In my first week of Unit 12 and 13 I spent time with my ensemble band practicing for our upcoming gig at The Cluny. Our set currently includes the songs I Feel For You – Chaka Khan, Pretty Young Thing – Michael Jackson and our original which is still in progress. We still need to decide on one other Michael Jackson song as our chosen artist however we plan to have this chosen before next week. These sessions help me develop my pathway as a guitarist as I am in a live band environment and I’m developing skills such as timing, listening to other musicians and confidence.

I have decided upon some chords for our original piece and, with the help of our tutor Lloyd, now have two seperate chord progressions for the song.

As for my extended project, I have spent the majority of this week still thinking of what would be best to do. I would like to take advantage of the recording equipment here at college and will hopefully have a good idea by next week.

Furthermore, I spent this week looking at techniques I could use in P.Y.T to get a better tone and make use of having two seperate guitarists. (Vulfpeck, 2020) I began using this technique in the breakdown section of the song.

Facebook. 2020. The Man Behind Michael Jacksons Guitar Sound. [online] Available at: <https://www.facebook.com/vulfpeck/videos/930004037045388/&gt; [Accessed 2 March 2020].

Overall, Week 2 has gone quite similar to Week 1. I have spent lots of this week discussing and practicng with my Ensemble band of Milly, Cameron, Jacob and Dylan. We have decided on Rock With You as our final Michael Jackson song in the set. We chose this as a band because some members of the ensemble already know the song as we had previously learned the piece last year but had to scrap the song amidst the Michael Jackson controversy. The song was only performed during one college lvp session.

For my extended project I have decided to record and mix a single using the college studios. I am yet to decide if I will write a new piece or record a song that I have already written outside of college. I have decided on this task as it will further my pathway as a solo artist and guitarist by familiarising myself with industry standard equipment and their surroundings. For practicing songwriting I use Holistic Songwriting as they help and give me restrictions and guides to work by so I don’t get lost when writing my music. (Holistic Songwriting, 2020)

For research, I looked at how to get the correct tone for my part in Rock With You. I found a forum online which discussed the topic and this advice stood out to me. (KVR Forum, 2020)

On Thursday I stayed behind for a few hours learning a solo for Rock With You from a video I found on Youtube. The solo was challenging for me and I will have to keep practicing over the coming weeks to learn it completely. For the time being I have simplified it to fit the given length of the solo. (Rock With You – Guitar Solo, 2020)

2020. Holistic Songwriting. [online] Available at: <https://blog.holistic-songwriting.com/&gt; [Accessed 10 March 2020]. Kvraudio.com. 2020. KVR Forum: Michael Jackson “Rock With You” Electric Guitar Strum Sound. [online] Available at: <https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=466797&gt; [Accessed 12 March 2020]. Youtube. 2020. Rock With You – Guitar SOLO. [online] Available at: <https://youtu.be/ccFStfj-NDI&gt; [Accessed 12 March 2020].

During Week 3 our ensemble began to put our original song together towards a more polished piece. We used the benefit of two guitars as a way to add detail and extra licks on the lead guitar underneath the verse chords; Cameron had also added a light summery beat as to fit the aesthetic of the song. Milly had also written lyrics for the first verse, pre-chorus and chorus and overall morale was high in the latter stages of our rehearsals before the gig. Writing this original has helped me towards my intended pathway as it has given me insight into the creative process when working with others instead of writing alone.

On Tuesday due to COVID-19 worries, lots of students stayed at home to avoid getting ill. However out of us students who went into college we decided to make light of the situation and do our lvp performance in fancy dress. Although this may be misconstrued as a joke, the performance actually boosted confidence and taught me not to worry about the audience but instead focus on the music.

However by Wednesday it was announced that The Sage would be closed to everyone for the foreseeable future do to the growing concern over Coronavirus. To make matters worse I began to grow ill with symptoms in common with the virus due to which I had to voluntarily self-isolate for a week. We were, however, reassured prior that we would be able to complete the course from home.

For the rest of this week I was feeling more ill everyday hoping to feel better and complete my work from home in the next week.

This week we were told that Gateshead College will now be closed and our course will be completely done from home to help tackle the spread of COVID-19. On Monday I recieved an email from my sage tutor with work to complete as a substitute for our practical lessons. My first task was to play the A minor pentatonic in every postition. Learning these positions greatly helped me improve my creativity when improvising as I begin to move between the different shapes allowing me fluid movement along the fretboard and new shapes which change the way you think of playing.

I also agreed with the concept of choosing your guitar based on how it feels instead of always on how it sounds and looks. As one of the points in the mentions in the factsheet, I often feel I put too much pressure on my left hand to get chords to ring the way I would like them too and as such should adapt the guitar instead of pressing too hard and risking injury.

The final task was to play the B section of Spain by Chick Correa which is attached below.

Later in the week I also took part in quizzes that forced me to research and then use the research in my answers which is a good way to remember what you have learned. Below are my answers to the first quiz I completed.

The second quiz was a test on musical terminology commonly found in sheet music. I achieved a score of 10 on the test after a first attempt of 6 afterwhich I research the terms I didnt understand.

Bapam.org.uk. 2020. The Acoustic Guitar. [online] Available at: <http://bapam.org.uk/documents/GuitarErgonomics_BAPAMfactsheet.pdf&gt; [Accessed 1 April 2020].

This week I was first tasked with creating a home page for my website in which I can show a little about myself. You can find the link to my home page at the top the site.

My next task was to complete the first two bars of my guitar tutors 7th chord reading exercise at 100bpm which I did here

I was also given a task this week to show what my favourite part of Level 3 Music Performance has been. I chose to annotate a photo that I thought showed what has made college worthwhile to me.