Final External Unit

Task 1 - Planning

My candidate number: My centre number: 17343.

My name is Kujay Maboreke . The instrument I will be playing for this performance is the drums . The brief requires me to be able to perform a selection of songs for a local label A&Rs with a time limit between 10-15 minutes.

 Through my performance, I want to achieve the following personal goals:

1. Personal Goal 1: To acquire better performing skills.
2. Personal Goal 2: To have improved in drumming by the end of the year, in terms of technique and being able to always stay in time to whatever song i'm playing to. 
3. Personal Goal 3: To do a group performance and have it go smoothly to improve my collaborative skills with other students.

To help achieve the above goals, I think I have the following skills that I can use:

1. Skill 1: My first good skill is my technique when playing the drums, in terms of my posture and the way I look while playing. My drum teacher would be able to back me up on this skill.
2. Skill 2: My second good skill is being able to learn new songs quite quickly, which is a key thing to have when you want to go up grades in drumming.  
3. Skill 3: My third good skill is I find it very easy working with people in group performances and i enjoy it as i get to play with other and they also use different instruments, and so it just means when it finally all comes together it just sounds really good.

 I will know if I have achieved my goals at the end of the assessment because when i write my evaluation and watch my recording, I will be able to tell if the goals I set were achieved.

The audience I am performing to is the A&R team. Their expectations will be that I play my hardest and will sound good and will be in time with every song, as with playing drums it's easy to tell when the drums is off beat with the rest of the instruments. I will meet their expectations by making sure that I play to the best of my ability and stay in time with all my songs to make sure what they hear sounds not only good but also accurate.

 I will perform music in the following style/styles, which are R&B, pop and classic. This is because these three styles are styles that are very popular today and everyone would be familiar with which is a good addition.

 My personal image for the event will be to appear like a professional performer and try to have the type of confidence and stage presence as one during my performance.

 My ideas for the performance are to make sure that the audience will it get bored and be distracted, but to have all the audience being engaged in my performance and to see them enjoying it. I intend to make it entertaining by having fills in my performance instead of the the same beat the whole way through the song i'm playing to by making my own fills for the songs and then it will be more interesting for the audience in that way.

) The set list I will perform as my given repertoire will contain the following songs:

1. Song 1: Artist/Band: The Weeknd Song title: Can't feel my face Estimated length of song: 3:34. I have chosen this song because it reflects a perfect example of why I chose the genre R&B for my music style development . 
2. Song 2:  Artist/Band: Linkin Park Song title: Robot Boy Estimated length of song: 4:29. I have chosen this song because it's different type of songs I normally play to, which made me more interested on seeing I would get on with this type of song.
3. Song 3: Artist/Band: Gorillaz Song title: Feel Good inc. Estimated length of song: 3:43. I have chosen this song because  .

The total estimated length of my set list will therefore be 11:06 minutes. 

I have chosen to play these songs in this order because I thought it would be good to start with a solo then go into a group performance so it's a nice balance.

 I will need to involve the following people in my performance, which is Josh and Nigel. This is because Nigel will be singing for me, while Joshb will be playing the piano for the song Robot Boy.

 I will need the following resources and equipment, which are a drum kit of course, a piano for Josh and a mic for Nigel . 

 When performing live, I will need to consider the following health and safety issues:

Health & Safety Issue 1: An issue could be tripping over wires that have either been left on the floor or are plugged into an instrument. How I will make sure I am safe is by looking where i'm stepping and checking if there are any wires in my way before .

Health & Safety Issue 2: If the music is too loud for the audience. How I will make sure I am safe is by turning the backing track down on the main speaker.

Health & Safety Issue 3: I could hurt my back while performing if I don't have the right posture. How I will make sure I am safe is by keeping my back up straight for the whole performance.

Health & Safety Issue 4: My drum sticks could go flying into the audience while i'm playing. How I will make sure I am safe is by making sure that I am holding the drum sticks the correct way in order to for everyone to be safe and for me to play the drums correctly.

I used the following website(s) to help me with my research http://www.sportsrehab.com/drumminghealth.htm.
Week 19 Thursday 18th January 2018 (2 hours):

Plan: To practice songs with my drum teacher as in last weeks lesson we were stuck in a classroom for the whole 2 hours. 

What went well: I'm` starting to play most of my songs up to speed.

What needs work: _I need to be able to add more fills into the performance to spice it up instead of the same plain beat..

