Last Wednesday 23rd November, we had our band skills assessment which was with louis thomas, lauren power, hollie bloomer, marley mason and alex hancox. As a group we decided come together was going to be our cover, and for our original we choose one of mine which was in 6/8, we went through so many obstacles towards the song, because it had been produced in a record studio and couldn't figure out the chord it took us 2 band skills lessons until we could actually figure out the verse and chorus, but we still hadn't figured out the middle 8 part by this time , we only had a week so Rob                                                                                                                                                                                                            then helped us figure out the middle 8th part .  With a week left, i had booked rehearsals , making sure everybody was able to attend, beforehand, although when it came to the room booking a few of our band members didn't show up, which showed lack of participation and unreliability , which gave us lack of instruments and sound towards my original in particular and made us query the assessment and get nervous for the assessment, the unreliable people in our band prepared last minute which brought us down as a band , the commitment towards the performance was appalling which made me really upset , as i was excited to finally be able to use one of my originals for something. Although on a positive side some of the band members who were reliable and giving up their time for my piece to come together and to keep it up , i will definitely reconsider them in a band because they are trustworthy , although next time i now have a clear intention on who to have in my band next time and what to prepare i was really disappointed, seeing some of the people i trusted wasn't working hard enough for me , but now at least i am able to build a better team band that work together efficiently for next time, on another side people who wasn't even being assessed in my band made more commitment than people who were being assessed which brought me to our assessment day , last minute one of our guitarists who had never turned up to any rehearsals, had to be taught the chords by our pianist last minute which made it more difficult for me because we wasn't able to go through the parts we struggled with because we had to go through it all just to teach her, i know for sure next time i will only rely on the people who managed to turn up to every rehearsal and even asked for extra time to make sure the piece was perfected and the ambitions ones.

The aftermath caused me to be really upset, when it got the assessment i was not happy at all with the result performance , first of all the other singer that asked me if she could do lead for come together when i suggested it would be an ideal plan for me to do it because she hadn't been for weeks and she finds it hard to remember all the lyrics, but given the fact we were singing my original i let her take over and have the responsibility to learn the lyrics for come together, but when we finally got to the rehearsal the first time i heard the sing and practice the song, she suddenly forget her lyrics which made me really hesitant , i learned the lyrics as back up , but she insisted she did it as well as that she didn't know the harmonies for come together and i did so she thought it would be easier for her , even though i tried to teach her the harmonies in first week of been given the assessment, but after rehearsal when she had forgotten her lyrics she said it was a mistake and she was nervous which i understood because i was terrified of what was going to happen in assessment, then Sarah came and told us we had 10 minutes left which frightened me to death, i was shaking so much sweating dripping, because i knew we wasn't prepared because of the lack of commitment, and last minute we were told a guitarist we had never had before or been told about before was with us which shocked me , as he didn't know my original , so he done ‘ come together’ and that is it, when i was listening to his guitar part it was out of key and untuned which distracted us the vocalists and the band, and as i encountered that near the ending i had to cover the other vocalists words because she had forgotten the lyrics , this was no surprise. Then when we moved onto my original it was much better, but the other vocalist messed up her bv’s she done the wrong ones which made the song sound out of tune and eery which i was really disappointed in because in rehearsal i directed her them and it sounded better in rehearsal which was really devastating.

Overall next time i will make sure i sing alone as i work better that way and don't need to worry about that and i will make sure not only is there reliable people in my band but that we all work together and get along so there isn't no arguments and were all happy with each other , and so others don't have to take credits for the work i put in unless they're going to work as hard as me to get the same result as me , not just me doing all the work and putting so much effort in, but on plus side i  was really happy that i managed to put in my hard work within a short amount of time.                                                                                                 

In stylistic awareness , my first goals i set myself to Joe was to be able to explore and try different variety of genres and come out my comfort zone, so that if i had a gig and was asked to sing in a certain style or as close to the original as possible i would be able to today , not only is it an entertaining lesson and really enjoyable it helps me do what I've always wanted to do, but i didn't know where to start.

We explored a range of genres, i enjoyed doing 'Motown' and ' indie/alternative' but i also found ' reggae'  a challenge but also very interesting, and in future i will definitely explore with reggae a lot more . punk was also very different to what i had experienced before , and none of us wanted to go up and sing , but Joe challenged us to all go up together and when we got into the song , we found it was really fun , it was different to what we all experienced before , and it needed a lot more technique to make sure our voices didn't strain.

