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Individual Practice and Preparation - Musical Theatre Brief

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 songs my band made sure to listen to all the songs extensively because on this task we couldn't afford to mess up because this was a real performance we were practicing for. For me because I was on percussion I had to pay close attention to cues because there was some more intracule instruments that had key parts.

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 didn't take any percussion home and I didn't have as big as a part of others in my band so I only benefited from the regular band rehearsals and practicing with them there because our version would obviously sound different from a track.

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 took on many percussion instruments because the bands were bigger and there was no singers needed I made sure to keep myself occupied which was actually very much needed for the percussion heavy songs.

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

I was just a team player like there wasn't much I could do in such a big band and I really didn't want a big role so I just stayed supporting my band with my percussion and I always showed up to rehearsals and each performance.


Rehearsal and development

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

My class was needed to be the pit band for this musical theatre showcase, so we were split into 2 bands given 4 songs each to learn instrumentally. This performance was for the public and would be recorded.

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

There wasn't much stylistically because we had to follow notation directly because if one of us decided to improvise it could mess up timing. We all had to switch music genre's and timings in the song "When you're an Addams" because it has so many different sounds in one song which meant I had to switch instruments multiple times.

How did you decide on your aims and objectives?

We all took sheet music home because the performance was not too long after give the brief that required a lot of practice in our own time. My band decided to tackle When You're An Addams a lot more than the others because it was the hardest and with the other songs it wasn't as challenging.

Give two examples of how you listened to each others opinions

I listened to the drummers advice on my egg shaking because at some point my timing could be off so I made sure to put the egg shaker closer to me ear in the performance to make sure I could hear myself. I listened to one of the guitarist's opinion on why he should've had the Ratchet in one of the songs because he wouldn't be playing so and idle hand is a useless one so I just stuck to my egg shaker while he took the Ratchet.

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

Well it was all written on the notation for us so there was no deciding on anything.


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