Amber Sullivan @officialambermusic - Tumblr Blog

Music Genres - 18/9/15

On the first day we were with the first years, we sat round in groups and discussed different genres and made a spider diagram of the genre that we knew most about. This was the list of ideas we came up with to do with rock music

Music Genres - 18/9/15

FMP - 11/6/15

Context - For my FMP I am submitting Behind The Hyde’s most recent gig at the Latest Music Bar in Brighton. I chose this performance as it is the first time as a band we performed originals. We performed 4 songs, our original ‘It Couldn’t Be You’, Psycho by Puddle of Mudd, our second original ‘Child On MD’ and our most played song of all gigs, Zombie by the Cranberries. Performance wise for this gig I think we performed the best we have so far as the songs were our own and we all contributed to each original using our own individual talents. Connor on rhythm guitar wrote rhythm chords for Gino’s lead guitar melody that he came up with. Angus then added the drums and once the track was finished instrumentally, I added the lyrical content which myself and Elisha performed vocally. We hope in the near future to record our original tracks so we can use those towards our assessments to achieve the highest grade possible on this course.

Research - As a band, Behind The Hyde have worked together for over 5 months, and throughout this year of college we have rehearsed and performed many songs by other artists such as Fall Out Boy, The Cranberries, Puddle Of Mudd, Muse, Greenday, My Chemical Romance, Foo Fighters and Nirvana. As a vocalist I found it useful to look into how these artists performed their songs on stage and tried to incorporate that into my own performance. Nirvana and The Cranberries use very different performance skills to the other bands, Kurt Cobain the vocalist of Nirvana tends to be sitting down in his performances although he does also stand with a guitar on stage. The Cranberries also have a calmer persona on stage, and Dolores O'Riordan lead singer, is very much calm and still when performing even their heaviest of songs.

Practical Skills – Gig Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpFJw2L7bks&index=42&list=PLk3NgZ0x2qsNA6KIzF5YstpV9s00uWN2Q - This is the link to our gig at the latest music bar

Tumblr Link - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/officialambermusic

Evaluation – I think overall the gig went quite well. Our stage presence was the best it has been throughout the year. As the vocalist I seem to look uncomfortable on stage, as I don’t move as much as the rest of the band. Although are stage presence wasn’t amazing, the songs we performed were very well rehearsed and I felt my vocals were very strong and I held a constant strong projection throughout the performance. Our rehearsals up to the gig were very limited, but any day we had free to rehearse we would rehearse for a few hours straight until the songs sounded their best. I think all of our instrument levels were great, but half way through elisha’s mic had turned down so doing harmonies along with her was quite difficult. Next time I hope to improve my stage presence and move about more with the rest of the band to ensure the best performance possible.

Final Major Project -22/05/15

Context: How? What? Why?

Research: What materials are you using to support your project? i.e Arists/Music/Gigs that have influenced your work.

Practical: A file or link to your work/performance. include your journal (what you did each week).

Evaluation: This should be ongoing (atleast weekly). Evaluate each aspect of your work i.e your rehearsals and/or production.

Amber Sullivan - Final Major Project - 240629

1. Context

2. Research

3. Practical Skills

4. Evaluation and Reflection.

Song writing/production task - 27/04/15 We started on our second song today, and figured out an order so that lyrics and vocals would be quick to write and understand and so that the whole band kept together and knew what they were playing throughout.

Singing Assessment - 16/4/15

For the duet me and Elisha have chosen to sing ‘kissing you’ by des’ree from the film ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as it suits our voices well and demonstrates our own ranges significantly. We have had time to practice this song by singing it for our remix assignment which helped us a lot in our assessment as it meant we had rehearsed it more. I chose this song personally because I watched the movie when I was younger and 'Kissing You' always stood out to me as a very impressive song to sing, and also a very emotional song which are always fun to sing.

Gig Performance Review - 23/03/15

Monday nights Gig went really well and the venue was busy. Behind The Hyde’s overall performance was much better than last terms gig. We interacted with the audience, moved on stage, and looked like we were enjoying it.

Gino on lead guitar did well, slight timing issue in Zombie but overall performed well.

Connor on rhythm guitar - kept in time the whole way through, missed notes occasionally but overall performance was good.

Angus performed well on the drums and kept the whole band in time with each other for the majority of the performance.

Matt was by far the best performer in the band that night, by maintaining a steady bass line but still being able to throw himself around the stage and the audience.

Elisha made a good performance and her vocals were strong throughout. A few off notes and voice breaks but nothing that the audience could notice. Good projection and stage presence.

I was also on vocals with Elisha, I sang a few notes flat, and my voice broke in psycho. Apart from that I had good projection and I looked like I was enjoying myself - which I was!

Theory Lesson - 19/03/15

Today was the critical essay deadline, I submitted my essay on moodle online and then continued to work on my composition in my spare time.

Singing lesson - 19/03/15

This lesson we worked on our two songs, working in harmony together as a group. We then worked on our breathing skills and how to develop our breathing to hold a note for a longer length of time.

Rehearsals - 18/03/15

This session rehearsals were difficult as myself and Elisha (vocalists) found ourselves straining our voices to become louder than the guitars. The guitars were too loud through the whole set, which is fine for the gig but not for rehearsals as we could damage our vocal chords and be unable to sing at future gigs.

Composition Work - 13/03/15

Today I came in early to get started on my composition. After many months of trying to get my piano main melody in time with the rest of the track, I was finally showed a way to do it, although it takes time. Now I have a track which is fully in time and I am now able to record vocals over it to finish it off. I also put some reverb on the piano part after the timing was fixed, this was so that some of the notes sustain.

Theory Lesson - 12/03/15

Today I made finishing touches on my essay about What Nirvana's influence is on Modern Rock. While researching for my essay I have found out many new things about Nirvana and other artists. I have also found not very well known artists that I have grown to like who were influenced by Nirvana.

Singing lesson - 12-03-15

This lesson we went through "I found" by amber run and "demons" by imagine dragons. We are hoping to perform one of these at the gig and record one. In order for us to learn something new in our singing lessons, we should come up with a vocal technique each week, and work on that vocal technique as a group. We could find a song which includes the vocal technique in the vocals, and practice with that, or find out more about it and practice a ca pella. This way we're making good use of our time and improving our singing power, projection and skill.

Rehearsals - 11-03-15

Behind the Hyde's next gig is on the 23rd March, today we rehearsed to prepare for it! Our set list for this gig is Psycho, Thanks for the memories, zombie and the pretender! If we get a gig at Amex, we have also decided we will be doing Dani California and supermassive black hole to extend our set list!

Production Task - 02-03-15

Today we were given a new assignment, to find a song we liked which we wanted to remix. This could be one we have already recorded for previous assignments or in our bands, or it could be audio stems that we find online, or pretty much any audio clips we find we can remix and alter. I decided to work on Kissing You by De's'ree with Elisha. The song is very mellow and soft, we are going to turn it into a completely different sound and record our voices over an instrumental we found on YouTube. This session we managed to find an audio clip and load it onto Pro Tools and record all of the vocals over the backing track. Next lesson we will start to remix the track either individually or together.

Rehearsals - 25-02-15

This lesson was Behind The Hyde's first rehearsals after half term. We rehearsed through our set list for upcoming gigs, shortened the middle chorus in Psycho to add more of an impact to the ending of the song, and decided to learn a new song for Friday's rehearsals before lessons, 'Addicted' by Saving Abel.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Amber Sullivan