Individual practice and preparation - New York Girls

 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.

- For practical preparation on the song I listened to the song learning the structure and tried to sing it. I had an idea that I'd be singing for this performance anyways so I didn't waste time learning it on an instrument I wouldn't be playing.

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.

- When the parts got split up I just tried to remember my lines and the chorus, so trying to memorize when they come in and settling on how high and low I am singing.

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.

- In the version of the song we were doing my verse didn't exist so I had to take half of the bridge which wasn't ideal because I hadn't learnt it however I tried my best to adapt and it did go well in the end. The singers decided most of us were going to sing an octave higher that the original because most of us were girls so we all had a more powerful sound in a higher tone.

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

- Because it was one big class band I sat back and just did what I was told to do because I knew I was going to sing due to the amount of instrumentalists which I was okay with. I made sure to tell the singers which verse I wanted even though in the end it didn't exist. We all as a collective knew that most of the work we had to to ourselves because we didn't have the hardest job just to learn the song.

< This is one of the takes we did where I actually had a lyric slip up.

< This is a take where I sang the line correctly.

 < This was me seeing how the higher and lower notes would sound together.

Rehearsal and development 

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

- This performance was a whole-class performance where we all performed as one big band with one song (New York Girls) we had to organise transposing brass sections, the set up of our recording and where everyone would be standing/sitting. It also had to be recorded professionally so we had to organise how that would be done.

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

- We all had to be on a folk type instruments so no electric guitars or bass, we had to include brass, we needed to program the Nord (keyboard) to have string sounds because we had no string players. One member played a mandolin and one of the drummers in our class had a whole percussion set up because there couldn't be 2 drums.

How did you decide on your aims and objectives? 

- We all had a meeting first before any rehearsals to decide who was playing each instrument, how to set up a recording microphone to record all of us together, who was going to film us and when/how to get the brass parts transposed. Then we all split into our different instrumental groups and decided on parts, then got to rehearsing.

Give two examples of how you listened to each others opinions 

- One of the singers said maybe we should all sing in a higher key because it sounds more powerful so we did and she was right. After discovering my verse didn't exist instead of not giving me a part the singers decided to give me half of the bridge and I accepted, so not exactly a moment where I listened however I could've refused if I wanted to.

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

- On the singers side of deciding parts we all just sat together and said who wanted each verse, there was enough to go around and we all got 3 lines each, so if a singer said they wanted a certain verse it was given to them and if someone said they didn't mind they were given verses left over.