tone and technique relevant to the instrument or voice; formulate effective practise routines; pieces for
performance thoroughly rehearsed and learnt
Physical preparation: eg relaxation and/or breathing exercises as appropriate, concentration techniques, exercises to control nerves, preparatory performances at the venue and in front of an audience
Other preparations: instrument (where applicable) is in working order and in-tune eg new strings, serviceable reeds/mouth pieces, correct beaters, voice is warmed up; rehearsal with accompanist if one is being used.
Solo Performances Evaluated
All in all I felt that my performances went well, I will however take a detailed look at each one and how I could improve it.Foo Fighters - Rope
I think that this one went pretty smoothly. There were no obvious mistakes anywhere, and the sound balance was good. There was one problem though, and that was where the song suddenly stopped playing for a moment halfway through. This however was not a fault in my playing, but just a technical difficulty. If I knew why it happened, I would try to make sure it doesn't happen again, but it has never done that before!
Michael Jackson - Heartbreaker
The first thing I think that I could have done more smoothly was the start of the song. I didn't start playing myself until the second or third bar in. To counter this in future performances, I would set a few bars of silence before the song starts, followed by a click so that I can come in on the first beat of the song. Other than that, I think that this performance went exceptionally well considering it was about 80% improvised. I often find that I can't improvise well in front of an audience, but due to the relaxed feel of the audience/venue + the fact that I could shut myself off from them a bit due to wearing isolation headphones, I was able to play well. I made a few small slip ups on hard fills, however I do not think that these are detrimental to the overall performance.
There was one slightly bigger slip though, and this was at the start of the second drum solo/breakdown where I had to stop playing and move my bass drum back towards me, as it had slipped forwards causing my pedal to get jammed. In future I could avoid this by taking a rug and setting up on that.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Around The World
This one was well practiced and therefore was a pretty solid performance. I have noticed when watching back however that some of my timing of correct rhythm was a bit off - for example the small fill at 0:54 seconds into the video. If I was to perform this again, I would try to tighten that up a little.
The Strokes - Under Cover of Darkness
Again, I am generally happy with this performance, as I didn't really make any obvious mistakes. What I did notice however, was that I have a tendency to rush some of my fills - especially in the choruses when I did rolls around the kit. I also rushed slightly into the breakdown (Just before I start playing the ride cymbal). Although this is only noticeable if you watch closely, it is still something I could work on for future performances. Other than that though, I think I played it pretty perfectly.
Maroon 5 - One More Night
I am pleased with how this performance went. I gave a lot of attention to the fills in the three 'breakdowns' in the song (0:52, 1:53 and 2:35). I was quite pleased with the parts I'd written for these bits and I played them to the standard I wanted to. I wanted to do fills with a metric modulation feel - i.e. playing a fill that is grouped as 4s, but as triplets, causing the original accent of each phrase to be moved around to strange beats of each bar. Each time however, these licks were to finish perfectly on the cymbal of beat 1 of the next bar. Although they are not 100% accurate, I still think they are pretty spot on, especially since 3 against 4 done in this way is quite hard - as it strays so far from the original beat.
The part I would like to improve is the drum roll back into the final chorus. Again, I seem to speed up here and when I come back in I start playing too slow and end up over compensating, it takes me 2 bars or so to get back in sync with the beat after this. I would like to improve that before I perform this again.
Guitar Composition
I find that I make more mistakes on guitar than I do on drums (Partly because it's my second instrument, and partly because it is so fiddly). At one point I made a mistake where I plucked the wrong string. This is something I would like to improve on as this happens quite a bit. Maybe I need to aim better! I am quite pleased on the whole though, as I only made that one very obvious mistake - the rest of it went quite smoothly. I would like to incorporate better dynamic range next time too to make it more intense and exciting for listeners.
Mexicana
The same goes for this guitar piece, really. At one point I accidentally played the wrong notes and had to correct myself (At 1:27). Other than that, I don't think there were any very obvious mistakes. I was pleased with the way I played it, adding my own feel and musicality to it. I particularly made lots of use of Rubato, drawing out certain notes, and speeding up on other bits to add excitement to the piece. I think it is a beautiful piece of music, and next time I will try to add more dynamics to it!
For the guitar pieces in general, I think it might be a good idea for me to try some kind of relaxation technique, as I often get very sticky hands and become very tense when performing classical guitar live. This makes it particularly hard to do certain slides and note changes. I find that I become clumsy when performing it. I might try some exercises and concentration techniques to try and get in the zone in the future.
Finally, overall I am pleased with my solo performances. I would love to have done it all as one big set, but unfortunately it wasn't possible, and was just impractical.
