Personal Development Logs week 1-12
- Jack Badby
- Dec 7, 2021
- 18 min read
Updated: Mar 3, 2022
Introduction
Weekly development is a required part of the course so making sure I document my progression is required of me but also It is a enjoyable task on my half so here is all my development starting from the induction week to the deadline week.
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Week 1, Induction week.
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Monday.
This week we are tasked with covering songs that'll represent our bands identity and what type of music we will be creating in the new band we made during the break between this June and September of which we are still trying to make a name for but for a the meantime our name will be Lane47
We spent the day rehearsing the songs we'll perform at the end of the week these songs being Stay by Post Melone and Finders keepers
Stay doesn't have drums in the original so this song is a early test on my creativity and a good preparation for the future of Level 3 year 2 since all of the songs we are performing this year will be original music so creativity will need to be a skill I know really well if I want to have a successful development on the songs me and my band write.
Tuesday.
We spent today practicing our cover of stay and Finders keepers these songs are actually ready to be performed the drums for Stay are basically done and there is a specific drum part I play that I will perform so hopefully there will be no improvising when we are onstage on Friday.
Thursday.
We have a day before the gig so today we made sure we are prepared to perform by rehearsing as if we were onstage we also set up a band TikTok and we have renamed ourselves Eyewing the reason behind the name is because of a random name generator cause since we wasn't decided on a name we should let a machine generate one and decide for us, so I have no idea how we will do it but Eyewing will somehow become a well known band
Friday.
Performance day came fast obviously we only had a week to rehearse so performing these songs will put pressure on us regardless of how confident we are with the rehearsals
The overall performance was better than how I thought it would be all of the band played well and I'm impressed with how well I focused maybe it was because I put my hat on and blocked everything but the music out and just played with no distractions we even got good reviews we also decided to add to our stage presence by keeping a continuous beat going so we can transition between the songs which is a technique we continue to use from now on and hopefully this will be a effective way of engaging the audience and keeping their focus on the performance in future gigs.
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Week 2, Starting with song development and production
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Monday.
We started this week off with a plan to start and finish a original song and make sure its ready to be performed by the end of the week and hopefully this will become a theme for the foreseeable future and if things go well we might try to get at least 4-5 songs good enough to perform in front of a audience.
Toby came in today and presented the band with some lyrics he wrote over the weekend that he wanted us to use for our first original song, while making the instrumental we tried keeping in mind the reason for last weeks covers and to know that we had to stay true to the theme we set in the audience mind that the songs we played would be similar to what we'd create and perform in future.
The original has been developed well in the pods we have a bare bones structure to it which we will develop further in future so maybe in a day or two it'll be set in stone how the song will go and we will have a good continuous instrumental won't change
Tuesday.
We continue to practise the song with efficiency and consistency with nothing really changing other than places where we extend the song and add some extra features to the song since we are starting to become more comfortable and familiar with what we have made.
we also have made a band Logo and are planning on using it as our band profile pictures on Instagram and TikTok the band Logo will also apply to our stage wear and colour scheme of said stage wear, we will possibly be wearing Blue, black and white suits/dresses but we still need more time to plan and decide on if that's really what we want.
Thursday.
We were in the studio today using Logic to record our song to keep and listen to as a sort of study track so we can play it when we need a reminder of how to play the song with consistency and so we don't drastically change what our original idea is subconsciously cause that tends to be a theme where we lose track of what we did originally and then the track changes that much it'll confuse the audience that listen to our music.
Friday.
Today we started a early development of our next song by writing lyrics though we haven't made a instrumental just yet the seeds are there and all we need to do now is focus on helping this next song grow even further next week. We also officially named our song "You Want Me!" though this isn't really a creative reason for a name we got the name through the chorus of the song though I do believe that's the same with basically any song I do wish we could have had a different title though it is good I wanted to name it similarly to how Queen named "Bohemian rhapsody" cause though those words ain't said in the song everyone knows the song through the name and not because it has any semblance to the chorus of the song.
