21/02/10

Have started working on a new piece for First Study - Debussy’s Claire De Lune. It’s going ok…. The trick is to get it to flow. The mid section is a bit sticky but will get there I think. Other things piano-wise I have started ‘teaching’ (as mentioned before) with some other students on my course as I mentioned before. I have looked out pieces for them that I hope they will find to be at a suitable level. Liam wants to get to grips with using the sustain and damper pedals and Mark is look for more jazz oriented and latin-style music (the latter of which I am unfortunately lacking in).


On Wednesday I arrived to find that our Hip-Hop band had it exploded. It then went on to implode… I shall explain. We suddenly found ourselves with 13 drummers, 9 vocalists, 12 and ½ guitarists and a keyboard player (me). Ok. So that may be a slight exaggeration but if we were a ragtag group before we were now certainly less of a band more of a collective. It was going to be unworkable. Therefore, after some renegotiation (which was rather uncomfortable to say they least) Alex, John and I have decided to go it alone and retain out Hip-Hop genre. Is it possible to have a hip-hop 3 piece? Time will undoubtedly tell. However, this is the first time I have worked with either Alex or John and I find the experience to be extremely enjoyable. Alex seems a very confident front man and handles the rapping side of things really well. John is a fantastic (is possible the loudest ever) drummer. I think we shall have to re-prioritise and focus not on ‘authenticity’ but on stage presence and audience enjoyment which, is, after all half the battle when playing live. On a darker note - Keyboards are disappearing from around college in a speedy and disconcerting fashion. How is it possible to appropriate a keyboard?! Perhaps they are being sucked into some kind of rift in the space/time continuum, the NC sound engineer students having mistakenly ripped a hole in the very fabric of the universe while attempting to run cuBase and Logic in tandem (such is the mysterious and evil powers of the digital audio workstation.


On Thursday we watched the people who had opted for ‘Session Musician’ for their graded unit do mock interviews for a position at ‘Centre Stage’. It was very useful to note the ‘do’s and don’ts’ that arose from this. It was always better when people were able to recognise and admit their weaknesses but then turn these weaknesses into strengths. Body language is highly important: seem interested, friendly and open. There was quite a lot of hesitation and ticks of speech as you will that occurred with some people’s interviews that I feel could let a person down. But most of all I think the motto of the morning was, like the Scouts… BE PREPARED. (Dib dib dib).

Rehearsals for the play at Drama are still going well. I have been ordered to flex my authority and order everyone to be off-script for next weeks rehearsal. On Friday we ‘hot-seated’ the main characters in order to get the kids to think up back-stories and motivations for their characters. I’m amazed at the ability of some of them to really get under the skin of their part. It is really encouraging and I hope that they will be able to maintain this through until the performances.