Arrangement of Lorde's Tennis Court
"Statement of Intent":
Our assessment was to create a cover for 'Lorde's Tennis Court'. I am arranging this piece with my group which consists of; Luca, Zennon and Asher. We have changed the original by changing the tempo, style to reggae, instrumentation. We also made the piano (Me) basically singing the lyrics by playing the melody.
"Reflection":
We have had two lessons now to arrange a cover for the song, in the first lesson, we were deciding on what style we should change it to. We put our thoughts all on to reggae as the original had a tint of reggae in it and we believed it would make it interesting and a bit syncopated. That lesson, we thought of different instruments that would fit the original and we came up with acoustic/electric guitar, bass, piano and drums. The next lesson was the lesson we rehearsed. I played the melody withe drums assisting me with the sick reggae beats and chords of the bass and guitar. In my opinion, it sounds pretty different and it sounds chill which is different to the original.
"Recording Reflection":
The day came, we were prepared to record and we had our parts practiced. Though, Asher was not there for the recording we were still able to finish it flawlessly. The recording was successful, it was really quick and swift. We only required one try to get it done. What we played was what we wanted so we achieved our goal. One thing that stood out to me was we all had to wear headphones except the drummer because he was too far away. The headphones were used to communicate with the recorder. During the performance, i thought that maybe using a more louder instrument to play each base note of each chord would've been better than the guitar, as it was really hard to hear and doesn't fit with the percussion instruments we had. Changing the style in my next arrangement is definitely compulsory, its really useful and adds a different tone and texture to the original.
"Arrangement 2.0"
We picked 'Do I Wanna Know' by Arctic Monkeys as our song and we decided to change the original style into smooth jazz/slow swing. We changed the instrumentation with an electric guitar, bass, vibraphone, drums and piano. We changed the verse and chorus by adding solos in the verses where the vibraphone altered the original melody with thirds and augmented chords to be unique. The main heart of our arrangement is the bass and the drums, the drums controlled the tempo and kept the swing going, I (Piano) was responsible for playing the rift over and over again to keep the arrangement still on task and not completely changing the whole of the original song. We didn't add the original melody with the vocals because we didn't have any good vocalists so that's why we used the vibraphone.
"Arrangement 2.0 Performance"
The day of the performance, we had 15 minutes to prepare and run through for the final times, then we performed when everyone was seated. I would consider our performance to be quite good, it was well in time and we queued in perfectly on the solos and stopped at the right time. I liked our vibraphone solo a lot as it was really different and it transitioned into the bass solo very well where the dynamics immediately changed from 'f' to 'p' so we could hear the bass. Then we just ended our performance with the rift again.
"Jazz"
Today is the first lesson of official Jazz. We learnt the song and the each chord progression. The first thing we learnt was the 'head' which is basically the start of the song where everyone in band plays the melody and then after a certain amount of bars, we split into solos. We also had some practice runs with the head and solos which worked out alright, because we just had to play the the scale in which was in the context with jazz scale of that song.
"Jazz Second Rehearsal"
Today, was the first day we assigned ourselves to our own groups and practiced our head, jazz improvisations and started working out what we are going to do while each of us are doing our own solos, we had the final idea that we would play either the chords or play the head over and over again through each of our solos to give keep them in time or just to add some context. We also some what rehearsed our 'improvisations' and taught, showed Jacky (drummer) how to improvise a solo on the drum.
"Jazz Third Rehearsal"
The third rehearsal was the least productive jazz lesson we had. We played through our whole piece several times but at the end we improved Jackies solo because he didn't know what to do and was not experienced with Jazz. We added some effects with the vibraphone like tremolos etc. Asher also changed from trombone to singing since he didn't know the notes. I stuck with playing the chords since we did not need more of the head.
"Jazz Performance"
It was the day of performance after our group finally all arrived we performed what we had planned except with Asher doing a solo. Our performance was good in my opinion, the rhythm was in time and we kept our melody and harmony within the rhythm so it sounded alright. In my solo, i generally played within the key that was required but an accident in which i pressed the wrong note within the C chord of the last 2 bars. Our performance was based around highlighting the piano and vibraphone since we were the highest pitch and had more complex improvisations played.
"Classic"
We learnt the chord progression in Pachebelbel's Canon whilst composing a new melody to match that progression. We also looked at the musical features of Baroque style. I started my composition with the base notes and the adding on a melody that is within the chord. My melody has to match the chords otherwise it will sound displaced. My melody is in steps to keep the note range close so it doesn't sound conjunct.
Syrinx for Flute:
Expressive, Wide range of dynamics, Not necessarily in time, Lots of ornamentation
5th Symphony:
Use of symphony orchestra, rhythmically clear, wide range of dynamics, contrasting movements, perfect cadences.
Threnody:
Experimental music, really bad sounding, not in time, random sounds
"Classic 3.0"
I came in late to the lesson due to physio but i was able to nut out what period i'm doing my composition most likely in the romantic period as it is easy and just have to create a long singable melody. My piece is in f minor for the sound of sadness and the purpose of evoking emotion out of the listeners. I wasn't able to produce any music today but i have an idea of how my composition should be shaped with just a piano. The piano is very easy since it can have an accompaniment and a melody making it very easy for me to chord change in the left hand while playing in the right. My composition will portray the expressionistic and impressionistic of romantic style music with the use of dynamics and other elements.
"Classic 4.0 - Preflection"
Today, i will visualise my composition briefly in my head and somewhat create the bass line in sibelius. Before all of this, i will also listen to more examples of romantic music to fully understand the flow and structure of the music. I will use my theory knowledge to harmonise the melodies so it sounds nice and it sounds together.