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Week 3, Finishing You want me! and starting Owe it all to you.
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Monday.
The point of this week is to develop a new original song named "Owe it all to you" after its chorus like You want me, hopefully this week will go as well as last week where by Friday we have wrote, developed, and produced a song worthy of being performed at the December showcase and at the O2 summertime next year without any doubt of it not impressing the audience.
You want me development is going well though we haven't made any significant changes we are managing to stay consistent and not subconsciously change the core aspects of the instrumental due to us forgetting about our songs over the weekend.
Owe it all to you has been the main focus of the day since learning the song and creating what we want the song to be is important to the band so You want me will not be rehearsed as much as this song since we need to develop this song if we want to meet our goal of a finished song at the end of each week, however this doesn't mean we won't rehearse it at all it means we will try and prioritise the newer song first, but either way the new song is bare bones at the moment but we have a good structure to build from this week.
Tuesday.
Though today we weren't exactly the most productive the Owe it all to you is becoming a song we are more comfortable with and though nothing much has changed since yesterday it has grown on me as a song that works well being basic and not overplayed or overcomplicated when you want me Is that for me at least the drums are defiantly more complexed than the ones on you want me.
Thursday.
We got in the studio today and created a recording of Owe it all to you so we can go over it and know what the song should always sound like if ever we forget over a week break we can use the recording a template to recover our development.
We added a piece to You want me by extending the song by repeating the chorus once more before a small instrumental at the end featuring Me, Liv and Toby playing the core instrumental from the chorus for two bars before ending the song and luckily I'm starting to create a transition from You want me to Owe it all to you though the tempo is different I know how to slow myself down fluently in the transition that possibly if it is impressive enough we might use the transition in our performance though this does present the idea that I will have to transition in every song if necessary.
Friday.
Unfortunately I don't have much to talk about today though I can say we have basically finished Owe it all to you and naturally we have started to develop a new song via some new lyrics but its up to the events of this weekend to dictate whether or not we further develop something form them.
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Week 4, Making Let yo go
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Monday.
We are now in early development of our new song written by Lilly though it was not fully finished today it already is sounding really good Toby has already written a rap to add to the song and Liv has got her bass part down the only thing is I'm struggling to find a way to play to this song appropriately since I'm trying not to get in the way of her vocals and overplay the song and though I haven't figured out a solution to to this I will find a was over tonight or tomorrow morning.
Tuesday.
You want me and Owe it all to you have become really catchy songs among the rest of the Music department also the band have started to get both the songs in their minds that much we tend to play them so well that we don't need to really rehearse them and though it's only been a week since Owe it all to you has been a song people are already starting to know the track well maybe because its naturally catchy
The new song is now called Let you go and the main parts of the structure of the song have been studied over video recordings and I know how to play the drums appropriately without being too intrusive.
Thursday.
We have recorded Let you go and though I feel like we will change the song soon it's still a good template to build on though we should realistically attempt to rehearse the song more instead of the others though to be honest the song is satisfactory to play onstage.
Friday.
We where given a review from the induction weeks performance so I'm going to react to what was said.
"Song 1 – Would’ve been nice to introduce the song as a few people were wondering what it was. There was some confusion regarding structure at the end of the chorus’ which should’ve been addressed in rehearsals.
The vocals worked well together but to elevate the quality of the performance, involving the audience would’ve really helped.
Finders, Keepers – A brilliant segue between the songs which helped build on the atmosphere from the first track that was performed.
The use of the four-on-the floor drum groove really helped drive the track forward in the early stages and really gave the track that ‘club’ vibe. Again, a bit more movement and some direct involvement with the audience would’ve really helped elevate the performance to that next level"
I actually appreciate the feedback since the really important part of the performance was the transition between each song I really wanted to utilise that technique to keep the audience engaged and the fact me using the bass drum to get people in the mood to dance was noticed I do appreciate.
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Week 5 Coming for you a Eyewing D&B track
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Monday.
