Saturday, 3 June 2017
11th May
Thurs 11th May – Today was our performance!I am very happy with how our performance went. We all played great and everyones improvised sections came together really well. The crowd seemed to enjoy our performances and we received great feedback from the audience after the show.
9th May
9th May – In todays lesson we rehearsed all of the pieces intensively, with vocals for the reggae piece, in preparation for performance. We have all of the songs dialled in now and it is just a matter of performing them next week. We can all play the songs fluently now and all of our handwork has payed off. All of us will practise all of the pieces in our own time leading up to our performance.
2nd May
2nd May – In todays lesson we finalised the structure for our own improvised song that we have named ‘Jam On Toast’. We came up with an ending that will come after the c section. The c section brings everything together and also builds tension up the final chord and makes the ending very impactful. I came up with a chord progression that went f#,e,b,a,g# then it repeated its self so it was played four times overall. We then played the riff in double time but changed the last two chords, the a became a C#minor and the G# became an E. The drums here picked up and played a heavy beat using the crash cymbal to increase the dynamic of the song. I also came up with a part to link parts c to chorus. O the last bar of the c section I played a chromatic run passage starting on a followed by G#,G then F# playing 8th note triplets. A big final chord was struck at the end with a drum accent and all of us making lots of 'noise' and concluding the piece the same chord again played staccato to draw the piece together.
We then rehearsed all of the pieces over again and they all sounded good and are all ready to perform.
I am going to practise all of the pieces in my own time over the next week so that I am 100% confident with all of my parts.
We then rehearsed all of the pieces over again and they all sounded good and are all ready to perform.
I am going to practise all of the pieces in my own time over the next week so that I am 100% confident with all of my parts.
25th April
25th April – In todays lesson we listened to the recording from last week and continued jamming over our improvised song that we have yet to have names. After practising our A and B sections we established the C section. The C section was a riff that I came up with that is based around an f# bluesy pattern. The tab for the riff is:
D-------------7-----9------7-------------
A--9---9---------------------------9------7
We experimented with how many times we should play this riff and we decided we should play it 8 times. We then realised that this became a little repetitive so for the 5th and 6th time around we moved it up a tone the back down for the 7th and 8th time. Whilst i was playing this riff dom was improving over the top of it using the f# and then the g# pentatonic scales over the top of it.
After this everyone continued trying to add appropriate parts each time we played it
To conclude the lesson we jammed the reggae piece with the vocalists for the first tim. This made a big difference as it filled out the piece and made it fill complete and resemble the original more. The singers had to adapt to leaving the space for the improvised sections but once this was worked out the piece was perfected and it is now ready to be performed.
D-------------7-----9------7-------------
A--9---9---------------------------9------7
We experimented with how many times we should play this riff and we decided we should play it 8 times. We then realised that this became a little repetitive so for the 5th and 6th time around we moved it up a tone the back down for the 7th and 8th time. Whilst i was playing this riff dom was improving over the top of it using the f# and then the g# pentatonic scales over the top of it.
After this everyone continued trying to add appropriate parts each time we played it
To conclude the lesson we jammed the reggae piece with the vocalists for the first tim. This made a big difference as it filled out the piece and made it fill complete and resemble the original more. The singers had to adapt to leaving the space for the improvised sections but once this was worked out the piece was perfected and it is now ready to be performed.
18th April
18th April – In todays lesson we practiced the Reggae piece and jammed Green Onions. We found this to better than our previous 12 bar, as it had clearer riff/melodies to work from rather than simply just playing 12 bar blues chords.
We had all practised green onions over the holidays so we had a clear idea of what to improvise over when we cam back. We played over the main pattern each taking turns to solo over the 12 bar blues riff which is in the key of F. To solo over this, due to it being a very traditional blues, i felt the best way to solo over this would be to use the f blues scale. This fitted perfectly over this and with my practise of blues rock licks in this scale I was able to solo over the progression straight away with ease and at times I even reference the original guitar solo in the song to pay homage to the original.
In the second hour we listened back to the recording of our original jam on Sam’s bass line. We continued jamming and established the main themes that would become the A and B sections. A being sams bass line section and B a section based around around a 2 chord progression using arpeggios of an 4 major seven chord and an e major seven chord. We recorded this to keep it fresh in our minds and so we could listen back to it in our next lesson.
