My Formative Assessment (Rolling In The Deep by Adele)

On Wednesday, 5th of October i played "Rolling In The Deep" by Adele for my formative assessment. the feedback i was given read
Try to be a little cleaner on your fretting. Some of your chords were not played as clean as they could have been. Arrangement and form accurate. Try to look up and out more. This is a performance. Greater communication with the rest of the band and audience needed. Your timing was solid, but your picking hand needs to dig in more to project your sound.
i felt that this feedback was decent, as when looking back on the video i noticed that it does look like I'm not digging into the chords that i was playing. the feedback also stated that i needed to work on my fretting however i felt that was not my fault as the other guitarist had a semi hollow guitar with a really odd tone to it that didn't fit in with the style of the song so i feel that that might have been a reason for the problem.
 I also suffer from stage fright and throughout this video I am just starting to overcome it so that explains not looking up. However, near the end of the song i do start to build up confidence and look up. Since that performance i have built up the courage to look to the crowd and get more active.

Practice diary - post 5

Practice diary - post 5
Section 1 – My personal targets

this week, i decided to carry on improving Come together as i have decided that i would like to perform this in the two song assesment after term. so i have been playing it in time with the recording and learning the solo.

i have also been practicing"dancing in the street" by Martha and the Vandellas. i found that this song is really easy and i managed to learn it within 30 minutes. i am practicing this song so that i can perform it in two weeks time for stylistic awareness.

in technical development, we have been looking at the caged system and how it works. i found this to be really interesting and useful as sometimes when playing, i cannot find the chord that i am looking for in one certain area of the fretboard.

I feel that learning the whole of the caged system will greatly improve my fretboard knowledge and make me a better, more experienced player. i have previously looked at the caged system (as mentioned in Post 1, although i only learnt the basics of it).

Throughout band skills we have been performing 'come together' in random groups. i found this to be really fun as i enjoy the song, so i didn't have any problem with any chord changes and so on. i also decided to get up to perform. i was really happy about how the performance went, apart from the solo where i couldn't hear myself so after the performance i realised that i played some bad notes.

section 2 - other

i also decided to attend a session after my lectures. So on monday, i decided to go and attend a wellbeing workshop with a friend. i felt that this was really helpful for me as it helped me relax and stop stressing about small things that were bugging me. i will attend try to carry on attending the sessions when i can. however i have found that trying to attend some of the sessions is rather difficult so i will try to attend as many sessions as i can.

Practice Diary - post 4

Practice diary - post 4

Section 1 – My personal targets

This week, i decided to improve upon Red house by Jimi Hendrix. This song was very hard to learn as Jimi has a certain style that is very hard to replicate. The song also includes lots of dynamics throughout it which also makes it very hard to perform live, so i have decided to practice this so that when it came to performing the song i will be able to perform it with no trouble.

in stylistic awareness we carried on covering Red House and managed to get everyone up to perform including myself. i felt that i performed it reasonably well, however like i have said before, Hendrix has a signature style that is hard to replicate. Because of this certain style i found some of the licks that i played to be to sloppy and messy and i didn't manage to pull of the same feel that Hendrix did.

in band skills we have started to learn 'come together' by the Beatles. I am very happy about this as i really like the Beatles so i feel that i will enjoy getting up and performing this as it will be easier to get into the groove and the swing of the song.

in technical development we have carried on looking at the indie song and improving upon it. we were doing this by playing to a metronome. some of the group also got up to perform this in front of the class.

throughout critical listening we have been looking at more theory and understanding time signatures and keys.  i found this to be fairly hard as some of the things that we covered, i did not understand.

Section 2 – Practice updates

This week I have also been practicing 'Come Together' by The Beatles. this song was fairly simple to grasp and i managed to pick it up within 30 minutes, however i felt that i should learn this in depth so that i would be able to perform it with no errors.

Practice Diary - Post 3

Practice diary - post 3
Section 1 – My personal targets

This week, I set out to improve upon my stage fright problem as i have had very severe stage fright in the past. i have decided to overcome this as it is definitely not good for a functioning musician to have this. so i have decided to combat this by playing in as many performances as i can. in doing so i feel that this will help me fight my nerves as i will get use to the feeling of being nervous. however all of this is a work in progress and i have not overcome it however i will continue to update the blog and keep everyone posted on this problem.

throughout my lesson in critical listening we looked into a lot of theory, and transposing songs from one key to another. this was very interesting as i have been looking into theory, however some ideas where a bit too complex for me, so some sections of the lesson i didn't understand.

throughout my stylistic awareness lesson we covered 'Red House' by Jimi Hendrix. this song is very hard to learn as it includes a lot of feel in the song with the dynamics and the way that he plays its. This is hard as Hendrix has a signature messy style that i hard to replicate without sounding to sloppy.

this week in band skills, we finished performing 'rolling in the deep' by Adele. i enjoyed this lesson as i faced my stage fright that seemed to be very bad on that particular day and decided to get up and play. i feel that this performance went very well and i am proud of myself for getting up and doing it.

throughout technical development we have been looking at an indie song in the style of 'Mr Brightside' by The Killers. i found this song to be fairly difficult as it is meant to be played very high up the neck of the guitar, so i found myself struggling trying to play some of the notes and let them ring out.

