when people needed to sound check. When it was time for some of the bands to sound check we helped out with this telling the students where they needed to sit and what they needed to do while they were waiting. During all of this we realised all of us had forgotten to bring refreshments so we had nothing and we had advertised on all of our posters that there would be refreshments available so Mr Lambert said he would go to Morrisons to get some later that afternoon. After all of the bands had sound checked it was our turn. We managed to run 1949 with Nina but then unfortunately she then had to leave and so did Connor so Kerry and I had to continue through the rest of the songs just the two of us. Later on when we returned for the concert everything ran smoothly and our performance went well. The standard of performance at the concert was very good and it was a successful night.