Today Toby came in with the idea of making a drum and bass track and mix a backing track with live instrumentation to show our dynamics and add something new to a ever growing setlist, this song changes between Live music and backing track music so it'll be interesting to see how I can learn how to appropriately play this song
Tuesday.
Today we got in the studio to make sure we had the backing track recorded so when we play the song in pods we have a backing track that in the pods to play to and also if we need to play onstage anytime soon then we have something to use onstage instead of using Thursday for that.
Thursday.
Today we managed to get the rest of the D&B track done but unfortunately we might not perform it since we spent so much time in the studio we haven't had enough real rehearsal time to get everything stage worthy since we need to know how to organise our time onstage when playing this song and to find a way to blend it with the other songs which will be a tricky task since we are playing to a backing track so keeping everything constant before the track comes in and making sure the track is in time with the live start will be a difficult task.
Friday.
We spent some time rehearsing You want me, Owe it all to you and Let you go and unfortunately we didn't spend any time on the D&B track though we did perform you want me and Owe it all to you and though it wasn't a big performance the reaction from it came with positive responses so working on these songs isn't specifically a necessary task mainly more of a task to remind us how we should play the songs.
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Week 6 Preplanning our Gig and Band Identity
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Monday.
After last weeks D&B development we are looking to find a way of successfully performing it onstage without any mistakes the only problem is that whenever the track is rehearsed it comes in out of time compared to how we where initially playing the song so we are trying to figure out the right time to play the track so it can transition well from the live performance into the backing track.
Finding a nice transition between Let you go and Coming for you since the tones of each song have different energy Let you go being a slow and peaceful song and coming for you is a big, fast and energetic song so the real question is that are these tracks eligible of being put after each other and would it be appropriate for the big shift in tone?
Tuesday.
After yesterday we came in with a small bit of panic wondering if we were truly prepared for the gig coming up in December realistically we weren't all happy thinking we are all ready for the gig though we have been making progress on creating and finishing songs the rest of the planning has not been really planned out so working on the every aspect of our bands identity and performance like Setlist, Stage wear, Stage movement and Transitioning between songs if we don't go further in depth with planning these things it's possible we could become unprepared or look unorganised when it comes to the performance.
Thursday.
We found ourselves looking ready for the gig faster than intended we know next week we have a performance so getting dressed up for the part is especial for the us knowing that we ready to perform or if we are in need of more planning and since It's possible I wont be in tomorrow having this all planned over the weekend is crucial for the success of the gig.
We have a plan so far where we will be playing You want me and Owe it all to you onstage next Friday, we'll be wearing black, white and blue suits and dresses and we will transition hopefully through both songs.
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Week 7 Sound alike challenge
__________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction.
This week we have been tasked to almost plagiarise content from K-pop and create a song based on music from the following genre taking the music and lyrical structure to certain songs and make our own music from it without it legally being plagiarism so instead of following my usual development log format I'm going to write this week as if it was specifically dedicated to this task so there is no need to label the days.
The song writing process.
When given the task we only had half the band present so developing our song started slow since the songwriters of the band weren’t there.
We were given from 9am-4pm to get a start on this song and the first two and a half hour was tough to say the least we mainly researched the genre to find some good music to imitate.
We found a few songs to take out inspiration from keeping in mind how we’d execute making the song while also taking struct elements from the songs to place in our song.
While brainstorming ideas for the song we talked about Squid Game a very popular Netflix original series and decided since we need to add English parts to the song we’d use the Toby to rap something related to Red light, Green light to go with the theme of travel and to refer to the show.
To save time we used certain music as backing track and imitated the rhythm of certain songs but didn’t play the instruments exactly the same as the original track to make the same them but not the same song Toby came into college half way through the recording and added a rap that he wrote on the train to the track and then added to what we had recorded and this was the result.
we also performed Owe it all to you and You want me onstage with the set plan form last week this is how it went and though we didn't rehearse them much this week since we where producing the K-pop/Drill song we still performed really well proving these songs are already becoming second nature to play.
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Week 8, Our Setlist Preparing for a solo performance
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Monday.
