Activities Proposal

I got involved with the Polish Club music/dance show (on the 4th of October) through a fellow singer-songwriter Anna I met at a Derby open mic who originally wished to collaborate with me on performing an acoustic song together. She invited me to perform at this music show she was organising and so we arranged rehearsals in the week leading up to it. We practiced two songs that we thought would be appropriate – “Drive” by Incubus and “Wonderwall” by Oasis.
Upon realising I could also play drums to an extent, she invited me to play for an Iron Maiden tribute who would be playing at the show but were in need of a drummer. This would be the very first time I had played drums at a real live environment. I have a video file of this performance that was recorded on a phone - http://www.esnips.com/doc/253d129b-7cbd-4f40-a94a-15f1f15b57d5/04102008003.
Additionally, we had the idea for me to improvise an ambient guitar lead line over the intro song for the show sung by Anna with dancers. Although improvisation is something I have extensive experience, putting it in this particular context was something new.
I also provided a significant portion of the guitar rig, which one of the guitarists from the band would use. It has been discussed that there may be more of these shows to come, due to the hugely positive response it received, and it was a very valuable experience and took place within semester time. Due to this, I expect many musical opportunities to arise from the contacts I made, particularly through Anna and Ragnar, and I will be documenting these as part of my complementary studies weblog.



Additionally, I will be continuing my open mic and acoustic gigging in Derby and documenting my progress in obtaining more frequent paid performances. This will include the production of my home-made acoustic EP to the Derby audience. Please see www.myspace.com/martinjacksonacoustic for samples of this material. One of housemates may be able to gain me some live airtime on D:ONE radio as he did last year.

I have also been working on getting a band together with the people I am currently living with. This weblog will track our rehearsals and detail our efforts of managing this in a non-studio environment.