Recording Update

So today was another day spent in the Honey Label Studios recording two of our original songs, Summertime and our new song Gone Too Far. This is our second day in the studio and both the songs are nearly finished. It has been a great experience and although we have lost one of our singers, Meg has done and is doing a great job at singing all of the parts. She has had to sort this out in not a lot a lot of time and she has successfully made it sound good.

We also do have a gig today however and for this we have asked another student on the first year of the music performance course, Alice Watson. She has performed with us before at the college christmas gig and so it is easier to get her back than to get some one new in, and seen as though she was 100% up for doing everything she was the obvious choice.

It is also nearly the end of the college year and so soon I shall be moving on to a better place. Most likely a full-time position at Waitrose but at least I will be getting paid.

Talking about Band and Teaching

So at last my teaching is done. I decided to teach  kid from Guthlaxton College in Wigston, I knew the teacher from the school and the kid well so I thought it would just be easier to do it. I taught a basic music theory lesson which he said was very useful and he actually learnt something which shows that I am not as bad a teacher as I thought I was. It took me a long time to upload the videos as I had problems with the file at college and my upload internet speed at home is terrible. It took me 2 hours to upload one video. But I  did it and have linked it in this blog.

In the band we are working towards the end of year college gig on the 8th of June. We have been told that we will only get one song but this is probably not going to happen and we will probablly get more time. But we are prepared for any occasion and so will be ready for anything. We have also got a wedding gig in august, the day before my birthday in fact.

Other events have also happened in the band. We lost one of our singers. This was due to her going to do some stuff in London. We learnt this 2 days before a gig and so we have had to find another singer to fill for her very last-minute. Luckily we managed to get the same person who filled in for her at the christmas gig. The person we have to fill in is a good singer who knows our songs and is up for doing the recording and any gigs last minute.

Teaching Analysis/self review

So yesterday I finally presented my lesson at Wigston Academy to a student there. There has been a lot of problems along the way in setting up a lesson in general, and in the end I just decided to teach a basic music theory lesson. I will put the video up of this as soon as I can, but I have had a lot of problems already in uploading it to youtube and I cant upload it straight to the website so yeah, it will soon be sorted, so here is a screenshot from it, as a start anyway.

Now that the lesson is done I though that I might as well give my opinion on how well I think it went and what happened. It started with some basic introductions, what was going to happen and what I was planning to cover in the lesson. The first subject I covered was time signatures. I went over basic time signatures, their purpose and how to read and understand them. We got through this well and so I moved on breifely to compound time signatures and about them, which he seemed to understand quite well.

After this we moved onto key signatures. This was a slightly more complicated subject and I wasnt sure how well he would pick it up, but he seemed to do alright and understand almost everything I was saying to him. We went over ways to remember the order on the sharps and flats in the cleff and how to work out the key from what sharps are there.

The final thing we covered was some basic chord formulas. This was a difficult topic and I wasnt sure how he would cope but he didnt do too bad. He kept up and seemed to be understanding what I was saying throughout and when I asked him some questions at the end he was able to answer them. Even if he had to think for a minute.

So overall I would class my lesson as a success. The student felt that he learnt something and was able to answer questions I had and understood what he was saying when he answered.

 

 

Overall Updatess

So recently, the band (Ceaux Fly) have been in talks with a local record label (The Honey Label), they came to us after they saw us at the Some Sort of Showcase battle of the band’s style competition. They are interested in recording and EP with us. This is a great opportunity for the band and for all of our musical careers. They will not only be recording us but also helping us to perfect our musical and songwriting abilities. They all seem like nice people with the main guy, Alex Van Roose, writing music for universal, and having a lot of things to his name in the past, including playing at Glastonbury with his old band ‘Heroes’.

In relation to my teaching I am starting a jazz band which will run afterschool every Thursday at Wigston Academy, this will be to year 10 and 11 kids and I will be teaching them how to improve improvisational and general musicianship skills. I have managed to find some music and arrange some parts that shouldn’t be too difficult for them, but I am yet to know how many people will be there or what level they will be so preparing has been hard but I have still done some so that I’m not sat there with no plans whatsoever.