My target for next week is to keep practising green onions and to experiment with ideas that work over both the A and B section of our improvised jam song. I will give myself a week to practise and I will practise by experimenting with looping ideas over the chords and layering guitar parts until I faint some interesting parts and potentially even finding parts for more sections of the jammed song.
We had all practised green onions over the holidays so we had a clear idea of what to improvise over when we cam back. We played over the main pattern each taking turns to solo over the 12 bar blues riff which is in the key of F. To solo over this, due to it being a very traditional blues, i felt the best way to solo over this would be to use the f blues scale. This fitted perfectly over this and with my practise of blues rock licks in this scale I was able to solo over the progression straight away with ease and at times I even reference the original guitar solo in the song to pay homage to the original.
In the second hour we listened back to the recording of our original jam on Sam’s bass line. We continued jamming and established the main themes that would become the A and B sections. A being sams bass line section and B a section based around around a 2 chord progression using arpeggios of an 4 major seven chord and an e major seven chord. We recorded this to keep it fresh in our minds and so we could listen back to it in our next lesson.
My target for next week is to keep practising green onions and to experiment with ideas that work over both the A and B section of our improvised jam song. I will give myself a week to practise and I will practise by experimenting with looping ideas over the chords and layering guitar parts until I faint some interesting parts and potentially even finding parts for more sections of the jammed song.
28th March
28th March – In todays lesson we jammed our reggae and blues improvisation pieces. We decided to use Green Onions next term, instead of our own 12 bar blues as we felt it was a more enjoyable piece and it made use of more types of key sounds such as organ which made it more interesting for the keyboard players in our class. Since we have the structure of the raggae piece down now it is just a matter of keep practising the oleic until our performance. In the second hour we jammed another brand new idea based on a riff Sam had came up with. Everybody tried to come up with their own parts that fitted over the riff I found that over this riff volume swells using thee minor pentatonic scale fitted well over this as well as adding major 2nd and 6th notes from the e scale into this. We recorded this so that we would not forget it and so that we could listen to it again when we came back after half term,.
Our group target for this week is to learn Green Onions over easter, so that when we come back after the holiday we can play the song straight away. Also we have the target of practising everything we have learnt so far for our improvised section so that we can stay fresh with it and keep improving on it.
Our group target for this week is to learn Green Onions over easter, so that when we come back after the holiday we can play the song straight away. Also we have the target of practising everything we have learnt so far for our improvised section so that we can stay fresh with it and keep improving on it.
21st March
21st March – In todays lesson we listened to last week’s recording of could you be loved that we had done, and then jammed the reggae piece again with the finalised structure. As we had all gone away and practised our improvised parts individually when we came back into the room to practise we all had a better idea of what we were going to do for our individual improvised section.
The pattern I had came up with I will base my improvised section is a riff and phrase focused around the B minor pentatonic scale using octaves and doubles stops to create a bluesy but still raggae feel for my phrase. The tab for what I was playing is this and for the rest of the bar after I played this pattern I would add double stops across the 7 and 9 th frets on the g and b strings and different bends on the 7 and 9th fret of the g string.
E---------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------
G---------------7 (1/4bend)----------
D------9------------------------9-------
A----------------------------------------
E--7------7------------------------------
In the second lesson we attempted a brief jam on brand new original material that I came up with. I had wrote a riff and we all played round it for a while adding more and more texture to the riff and building up instrument parts through experimentation. The riff was based around an e 5 chord and an a chord consisting of just an a note and a minor third. the riff was fairly slow and had lots of 'breathing space' allowing for other ideas to be layered on top of it and it also had a lot of tension to it which allowed made it feel like it could be built up into something else given we had time to keep playing it for hours.
My target for next week is to just keep practising I need to for the improvised sections and going over all of the scales. I will do this by playing over my recorded loops of the solo sections and experimenting with new ideas. I will give myself a week to do this as it gives me enough time to nail everything for next weeks lesson.
The pattern I had came up with I will base my improvised section is a riff and phrase focused around the B minor pentatonic scale using octaves and doubles stops to create a bluesy but still raggae feel for my phrase. The tab for what I was playing is this and for the rest of the bar after I played this pattern I would add double stops across the 7 and 9 th frets on the g and b strings and different bends on the 7 and 9th fret of the g string.
