So...it's not quite Sunday and as opposed to the past 2 weeks I've taken the notion to be a day early this week with my blog (it's one less thing to do tomorrow!). So how have things been getting on this week? Well, Monday saw the class sit a Creative Industries assessment, which was rather unfortunate for all living in the residences due to being without internet access for lengthy periods of time over the past few weeks. It also saw me bravely return to dance class run by Marlisa (she sure likes to see us work, where's the whip?!) which was absolutely great fun...tiring, but fun!
Tuesday I found very tiring also, having stiffened up a bit from dancing and having to attend 3 bands, one after another between 12pm and 5pm really took it out on me. One of the situations that arose that day was a problem with keeping motivated, and not just for me. By 4pm or so at my Blues band rehearsal everyone seemed to be really tired, feeling down or just not 'feeling it' and this resulted in a non-productive practise. I don't think any of us could come up with a solution yet we struggled on in our attempts to create new materials and make the best of it. This is an area where I think we could all use some inspiration on how to keep ourselves creatively motivated even on bad days.
Thursday on the other hand was a largely productive day. In the morning I got to give a very short, presentation like talk about a few selected live performances I had chosen (from Youtube) on different stagecraft techniques. This was a great way for us to actually take the time to observe what bands do on stage and what really works well to enhance the overall performance. The task we were given initially was simply to go and find 3 examples of good movement, communication or crowd interaction from bands on stage and give a short explanation as to why you chose that particular example. Later in the day, when working in our bands, we got allocated some time in the theatre on the stage to try putting some of these actions into practise...I'm hoping Marlisa's dance class will help me improve my foot coordination, it's hard enough worrying about what your playing (and singing) without having to worry about which direction to move! I must admit though if we work together on adding a few more techniques I do believe the overall performance will really stand out. We can do this team! ..."Everybody Dance...do, do, do clap your hands".
Also on Thursday I managed to add a guitar part to the current project I'm working on in Digital Audio. I have chosen to produce a version of The Coral's 'In The Morning' and all it requires now is for me to hit the studio and lay down some vocals so I can then concentrate on mixing it. If only the studios weren't shut after 6pm...
Here is a link to Chic's classic 'Everybody Dance', one of the songs we were developing our stagecraft to;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOx81aG-EN4
and now...The BIG Highlight of the Week! This weeks BIG highlight has been chosen as I found it to be a very successfully completed task carried out by myself, Fraser, Amy, Wendy, Ruaridh (is that how you spell it RORY?!) and Stewart. After having joined Marlisa's Songwriting class, our task this week within our groups were to write a short piece that included at least four examples of the concepts we had been discussing in class. We included A cappella, Stop-time, a counter-melody and...well I forget what the fourth one was but I really really enjoyed this task, found it very helpful and the short piece we came up with I thought was absolutely brilliant! I could have played that same tune all day, very catchy! Thanks guys, great team-work! As always a pleasure to work with you all.
Well that just about does it for this week. Other things include having started writing more new songs for myself, jamming with Alissa to help her with song ideas and also began sorting out lesson plans for teaching. It was very tedious the other night spending about 4 hours or so drawing up guitar chord diagrams but they are now done so I'm happy. Tomorrow I must look out materials for both guitar and bass lessons that I begin teaching as of this week. Looking forward to be being back in the teachers seat!
Well there we have it...
"And now for something completely different..."
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