What happened
I performed 'Feeling Good' by Muse and the music video version of 'The Boys of Summer' by The Ataris for six different bands.
What was I thinking/feeling
Due to the preparation that has been stated in a previous blog post (linked here), I felt prepared and confident for this assessment. I had played Feeling Good countless times in different bands and I had played through Boys of Summer several times as well. I had a feeling that as the performances went on I would play the songs better due to short-term self reflection.
What was good and bad about the experience
In every play through of the song I stayed in time and used appropriate fills according although I will admit that there were times in the later play throughs were the fills may have been too much in my opinion.
Almost all of the students had practiced the songs as well as doing them in rehearsals with myself or the drum track I had prepared (again, mentioned in the previous blog post). This meant that everyone knew their part and made the performance crisp as hardly anyone played the wrong parts at the wrong time. I assisted this by keeping a steady rhythm and maintaining the structure.
A minor error I made in the first few performances was that I forgot the ride part during the intro of The Boys of Summer. I did correct this in later performances however it was still a mistake I made due to nerves in the beginning. This proves my assumption of me improving during the day.
What sense can I make of the situation
Looking back on the assessments I can confidently say that it is has been my favourite so far in regards to everything. I learnt that not all songs can be played to a click in certain scenarios as in Feeling Good, a backing track played the piano part which starts and it would have been difficult to sync my click up with the timing of said backing track. That being said, I did use a click for Boys of Summer but I believe I kept in time for both of the pieces - with and without the click.
I also re-learnt a lesson that I was taught before attending ACM which is to never experiment on stage. I saw some other students attempt this and I even tried a few new fills sometimes. Sometimes it worked for me and others however there were one or two times where this caused a mistake to be made.
What else could I have done?
Although the lecture began at 9, I could have entered ACM just before and used a free room to go over the songs one last time with a band. This is a solution to my problem of forgetting certain parts in the beginning meaning my performances would have been more concise.
I could have rehearsed more with my bands even though I did prepare the drum track which was used during rehearsals that I could not attend. This would have given the band more confidence as a unit as they have not only learnt the song but applied that knowledge before the assessment.
If it arose again what would I do?
As previously mentioned, I would rehearse with the bands more next time and rehearsed before as well to make sure we're prepared. I'd also make another drum track for those rehearsals that I can't attend as it was incredibly useful this time.
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