I have managed to promote 2 gigs in total, an acoustic gig at The Musician, and a general gig at The Cookie. Both of these were Leicester College gigs featuring Leicester College musicians. I made posters, a Facebook page, found bands to play and made sure everyone got on and off stage when they were supposed to. The first gig at the Musician over ran by about 20 minutes due to the sound guy not being the best at arriving on time and Blues De La Ceaux overrunning a little bit. But the second gig at the Cookie ran on time, actually finishing about 5-10 minutes before we had to. Each gig had their own problems, the first was to sound guy and sorting a running order, and the second one was mainly sorting out the running order. This was due to the fact that we had far to many bands that wanted to play and in the end had to cut down a lot of them which left a few people unhappy but that’s life.

Some Sort Of Showcase runners up

So a couple of days ago we had the some sort of showcase final.

And although we didn’t win it was still a great experience and we lost to an amazing band that definitely deserved to win.We also got noticed by a local record label called the honey label, they are interested in recording us and we are going to be meeting them soon to discuss further what will be happening.

Newton Faulkner

So soon at Leicester College we have a singer songwriter named Newton Faulkner coming in. This will be a great opportunity to find out how he managed to get signed to a record label, whether he went out looking for them or if they came looking for him. How he chooses who he wants to play on his tracks and just generally what he does in his day-to-day normal life. This kind of thing is useful as it helps to give an insight into how there lives are.

Embedded is a song that I definitely like called clouds. I found it and just liked it straight away.

Band Updates!

Over the weekend the band that I am part of (Ceaux Fly) took part in  Dreaming in Colour Productions, Some Sort of Showcase. This is a battle of the bands style competition that offers an EP, a 7 day tour, merch and some other perks. We managed to get through the first heats with another band called Indra’s net on the , we were then in the same semi finals with them on saturday the 5th of march but unfortunately they didn’t get through, but we did so it was fine. We have got the finals on the 27th of March where we will be competing against 5 other bands for the prize.

As well as this we also have a lot of other gigs booked with Dreaming in COlour Productions. We are playing at the Brewdog music pub in leicester on the 26th of May, and at Natterjacks on the 26th of March, the 30th of April, the 19th and 28th of May, and the 25th of June.

The band has also recorded a few songs and will be recording more soon, these will be put on soundcloud and also put on facebook, I will link to these when they are published.

 

Personal Gig Evaluation

So the other day I did my gig, so I have decided to write a basic review about what went well, what didn’t go well, and also what I would consider doing next time.

So first off, what went well. I think that the gig as a whole did go well, it ran mostly on time, all of the acts got on and off the stage quickly and efficientely, and everyone I spoke to said it went well and that it was an enjoyable event.

Although a lot of stuff did go well, there were some things that didnt go as well. The main thing was the sound guy, he decided to go to the shops and so because of that we started about 15 minutes late which was annoying but there wasnt much I could do about it so I just worked around it. And even though we started late it did run on time relative to that. The only other problem with timings was the last band on, Blues De La Ceaux, they only ran over there allocated time by about 5 minutes, but due to the late start the whole event ended about 20 minutes late.

I think that if I were to promote/put on another gig I would definetely be stricter about timings, so basically when we start and when all the bands change and when we end. This could be a challenge as there will be a lot of people around doing different things so making sure everyone is in the right place at the right time could be tricky, but if I can communicate with them well what they need to do and when then I think it can all go well.

After Gig Review

So the gig that I promoted myself happened yesterday with not too many problems occuring. The lead up to the gig was slightly rushed to due a slight lack of communication between everybody involved, but when it all came together it went well. One aim of the night was to have it run on time, that involvess starting on time, having quick changes between acts (which I did), and finishing on time. Although we technically finsished 20 minutes late we did start 10-15 minutes late due to loosing the sound guy, so we only actually finished 5 minutes late… But other than that everything was fine, the posters were easy to create and I was able to succesfully put them up around the college.

I will soon be teaching my first trumpet lesson, this has been a long time in the works and I am very happy that it is finally happening. As soon as the lesson has happened I will be updating with how it went.

BREAKING

I have bad news to tell you all, I have lost the students that I was going to teach, this is a minor set back in the whole progress of the teaching project but it is something that I feel can be resolved. I may resort to teaching a couple of friends from college as this could be easier than trying to find other external students, but we will see.

I also have a final design for the gig poster!! It is very similar to my draft but I had to remove the leicester college logo as they were a bit funny about me using it. other than that everything else was fine.