Practice Diary Tuesday 8th December

Today I practised tapping for about two hours and had to put superglue on my finger in order to continue playing because my finger started beading. I was trying to learn how to play the tapping scale in the chorus of dethroned by Icarus the owl. I found this really difficult because I don't do tapping very often so it all seems a bit odd. Also practiced for the group performances that we did in lesson. The difficult part about this is that they are our own songs and i sometimes forget what we did in lesson so its hard to practice it. to counter it I need to start recording this on my phone or something.  

Practice Diary Tuesday 1st December

I started with some spider exercises to warm up then did about half an hour of practising the parts i know of “puddle” by chon. then did some tapping practice because it's something that i haven't practiced for a while and am a bit rusty on. Then i started to learn bubble dream which is another chon cover. the opening riff is a fairly fast lick which uses a jazz scale. I found it pretty difficult because it jumps across lots of strings in a sweep picking style. To learn it i stated by looking at a tab and then play it very slowly until i have built up the muscle memory.

Developments of Pop Music

musical development:

-relying on live performance and not sales
-censorship
-more electronic
-better percussion
-manufactured bands
-lyrics and song meaning
-production and quality
-accessibility of music
-voice auto tune
-multimedia recordings

In this task we analysed popular music from 1950 to 2010. We organised over 70 bands and artists into genera and decade. To do this we had to look a lot of them up because we didn't know who they are.  This task was helpful because it gave me a wider understanding of the different genres.  

Muse is an example of a band who has spanned over a decade and a half. there early albums were more rock and guitar based,  for example "showbiz" which was in 1999. However there more recreant albums like "the 2nd law", which was produced in 2012, have more electronic and dub step influences. It has become more aimed at popular music fans and not rock fans. Also the lead singer (matt Bellamy) has become worse at singing and cant hit the high notes any more. An example of a song from showbiz is the song "sunburn" which has piano and guitar and not much technology. Comparing this to the song "unsustainable" from the album the 2nd law which is a very electronic and



Showbiz - sunburn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRYBvmehfWQ
The 2nd law - unsustainable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uHiYQ0yYCk

Evaluation of Autumn Recital

James - Guitar
Sax - Vocals
Ed - Drums
Dan - Bass

I played Bass Guitar in a performance with three other people. James was on guitar, Sax was our singer and Ed was on Drums. Also in the final performance Kim supported us of the piano.  In the rehearsals We spent 2 weeks deciding what song we should play. this was a problem because it gave us less time to practice. In the rehearsals we decided to play "wrecking ball". originally we were going to play it in a reggae style and i make up a good reggae style bass line. However we decided not to play in this style at the end but i still played my bass line.         

Practice Diary Task 1

Section A - I play electric guitar and some acoustic fingerpicking. I have played guitar for 11 years but only really started taking it more seriously in the last 3 or 4 years. I can play guitar at around a grade 5 or 6 although i have not taken any grades. I have played in 4 bands so i have some experience playing in groups. I know pentatonic, major and minor scale shapes in most keys. I know all my major, minor, power and 7th bar chords.

Section B -  I practice for around half an hour every day. The structure of my practice is normally that i warm up with some scales and spider exercises. Then practice/learn songs for my bands or I learn stuff that i am listening to at the time. The things i want to improve on this year are my technical playing style and also songwriting with a group. I also want to do some guitar grades and try to get to grade 6 or 7.

Practice Diary Wednesday 4th November

In our music lesson today we carried on practising our cover of supersonic to improve I need to improve my dexterity on the bass in order to play a more complex rhythm and get a higher mark. Also I have to think of a slightly better bass melody for the chorus because the one i am playing at the moment is very simple. In my own practices i started to learn many of honour by Biffy Cliro. I is a finger picking style and is fairly easy however the picking pattern is fairly unusual and was the most difficult part to get the hang of. Then I started practising some improvised guitar solos to backing tracks. i stayed inside the pentatonic scale however added some Dorian notes to make my solo more interesting and make it a slightly different style. this helps me to improve my improvisation and it makes me more aware of the different techniques available to me when I'm improvising. I still need to continue with with in order to make my playing more fluent and natural. 

Practice Diary Monday 2nd November

In todays lesson i have done more practice with my group of our cover of wrecking ball. I had to think of a new bass melody because i had forgotten the old one that i was playing. This was hard because i don't normally play bass and i am not used to it. To stop this i should probably write down what i am playing so that i can remember. I had to work in my faster scale runs on bass because i find them a bit of a challenge. Next time we will continue practising the song in order to improve on fluidity and making it sound good. At home I started to practice stress on the sky by biffy cliro on guitar. The chords are very simple however its in 3/4 time signature and the rhythm is hard to learn because it almost feels like the last chord comes in randomly but it doesn't. 

Practice Diary Thursday 24th September

I go to my guitar lesson at Sussex academy of music with Daniel Davis and we look at soloing styles and techniques. Mainly we look at sweep picking in major and minor keys. Also we discuss how to get a good sound out of your amp and pedal board. Ive also started practicing my first solo performance which is paranoid android by Radiohead. this is a grade 6/7 song so quite a challenge for me although

Practice Diary Wednesday 23rd September

I practice some improvised soloing to a backing track for about half an hour and work in keeping my playing consistent and clean. This allows me to improve my improvised guitar use in the pentatonic scale. The backing track I used allowed me to incorporate blues notes and the dorian modes. Also I continue to practice puddle by Chon.

Practice DiaryMonday 21st September

I started with some spider exercises to warm up then did about half an hour of practising the parts i know of “puddle” by chon. then did some tapping practice because it's something that i haven't practiced for a while and am a bit rusty on. The song repairs by muse is a really good one for tapping because the intro has a slightly unusual riff which incorporates open strings

Practice Diary saturday 19thSeptember

Just practiced for two hours with my band “Children of the Forest” at ivy arch studios. We spent the session writing a new song and practicing our cover of “They speak with strange accents” by This Town Needs Guns (which is my favorite song at the moment). After getting home i practice playing the intro riff to they "speak with strange accents" because it is quite hard. The song in the genre of math rock so there were quite a few unusual time signatures. For example there is a section in 5/8 and one really strange bit which is in a 15 or something like that. We also played an easy song by the strokes.

Practice Diary wednesday 18th december

I start my practice with some spider exercises for the first 5 minutes to warm up Then move on to practicing my sweep picking in order to improve speed. Next i start learning the song “puddle” by Chon and spend around an hour learning the intro and and verse. Finally I continue practicing a composition that I have been writing for guitar for around a month.  

Practice Diary Wednesday 16th September

I start my practice with some spider exercises for the first 5 minutes to warm up Then move on to practicing my sweep picking in order to improve speed. Next i start learning the song “puddle” by Chon and spend around an hour learning the intro and and verse. This is a difficult song to play because of the fast and intricate picking part at the start. Also the unusual jazz style chords that it leads into. Finally I continue practicing a composition on acoustic guitar that I have been writing for guitar for around a month.