E---------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------
G---------------7 (1/4bend)----------
D------9------------------------9-------
A----------------------------------------
E--7------7------------------------------
In the second lesson we attempted a brief jam on brand new original material that I came up with. I had wrote a riff and we all played round it for a while adding more and more texture to the riff and building up instrument parts through experimentation. The riff was based around an e 5 chord and an a chord consisting of just an a note and a minor third. the riff was fairly slow and had lots of 'breathing space' allowing for other ideas to be layered on top of it and it also had a lot of tension to it which allowed made it feel like it could be built up into something else given we had time to keep playing it for hours.
My target for next week is to just keep practising I need to for the improvised sections and going over all of the scales. I will do this by playing over my recorded loops of the solo sections and experimenting with new ideas. I will give myself a week to do this as it gives me enough time to nail everything for next weeks lesson.
14th March
14th March – In todays lesson we jammed the reggae song again including adding solos over the verses. We established a proper structure and decided where improvisation should be, and over which sections of the song. We decided that the verses and pre chorus were the most suitable parts to improv over as they allowed us to use a number of different scales such as the harmonic minor scale and minor pentatonic scale in b over the chords. We didn't improvise over the chorus as we thought that this part was best left out and left as the original with just singing the chorus.
The structure we decided on is as followed:
Intro
chorus (no vocals)
verse
pre chorus
chorus
verse
pre chorus
chorus
Improvisation over B minor chord
intro riff harmonised
Improvisation over verse
Improvisation over verse again
Improvisation over pre chorus
Chorus (no vocals)
Drum and Bass guitar improvised section
Chorus.
As a passing section between the Improvisation over B minor chord into the improvisation over verse we decided to play the intro riff but add a second guitar harmony part that I played. The tab for this riff was 0-0-0-2-4-2-0-0-0-2-4-2-4-4-4-6-7-6-4-4-4-6-7-6- played all on the d string with ghost notes in-between each note and played very staccato.
My target for myself to achieve was keep practising soloing over my allocated improvisation slot which is over the B minor section. I will experiment with different phrases and scales until i find something I am happy with. I will practise by recording a loop of the B minor section and keep going over this. I will give myself one week to achieve this as that allows me enough time to practise until my next lesson.
The structure we decided on is as followed:
Intro
chorus (no vocals)
verse
pre chorus
chorus
verse
pre chorus
chorus
Improvisation over B minor chord
intro riff harmonised
Improvisation over verse
Improvisation over verse again
Improvisation over pre chorus
Chorus (no vocals)
Drum and Bass guitar improvised section
Chorus.
As a passing section between the Improvisation over B minor chord into the improvisation over verse we decided to play the intro riff but add a second guitar harmony part that I played. The tab for this riff was 0-0-0-2-4-2-0-0-0-2-4-2-4-4-4-6-7-6-4-4-4-6-7-6- played all on the d string with ghost notes in-between each note and played very staccato.
My target for myself to achieve was keep practising soloing over my allocated improvisation slot which is over the B minor section. I will experiment with different phrases and scales until i find something I am happy with. I will practise by recording a loop of the B minor section and keep going over this. I will give myself one week to achieve this as that allows me enough time to practise until my next lesson.
7th March
7th March – Today in our music lesson we started putting together the reggae track together as a group. We had all been away for a week practising all of our parts individually so we all knew the structure of the song and what we was all meant to be playing. We played over the song about 3 times to get the song down, this was without any improvised sections yet. We decided that the best way to get used to soloing over the song would be to solo over the verse chords as it has a simple two chord pattern that seemed like the best part to solo over so we jammed solos over verses. We started by using the B minor pentatonic scale as it fitted well over the b minor and e minor chords of the verse. We took it in turns practise over the chords. We each set ourselves the task of going home and practising improvising over the chords by playing along with the original recording. We will have a week to do this and in our next lesson we will recap by playing over the song and adding in the improvised sections.
28th Feb
28th Feb – In todays music lesson we started our next improvisation section which was improvisng over a piece of reggae music and chose Bob Marley's "learned Could You Be Loved."
We went away individually for the lesson and we began to learn our individual parts to practice for next week. My part was was the rhythm guitar parts that consisted of a lot of chordal playing. However what made this interesting is that in this style go music when a chord is being played it is often a barre chord, however only the top 4 strings are played and the chords are played very staccato. Also the chords are played on the off beat which took some time getting used too.This was a complete new style for me to learn. At first it was a challenge as I had to make sure I was playing the chords very sharply and getting the timing right took lots of practise as I was often tempting to play on the back beat but I had to make sure I was always on the off beat. The chord progression for the verse is simply B minor for two bars and then E minor for two bars. The pre chorus is G, F#m, Em,Em,G,F#m, then A, leading onto the chorus: D, Bm, G, then D.
