Individual Practice and Preparation - For Once In My Life

Individual practice and preparation  

What practical preparation do you do before playing the song? E.g. sourced lead sheets, tabs, chord charts or notation; listened to songs on playlists; notated/learnt riffs by ear; selected correct equipment; took care of your voice with correct warm-up; made sure parts were allocated sensibly by instrument/ability etc. 

 - Before playing the song as a class we all had to assign roles, so first we all listened to the song through, then we were all sat in a circle and went round allocating parts. I chose to be a backup singer because when I listened to the song the backup singers play a pivotal part in the song, plus in a whole class band I didn't want to take an instrument someone might want to do.

What musical preparation did you do? E.g. learning appropriate scales, riffs or rhythms; technical exercises to develop accuracy/speed; tone production; recording yourself and checking against original recordings. 

- I decided to give myself the higher harmony because I wanted to challenge myself and do something I wouldn't usually do. So that required doing some vocal exercising to comfortably reach those notes before I sang gradually going up the notes. I listened to the song and sang along to it so I could get the timing because recording the song would require going through the whole song and singing my bits when they come up.

How did you help to develop the song? E.g. working out chords and harmonies from lead sheets; exploring different chord voicings; practicing improvisation and solos; writing parts, lyrics, arrangement ideas and working out stylistic textures. 

- I just listened to the song and made sure that I was singing the right notes for me because we all were going to record separately me listening to the other singers could've thrown me off.

What role did you take in the band? E.g. musical director/workshop leader; taking sectionals; taking direction; responding to feedback 

- Because we were one big band I was just a team player, do what I am told and help out where I could.

 

 < This was me singing my part without the backup singers.

 < This was me singing the part with the backup singers. 

 < This was how the recording turned out backup singers wise.

Rehearsal and development 

What kind of performance situation was this? (Rehearsal, gig, recording, video shoot, audition etc.) 

- We had to create a recording of Stevie Wonder's song For Once In My Life, all the instruments had to be dubbed by all of us. As a class we all had to pick an instrument/role and record them parts separately to a click track.

What were the stylistic traits for the other players/instruments in your band 

- We had 2 acoustic guitars and 1 electric guitar, there was 1 bass which was played with syncopation, the drums were played upbeat and there was a lot of percussion like shakers and tambourines. We programmed the G8 to play different sound like a whistle and a harmonica. The backup singers had to sing at different levels to mimic the choir sound that the song has and the lead singer had to do some adlibs like Stevie Wonder did in the song.

How did you decide on your aims and objectives? 

- We all voted on the song and we had to create a recordings schedule of when everyone would record over the days, since it was due Friday we split up recordings in 2-3 days amongst us all. We all decided to practice on our own time because we were recording separately so the deal was to know your part by the time it was your turn to record.

Give two examples of how you listened to each others opinions 

- One way I listened to others is the singers suggesting we record in pairs, originally I was going to record on my own but one of the singers said how it would be more time efficient if we do it in pairs because 2 of us would be singing the same notes. Another way I listened to someone's opinion was voting for this song, at first I was unsure but then one of my classmates told me that if you listen to the song there's enough instruments in there for us all to play.

How did you decide on order of solos, cues, key, lyrics, arrangement and improvisation? 

 

- All of us in the class just decided for ourselves, when we listened one of us wrote down all the instruments ion the song then we just started ticking them off the list. However if you were last in the circle you get less to choose from but we all knew what we were capable of and what instrument fit us.