Section 2 – Practice updates

This week I have been practicing the solos to 'welcome to the jungle' by Guns N' Roses, however these solos are very tough as Slash has a really specific feel to his playing so i feel that in one more week i will be able to completely lean the solos and hit my deadline of two weeks to learn it.

Formative assessment - Day 3 / stage fright

Formative assessment - Day 3 (Thursday) / stage fright

(part of my practice diary for my formative assessment week)

for part of my formative assessment week, i have participated in stylistic awareness by performing 'Red House' by Jimi Hendrix. I decided to perform this song as i felt that i need to try to overcome my stage fright (as stated in other blog posts) as to be a functioning musician, the last thing that anyone would want would be stage fright, so i decided to perform. Throughout the performance i felt that i played fairly well however the nerves got the best of me at times as some licks ended up being played out of time and they didn't sound good. however i feel that i am slowly overcoming my stage fright as i am trying to face it by playing performances that i don't feel like playing. i feel like this is a good way of overcoming my stage fright as i will slowly learn to get use the feeling of nerves.

in conclusion i feel that i performed well despite my stage fright and i will continue in trying to work on it through performing in front of crowds.

Formative assessment - Day 2

Formative assessment - Day 2 (Wednesday)

(part of my practice diary for my formative assessment week)

Throughout my formative assessment, I was assessed in my stage performance for band skills. I felt that throughout this assessment I performed very well especially as throughout the past I’ve had severe stage fright before shows.

What I can improve:

I feel that my performance went very well however I feel that I could’ve improved upon my confidence when performing, as my lack of confidence affected how much I moved about. However, I’m sure this will improve over time, as I’m taking step to overcoming this through performing as much as I can.

In conclusion I feel that I performed to my best ability despite nerves however I feel that all of this will improve over time.

Formative Assessment - Day 1

Formative assessment – (Monday)

(part of my practice diary for my formative assessment week)

For this following week I will be undergoing a formative assessment in my lecture classes. These assessments began yesterday with my first assessment being throughout my technical development lecture. Throughout this assessment, this included; 1 repeating pattern, 1 chord based song and 1 16 bar extract from a song chosen by our teacher. I found that throughout this assessment I began feel nervous to perform as in the past I have had severe stage fright, however as I got on stage I felt more at home than I have ever felt when playing something to a crowd and all of the nerves slipped away from me as I played. For the first extract I felt that I played the repeating pattern fairly well despite slipping out of time for one note. For the next chord based strumming song I felt that I also performed well on this. For the last song I felt that I performed the best for it, with no slip ups apart from a little slip up on the last 2 note that I didn’t play but instead held the note as that was the way I had been practicing it.

What I could have done better:

I felt that for this assessment I didn’t have any major issues except for what I’ve stated which was very minor. So I feel that the best I could do with improving is to make a set routine for practicing the extracts, as some days I focused on some more than others when I should’ve practiced them all to the same level and amount of time.

Practice diary - post 2

Practice diary - post 2

Section 1 – My personal targets

This week, I set out to improve upon my picking technique, as I am very poor at economy picking. I have made my own schedule for every week, in which I will try to develop 1 skill that I currently have not tried or have no decent ability in. In doing so this will help me to develop a better ability and understanding of playing different genres of music and the different techniques that are used in that style to get the sound, for this instance, this technique would be very useful with playing fast licks or solos in a metal or funk genre.

I felt that I have developed a better understanding upon economy picking as I have learnt this skill to a very decent level. i have been able to play using economy picking in some songs  

Next week I hope to have learnt sweep picking. However this is a very hard picking technique to learn, so i feel that in order to learn this skill to a great degree i will need to spend more than week on the skill, however i will try.

Section 2 – Prep for assessments

(Next week there are formative assessments in Band Skills and Technical Development)

In Band Skills I’ll be performing 'Rolling in the deep' by Adele.

My strength in this song is that i can hold a very strong rhythm with good timing.

My weakness is i sweat a lot through my hands on stage because of nerves, so sometime i can drop my plectrum through out the performance.

To achieve the best results, I need to remember to relax before performing in front of people as it isn't as big of a deal as i make it out to be.

In Technical Development, I am required to learn practices for my formative assessment on Monday.

My strengths in this are i can remain a strong timing to a metronome.

To achieve the best results, I need to remember to relax my arms while playing as digging into the strings can lead to an uneven sound.

Section 3 – Practice updates

This week I have been practicing welcome to the jungle by Guns N' Roses. So far i have learnt the whole of the rhythm sections of the song however i haven't leant learnt the solos though i do intend to learn them within the next two weeks.

(my next week is my formative assessment week, so i am going to post about each of the assessments that i do in separate posts and won't be doing a post like this, so i will be missing out one number from the week count)