So we have Solo performance to all prepare for next week so personally I'm spending my time after college playing over some songs that I think would be entertaining for the audience but I've also been considering playing something Objectively impressive what does this mean?
Basically I'm trying to identify what songs I should play based on their technical difficultly how do I know a song is technically impressive?
A song played in complexed time signatures, less basic drum patterns, use of techniques such as Shuffles, Drags and Ghost notes and songs critically known for the dynamics related to the instrument I'll be using to perform my solo performance.
Being a drummer I consider my songs based on the difficulty of the technical aspects of each song so my options are:
1. White room by Cream
2. Made to fall in love Daniel Ceasar
3. Time moves slow by BADBADNOTGOOD
Tuesday.
Since yesterday the band have been real focused on the solo performances so the setlist hasn't really been the main focus of the day though I've managed to master playing Let you go like You want me and Owe it all to you though this brought up the question is it worth trying to perform coming for you since we haven't managed to wrap our heads around a fluent way of performing the song to a satisfactory level so we have to ponder the question is it worth postponing the use of the track for the December showcase?
Thursday.
We are looking at our setlist in the studio after recording small bonus tracks that we could include in our FMP but they need to be further developed before we try to actually use them in the gig regardless after making them we thought the coming for you was also under the category of bonus track since we are still struggling to find a comfortable way of playing the song, though there is light at the end of the tunnel since the K-pop/Drill song seems like a possible song to play onstage since we all love the tack so much we might replace the R&B song with the K-pop one which is currently called Red light Green light, but one thing to point out is that Red light green Light is only 1min 50seconds long so either we play it how it is and make another original or extend the track we'll find out something over the weekend.
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Week 9, Solo performance and Melowmatic Guest Speakers
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Monday.
Today I did my solo performance and If I would say anything I am actually proud not just for myself but for everyone on the course they all did so well today even though everyone didn't perform today I believe the ones who didn't will still do well whenever they do their performance I believe it'll be awesome. Realistically today shows me how much talent everyone has individually for their chosen talents and if anything I'm sad that I might not ever work with certain individuals this year but anyway the solo performance.
I decided to play White room by Cream due to it being a grade 5 song and personally it's a song I have learned with passion and studied to the extreme I say without arrogance It's a song that I will always be able to play well even If I mess up I also decided to play Nieve by the Kooks not for any practical reason other than I wanted the audience to enjoy a song they most likely knew well so they didn't get bored so I decided that it was a good Idea to Improvise to Nieve to show my creativity and stage presence when I don't study a song then compare it with White room a song I know in detail.
Today the performance footage was lost so I can't provide evidence of the solo performance today though It's possible I will be able to redo the performance tomorrow.
Tuesday.
Today before redoing the Solo performance I was told that me playing Nieve wasn't exactly a good idea cause It's obvious that I didn't know the song in detail like I know white room so I was told It's probably best I perform songs I know in detail like I do with White room so I removed Nieve from my set and added Stressed out by twenty one pilots and Back in black to the set since they are songs I know like the back of my hand so I can play these songs and show off my talent.
Here are the songs In order of when they were performed the only comment I have is that the White room performance could have gone as well as yesterday but to be fair It doesn't matter I am still proud of what I accomplished today.
Stressed out, solo drum cover.
Back in black, solo drum cover.
White room, solo drum cover.
Thursday.
After yesterdays solo performance the band want to resettle back into Eyewing mode so we organised the potential setlist for the December showcase today it goes as follows:
You want me.
Owe it all to you.
Let you go.
EyeChing (Red light green light).
The setlist is in this order and some song were removed due to them not being rehearsed well enough to perform onstage so coming for you and other songs were taken out due to them not being rehearsed well enough.
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Week 10, ICMP guest speaker
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Tuesday.
Thursday a guest speaker is coming In from ICMP to talk about the university and hopefully will advertise me enough to consider it in my university options, other than that we rehearsed our setlist today and its looking promising we have found a good way of rehearsing our music, what we do is we rehearse the songs in the formation we would onstage and pretend like we are onstage by speaking to a invisible audience and transition between songs and it goes fluently so hopefully we can pull off the same thing by the December showcase
Thursday.