Although this Thursday 1st December, our challenge was to re-create the Christmas song ' merry Xmas everyone' by Slade , to one of the styles we had studied, and our group choose rock n roll, there was a variety of problems and obstacles, because we were so used to hearing it in the pop way it made things difficult , first of all we changed the chords and changed the way it was sang, we listened to some rock songs to get and idea of how there sung , but it was so difficult to implicate our voice to the genre and we found it extremely difficult , so from this lesson we learned we need to explore each of the styles from class in more detail, to make sure we can do it properly for any song learn the styles in more depth , by the end of the year i hope to achieve this and make sure i can sing in any way and version so next time we get a task similar to this its easier to do.

Another blog, showing my goals and aspirations throughout is about band skills

in week 4, formative assessment for band skills was to  singing rolling in the deep, as it was my first week i was so prepared and having noticed i had already messed up my first formative assessment in technical development i wanted to improve in band skills, so i prepared every night for 30 mins to make sure everything was good i also sang it with a metronome to keep in time, and i was prepared, but because it was only the 4th week of knowing everyone and that i wasn't used to the new environment i was extremely terrified of performing even though i had put more preparation into it and had nothing to worry about i was still sketchy about going up and i wasn't ready when she called my name , my nerves build up till the point i was shaking and trying any way to take my mind of it, when i started singing i wasn't thinking about anything else apart from making sure i remembered my lyrics, which distracted my performance side of the task, had i had been less nervous i would of been able to put in some dance moves and performance in as well as ambition towards the song, when i got my results it wasn't bad i passed but i wasn't going to rest my case until i got more than a pass i wanted to push myself further.

Further to that day , i attended a workshop which was evolving around the nervousness of performance and how to improve that, and be more confident with who i was. When i went to it, i found it really useful, it helped me get more experience on stage as well as do some exercises to release tension, and it really worked.

Then furthermore , i had a tutorial with Sarah which didn't only help me with my lower notes but she was really helpful for my confidence booster, i told her about my past experience and how it was hard to believe a comment from someone about my singing ever since, and its hard to come to terms with performing because of it, as well as being able to believe in who i am , i'm myself and being confident with my singing , so she gave me a challenge, which was to say thank you to people comments they appreciate me instead of ' no i'm not', as well as get up and perform more at places.

Recently , i received a gig through ACM, at music gateway , which should also be able to boost my performance confidence , and stage fright, as well as show who i am as a person and be able to feel comfortable on stage.

Band skills goals and aspirations- 

From week 4, till now i was not able to move around on stage and feel indulged by the stage, but practicing over the weeks of ACM, and getting used to my surrounding, made it more approachable, i'm still not where i want to be but by the end of the year , i'm hoping to receive tiny gigs and do some busking to get more confident 

As part of my practise diary feedback, i was told that i wasn't referring back to the lessons as much, and reading all the comments from Becky, and asking her about it, how i make sure to secure my grade, and i realise that my blog posts had no comments on my goals and aspiration and how I'm making sure to keep up to them so before tomorrow i am making sure i have posted everything i need before my resubmission deadline.

In week 4 it was formative assessment week, i had been practising over the week making sure i had those scales right, and suddenly when it comes to the assessment i froze and forget everything leaving me in a bad position , i realise i sould have pushed myself to learn the 1.5 octave scale in more detail , during the assessment i sang an arpeggio instead, and i had taking that encounter for the next  time, when my feedback came i had already realised my mistakes although i wasn't going to let that pass me without managing to get it right so first of all i booked a tutorial with Becky to discuss about what i done wrong , and asking her for some help with the scale , i was really disappointed in myself during that assessment but it was a lesson learned and in every practise i do i make sure i use that warm up so i can remember it for future reference , and i find its a really useful exercise to get my chord closure for my voice because i like doing licks when I'm singing which Becky also told me in a tutorial we had, but i need to make sure i do straight notes during my warm ups,

present day - 1st December 2016

From week 4, my goal to strengthen my lower notes is become much better , i am really happy at where Ive come from week 4 to now because i practised everyday got more tutorials with Abbie and Sarah which also helped me , although for next term i really want to work on tongue twisters which i find really difficult by the end of that term i want to make sure i can nail tongue twisters as Sarah said it will help me with my diction when singing which was given in recent feedback from an open mic audition that i need my pronunciation be be better. I am currently still improving my lower notes with exercises such as 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 which has really helped me i got given this from a tutorial with Sarah.