Creative Strengths: One of my creative strengths is that I'm open to try new ideas to spice up the songs andadds some textures to the songs. This helped me massively as I could let my mind wonderinto trying some new techniques on my guitar to make my creative innovation betterthroughout the course.My Second strength is I’m able to figure songs out by ear if we are struggling with asection within the song. For example, in “I'm in love with a monster2 we couldn't find anytabs or videos on this song so I decided I would listen to it by ear and after a few minuteswe had our bridge ready to go. This helped me out because it builds my memory on notesby ear, and it builds the strength on my musical ear to be capable to do that more often
Professional Strengths: One professional strength was i could hold by my swearing which is a big improvementfrom last year and I am able to communicate properly with the group in a professionalmanor. This helps me throughout the course as this will now become a habit and will be astandard for me throughout the course.Another Professional strength of mine was I was a good communicator in the group ishowed this through guiding the group through our songs and asking for help on ideas tospice songs up to make it a team work experience.
Creative Areas for Development: One creative area of development is working on figuring out timing better. For examplethis was an issue in our last 2 songs as we was coming in to early on the chorus on hungrylike a wolf and perhaps vampires is abit strong but as the song changes from ¾ to 4/4 wegot abit confused and was playing to different time signatures.My second area for development is learning scales so I could improvise lead guitar intoour songs. I struggled with making a good solo for the end of our last song as a group so istuck to the solo on the song but i felt like i could have improvised something.
Professional Areas for Development: One professional area for development is my attention span. My attention span causes me to lose interest in the song easily after playing a few times so i would divert my attention to other songs that didn't mean anything to my setlist.one example is when me and Harry would lose focus and play cigarettes and alcohol as we got bored of songs.Another professional aspect for development was my discipline outside of the course as Ididn’t practice much at home. For example when it came to learning our last song I didn’tlearn the song properly for rehearsal the next day as I hadn’t managed my time properly.However I had resolved this by making sure I had better time management throughoutthe week.
What Went Well Creatively: One thing that worked well creatively as a group is that I thought we could blend perfectlyon songs. For example in I’m in love with a monster we added a few new parts to thatsong and we all had an idea an idea of what to do and how to make it work around eachother.Another another creative aspect we worked well on was we all could identify what washappening in a song. For example when it came to learning our final song we listen to thesong bit by bit to understand what was happening as a group and when to play certainelements off that section as a group to bring the song together.
What Went Well Professionally: One professional aspect that we worked well on was communication. In the sessioneveryone in the group on the most part spoke to each other in the correct professionalmanor and was optimistic about each song and what we could do with each song into thebuild up of the gig.Another professional aspect that worked well for us was our scheduling. For examplefrom the very started we set a goal for which week and for the first 3 weeks it was get onesong ready for each week so we did one song in week 1 one song in week 2 and one songin week 3 so then we had to weeks to tighten the songs and make the songs smoothersailing for our allocated time in the gig.
What Did Not Work Well Creatively: One creative aspect that didn’t work well was blending the vocals. For example in a lot of the songs for the instrumentalist it fell like the vocalists where competing for volume instead of helping each other out by harmonising. However he worked on this by getting them to concentrate more on helping out on the other persons part than focusing on there own part.Another aspect that did work well was our dynamics. Occasionally we would play thesame dynamics throughout the whole song would make the song sound boring andlifeless as a group. However we worked on this through recognising our dynamics need tochance for certain sections of the songs and played them the correct way.
What Did Not Work Well Professionally: One professional aspect that didn’t work well was sound checks. We struggled with thisbecause in every session atleast one of the vocalist would be way louder than the otherwhich would make us lose the bass and drums completely and you would struggle to hearthe guitars at times. I also believe as guitarist we didn’t balance very well but that may beon my behalf. We worked on this by explaining to the whole group that certain peoplewhere always to loud and made the sound checks better.Another aspect that didn’t work well was our break timing. For example in the session ifwe was ready to go through a song someone would just wonder off outside for there earbreak and we would have to wait patiently for them to come back to run through thesong which is precious minutes wasted for us to make the songs tighter. We worked onthis by simply just waiting for our 15 minute break in between the practice so we hadmaximum time to practice.