Week 20 Thursday 25th January 2018 (2 hours):

Plan: I worked with joe today. we worked together as we both play the drums in our performances and thought we could help each other out.

What went well: We both now have targets we can work up to after taking feedback in and thinking of what we can do next to improve.

What needs work: Make sure that my songs will all be in time with the backing track or it to sound good.

Week 21 Thursday 1st February 2018 (2 hours):

Plan: Today, I worked with Josh and Nigel. We practiced our song that we are going to be performing together and we trying to get back into it as we haven't practiced the song in a while.

What went well:  We got to finally practice and get familiar with the song again and got through alot.

What needs work: we need to bring everything together and get it in time to the backing track.

Week 22 Thursday 8th February 2018 (2 hours):

Plan: Today, I worked with joe as we have done this before and i got a lot out of it last time .

What went well: We both got to show each other all the songs we are doing and we both gave feedback and took feedback to improve.

What needs work:  I need to make sure I get all my songs playing up to speed so that I don't mess up in the real performance.

Week 24 Thursday 22nd February 2018 (2 hours):

Plan: Today I worked with Joe again as Nigel was away at a music lesson and Josh was working with others, so i was happy to work with joe as tere would have been no none to get feedback from on my performance with the songs.

What went well: I can tell that i am getting better as each week i will have gone up in speed of playing to the songs. Although it was mainly 'Feel Good' that I had to speed up on as it is a fast paced song to play to. 

What needs work: So all together i am happy at the point i've got to and other these next few weeks i need to make sure i am prepared as the performance day is very near.

Week 25 Thursday 1st March (2 hours):

Plan: We had to record our perform our songs in class as practice for the real performance. .

What went well: I performed two of my songs for my final performance, and I played in time with the songs which was good.

What needs work: I need to work on feel good as i have not got the song up to speed, and for my to do well in my performance i need to make sure it is fully up to speed before the performance.

Week 25 Thursday 08/03/18 Dress Rehearsal Performance (2 hours):

Plan: Today we did our final practice before the final performance, and this time it was on stage.

What went well: I played well to every song and I know this as the feedback was good from my teacher's.

What needs work: I need to make sure that by next week that I fully has Feel Good to speed.

Week 26 Wednesday 14/03/18 Final Live Performance (2 hours):

Plan: Today I did my final performance for music.

What went well: I played all of my notes correctly and finally go Feel Good up to speed which I was very proud about.

What needs work: There was a few parts during the performance when I would slow down a bit but otherwise apart from that everything went really well.

Task 3: Evaluation 

Strengths Reflection:

I made sure that I played all the right notes throughout my performances for the majority of the songs. when I did my group performances, I would say it went well, especially since Josh had to use a piano this time instead of a keyboard, and it ended up sounding better. 

I made sure that I played in time with all my songs and got them all up to the speed it needed to be at so that it could sound as good and accurate as it can. I also had good drum techniques the whole way through my performance and my posture while playing was very good.

Improvement Reflection:

As a whole group performance I could have added more fills in when needed as I felt for Robot Boy I definitely could have added a few more fills in there to change form being plain to making it more interesting. In my solo and group performances, I feel I could have used more of the drum kit than I did.

Improvement #1:

Strategy: 

By making sure that in future I will listen to songs more carefully and look for points in the song where I can add more of my own fills in there.

Improvement #2:

Strategy: 
I would not limit myself to playing a certain part of the drum kit, but I would add in more parts and use different parts of the drum kit to make it sound different and better.

Improvement #3:

Strategy:
I will make sure that i don't slow down or pause at any point during performances of songs and that will make it a better improvement in my progress of performing. 

Feedback from others:

1st piece - Nice strong pulse, well done. You could develop your part further by adding fills in where appropriate. 
2nd piece - Good strength and power in the track. Good change in dynamics throughout. Try to be as accurate as possible without faltering. This is a tough piece, so well done. 
3rd piece - Again, I'm not sure if perhaps you made mistakes here? Always be confident about what you are doing, no faltering!

 This feedback really helped as it meant i could see what other people thought and not only base how I did from my opinion as the way I hear things could be different to the way other people hear.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, overall I think i did really well. This is shown in my blog when i would talk about what I did each week and one of the problems I feared on the lead up to this performance was that one of my songs which was 'Feel Good' by Gorillaz, and the problem I had with the song was that I didn't have it up to speed fully. This was because this is a hard song to play to as it is a very fast paced song, but eventually I got better and reached the speed it needed to be at.