I have set myself the target of practising my strumming attack over the next week so that I can achieve a very staccato sound when playing the chords of the song. I was practise this my by experimenting with the way I release the strings after I have strummed them and also by seeing if up or down strokes work better than one another.
We went away individually for the lesson and we began to learn our individual parts to practice for next week. My part was was the rhythm guitar parts that consisted of a lot of chordal playing. However what made this interesting is that in this style go music when a chord is being played it is often a barre chord, however only the top 4 strings are played and the chords are played very staccato. Also the chords are played on the off beat which took some time getting used too.This was a complete new style for me to learn. At first it was a challenge as I had to make sure I was playing the chords very sharply and getting the timing right took lots of practise as I was often tempting to play on the back beat but I had to make sure I was always on the off beat. The chord progression for the verse is simply B minor for two bars and then E minor for two bars. The pre chorus is G, F#m, Em,Em,G,F#m, then A, leading onto the chorus: D, Bm, G, then D.
I have set myself the target of practising my strumming attack over the next week so that I can achieve a very staccato sound when playing the chords of the song. I was practise this my by experimenting with the way I release the strings after I have strummed them and also by seeing if up or down strokes work better than one another.
21st Feb
21st Feb – In todays lesson we had a quick scales recap/warm up since we had been on half term holiday for 2 weeks. Over the half term I had been practising learning the A dorian mode across the neck of the guitar in many positions and this was very helpful as it allowed me to play different licks in higher or lower pitch and do different runs across the fretboard. We then jammed blues together, trying to use all scales. Overall this was a fairly relaxed lesson we we just aimed on getting our improvisation skills over the 12 bar blues as high as we could achieve. My target is just to keep on practising this as much as I can at home to improve my whole playing and improvisational skills in general.
7th Feb
7th Feb – In todays lesson we introduced the Dorian mode into our set of scales we have been using to solo with. We went away and individually practiced this as this was something new to most of us. The A dorian mode uses the notes a,b,c,d,e,f# and g. This meant we now had more notes to use and add into our musical vocabulary for when soloing over the 12 bar blues. After we had privatised this individually the lesson was followed by group session. We tried to mix up dorian mode and pentatonic scales notes into our solos to give our solos different voicings. Using these notes I could add major seconds into my playing which gave an interesting sound and allowed me to come up with melodic sounding phrases.
My target for next week is have learned the dorian mode in different positions across the guitar neck so allow me to play all over the next of the guitar and not just around one position and area of frets. I will practise by using different scale charts online to help me with learning the different shapes and once I have learnt these I will make different phrases out of the different shapes. I will allow myself one week to complete this challenge.
My target for next week is have learned the dorian mode in different positions across the guitar neck so allow me to play all over the next of the guitar and not just around one position and area of frets. I will practise by using different scale charts online to help me with learning the different shapes and once I have learnt these I will make different phrases out of the different shapes. I will allow myself one week to complete this challenge.
31st Jan
31st Jan –Today in our music lesson we recapped and practiced the A pentatonic scales.We separated into groups (pianos together, guitars together). This was helpful as it allowed me and and Sam, a fellow guitarist in the class, to jam with each other overs the chords and to show each other the licks we had been practising over the past week. Also, as I previously documented I listened to other blues/rock guitarists to learn more licks. I found inspiration in Jimmy Page and Dave Gilmour. What inspired me about there playing was the ability to go from a fast bluesy style of playing using the pentatonic to coming up with beautiful melodies by slowing things down and added in major notes. I pout this into practise into my improvisational work through experimenting wit note choice whilst playing over the 12 bar blues chords.After our group practise work we came together at end of session to jam 12 bar blues again, with solos. This was fun as we could all hear how much we had all improved.
My target for next weeks lesson is just to keep practising different blues licks and phrasing. I will do this by keep on listening to a variety of blues guitarists and playing over different 12 bar blues backing tracks.
My target for next weeks lesson is just to keep practising different blues licks and phrasing. I will do this by keep on listening to a variety of blues guitarists and playing over different 12 bar blues backing tracks.
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