A ICMP guest speaker came in today and talked about the ICMP University in London to talk about if we attended the Uni the following would be expected by university we would need to be able to play at least one instrument, Perform and produce music to a sufficient level.
The task today was to perform a cover of Valerie by Amie Winehouse but change the song as if it were our own.
We where put in new band for this challenge and given a hour to rehearse our cover of the song, the band rehearsal started rocky but we managed to put together a indie/rock version of the song.
Friday.
We performed our set onstage today two weeks before the performance I received some feedback I seem to count out of time of the tempo the actual song plays at, I seem to do this subconsciously so I need to try to find a way of keeping in time by maybe having a click track play through a earpiece to keep me in time or study the songs i'm playing more to implant the tempo naturally into my head.
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Week 11 Development before the December showcase
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Week summery of preparing for the December showcase
Setlist.
We developed our setlist a two weeks ago and it remains the same the set goes as follows:
You want me.
Owe it all to you.
Let you go.
EyeChing (Red light green light).
Stage wear.
The band changed our minds about wearing suits and dresses we are aiming for blue jeans, a white shirt and black shoes coats.
This week we went over the songs in order of set, formation of our onstage presence, transitioning between songs with as we would onstage and talking as if we had a the audience around us so between songs we'd plug social media, present the band onstage and make sure people know the name Eyewing.
Things are looking good for the band we have practised hard so hopefully we manage to present our songs the way they are meant to be performed and hopefully we make a name for Eyewing.
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Week 12 Evaluation of the December showcase
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Introduction.
Just to clarify everyone this week did amazing I'm writing this on deadline day and all I can say is that all the performances from Level 2, Level 3 first year us the Level 3 second years did absolutely amazing no performance week has been beaten by this one since I started college It was a joy to watch everyone perform and display their hard work.
As much as it is great talking about everyone else's performance I have a evaluation to do I'll write two sections to this evaluation a critical analysis of the main performance and a critical planning analysis where I'll write about what we did and how we could improve on it so without an more rambling I present to you the evaluation!
Eyewing Planning Critical analysis.
Eyewing planned for the December showcase the moment we walked through the door so hopefully the performance shows this the hard work and preparation of the Band over all these weeks.
The Setlist and its function
Remaining the same the setlist goes in order of You want me, Owe it all to you, Let you go, EyeChing, the reasoning behind the order of this setlist is to carry the audience through the songs emotionally, starting with the energetic songs then dropping into the slower more relaxed songs was supposed to be a good way of emotionally moving the audience through the shift in vibe also we planned to transition the songs with the drums not stopping to keep a consistent beat going on while certain band members move places to play other instruments keeping the audiences attention.
Was it effective?
The reception from the audience provided a good idea of whether or not this planning strategy worked according to feedback we received the setlist worked people didn't lose focus and were immersed by the transitioning and also impressed by how we fluently plugged the band social media, Identity and names of each song in each transition between songs.
Can it be improved?
I explain in the feedback video that if there was anything we could do differently what would it be? I explain that if we could change something I'd be to either to perform different song or add more originals to the set due to the fact I feel like we have overplayed our songs and need a fresh setlist to perform though the songs we have are strong and will almost defiantly be successful at moving the audience at the
Stage wear and It's function.
We have a band identity and Logo so presenting that even if not directly the stage wear effects our identity personally I explain in the feedback video that I hope for the band to have their own style that can be identified by the audience as ours unfortunately I believe we didn't make a real impact on making or stage wear our own but there is always space to improve
Was it effective?
The stage wear really isn't too impactful though we have got a good start i do believe that if we continue to wear the clothes and colours we have set Blue, Black and White more often It'll start to become known more as the Eyewing style.
Can it be improved?
Yes the style could be worked on I believe I could have contributed a more by wearing blue jeans with my outfit to also continue the theme the band had set but either way next time we will be more prepared and organised
Eyewing performance
Feedback footage
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