Evaluation
One strength of mine is my ability to adapt my voice depending on the genre and artist.
This is a skill I have naturally learnt to strengthen throughout the course. I plan to
continue using this as much as possible because all three of our songs had a different
sound to them meaning I had to adjust my vocals to fit these pieces. I intend to further
my knowledge in my own vocal style instead of taking too much inspiration from the
original artist, although this skill is very important in this course because we will
constantly be doing different genres and styles.
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Another strength of mine is my lyrical abilities. Aswell as being able to remember lyrics
fluently in a short amount of time, I am also very strong in lyric writing. This skill proved
especially important in this project because for a while we had absolutely nothing for our
original. After deciding on the instrumental elements of the song, I got straight to writing
lyrics and a melody for the song. I was able to do this in one session and it took roughly
about an hour at most. This was impressive even to myself because our lyrics and melody
were both catchy and strong, they conveyed the meaning of our song as well as the lyrics
creating a story and they fit the given brief well.
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One of my professional strengths is my ability to be on time or even early. Personally, I do
not like being late for anything and would rather be early than late. Throughout the term,
I have been early or on time to almost every session. This has proven useful because this
meant I could start preparing for a rehearsal straight away or even get myself ready for a
coursework lesson. This then saves time and can also ensure that sometimes we were
able to begin rehearsing straight away instead of waiting on anybody. This is a skill that
can prove useful in a professional working environment because it shows that I can be
trusted to be on time.
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Another professional strength of mine is my coursework and interest in achieving higher
grades. I always listen to feedback in order to improve myself in my work, this then allows
me to receive higher grades through a higher quality of work. This will continue for me
because I intend to do the absolute best in my work to achieve my goals in the future.
This will all contribute to my future so I take it very seriously, I'd like to continue getting as
much feedback as possible to further better my work and get that distinction standard
work again.
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One area I would like to develop more is a stage personality. Despite being confident in my stage presence, I would like to develop my own unique stage personality in which I can express myself in a different way than I currently do. This would help in making me stand out as a musician because certain aspects about me are already unique, I just want people to remember my performances when they leave the gig.
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Another area I would like to develop is my ability to produce and mix songs. Despite being
strong in my song writing abilities, I intend to improve the production section of the
creative process. This is because I never really wanted to change much about the way or
original sounded when recorded, I just wanted to balance things out and add some effects
on the vocals because I do not enjoy listening to my own dry vocals. This is something I
need to get used to as a vocalist because it is a key part of producing songs that I feature in.
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A professional area I would like to work on is ensuring that I remember to submit work
before the due date. Despite my work being mostly complete, I never end up submitting
the work when it is done. This then causes complications because my tutor will not know
I've completed the work if it has not been submitted. I intend to better this ability and
ensure everything is completed and submitted on time.
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Another area I would like to develop is my ability to express opinions in a manner that
does not offend people. Although, I try my hardest not to offend or upset people
sometimes when I express my opinion about something it may come across as being
“having a go” at a person. However, I do not intend to do this and try my hardest to
please as many people. This is something I will work on as well as developing my
confidence when talking to others in general.
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Something that worked well within the group was our understanding of effects when
writing our original. We ended up going for a psychedelic inspired piece which meant we
needed to use some different effects especially on the guitars. This meant that we were
then able to achieve the kind of sound that we wanted because we all had some kind of
say in what the main guitar sounded like. We were then able to create an original we
were all satisfied with.
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We were able to make our first song (To be human) work better with the instruments in
our band as the original song had piano and a drum machine. This meant we had to figure
our what to do with the drums and guitars. We agreed that to make the guitars quiet in
the verses, they would use power chords and palm mute in order to achieve a more rock
sound compared to the original track. This worked well for us and made us like the song
slightly more than we originally did.
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Something that worked well within the group was everybody’s ability to learn the songs
quickly. It did not take us long to learn and begin to perform our cover songs. This show
cased our efficiency in preparation. This is important because everybody put individual
effort into learning the pieces in their own time, proving we are able to learn
independently and dedicate our free time to the course. In a work place or university, this would be a very useful skill because there won’t always be somebody telling you how to do things, you will most likely need to figure it out by yourself in your own time.
Another thing that went well was the support received to and from each other. In
rehearsals every member encouraged others in expressing themselves via stage presence or even musical abilities. Everybody received praise when it was due and it felt like a very comfortable environment to work in and ensured nobody felt judged when they tried something different.
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In the band, it felt as though some members were not fussed about stage presence. Our stage presence could have been a lot better however nobody knew what to do with the songs that we had and some band members did not move much at all. Nerves are understandable but these members did not attempt some stage presence in rehearsal either which proved how they felt towards the actual performance itself. This made it feel like there was a lack of creative effort amongst the band and made others feel embarrassed when they did actually move because others were not.
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When discussing parts for the original, there was often disagreements. This was because some member had never played in the style we had chosen before. This made parts harder to create for certain members of the band because they had no previous
knowledge in the style of playing for the genre. Despite encouragement and help from
others these parts were still not to the level we ideally wanted for the song.
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A lack of contribution from our other vocalist when writing the original made me feel as though I had a lot of pressure on me to write the lyrics and melody for the song. This felt unfair and did not show team work because it felt very one sided as the other vocalist did not seem to want to sing during anything other than the chorus. In a work place, team work is important when completing certain tasks. Help from our other vocalist would have eased my nerves about the lyrics I had written for the song.
There was some heated moment in rehearsal sessions. When rehearsing Black or white
we had to go over the intro to the rap section multiple times one after the other in order to get it right. This ended up annoying everybody and caused a debate in the rehearsal because we just could not get it right. This shows a lack of perseverance and maturity from everybody because the situation could have been handled in a more professional manner.