Lighthouse Rehearsal before Area Final!

I booked out the Markeaton Street practice room for the 25th and 26th April for Lighthouse to rehearse for the Live and Unsigned Area Final on May 3rd. We had already worked out what we were going to play for our 3 and a half minutes - our cover would be Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" twisted to our own style and our original would be a new song written by Honza and Anna called "The DreamCatcher".

"Poker Face" song is originally a synth dance song, but we put it into a more hard rock style with a slightly faster tempo. I played the synth line with a phaser guitar effect and provided backing vocals. The chorus was done with full distortion, an aggressive contrast to the original, as well as the second verse, which we changed into a funk-influenced style.
Honza suggested I take a lengthy guitar solo, firstly over the chorus chords, then completely unaccompanied - to lead into DreamCatcher.

DreamCatcher begins with a piano intro passage in Bb minor. "Poker Face" is in Ab minor, so during the unaccompanied part of my solo, I needed to somehow transpose into this key and I did this with an ascending arpeggio pattern. To give Honza a cue to start playing this piano part, I suggested playing a trill while Petr clicked twice on the beat to count in.
Having already learned to play it, DreamCatcher did not take long to arrange. Honza suggested a guitar part for me in the verse so that he could play the piano, changing to guitar for the chorus.
Anna and I also collaborated on creating lyrics for the outro piano section that she and Honza would sing in harmony.

Go to http://www.esnips.com/doc/a324f9af-f721-453b-901d-f9cc70b9b702/dream_cat for a recording we made of our arrangement using Petr's laptop.

Unfortunately, by the time of the Area Final, it will have been the final hand-in deadline for Complementary Studies, so I will not be able to report on how well we did. Rest assured, we are very confident and hope to get through to the national final!

Total: 8 hours (4 for each session)

Jam Night with new bassist /// Singer-songwriters' Club

On the 18th March, "The Other Service" rehearsed for two hours at the university practice room. We went over the cover versions we already knew to warm up and refresh our memories. After finalising our arrangement of "Run Through Me", we began work on our next original song "Burden of Proof" that Ryan and I had been working on. It was slightly more complex than the previous song, and it took us a while to teach it to Jono and Simon. It helped to have a structural
diagram laying out the sectional order of the song, and we did manage to perform one whole take of it successfully by the end of the session. We all agreed it would require more practice but
would play it in the evening anyway to see how it went.

[2 hours]

At the Old Bell jam night that evening we played two sets as before, to a great response. The
song list was as follows:
1:

Hell and High Water

Run Through Me

Remedy

2:

All My Life

Burden of Proof

Plug in Baby

Killing in the Name

For the final two songs, I focussed on vocals only - since it only required one guitar part,
which gave me the frontman freedom I desired. We all agreed it went very well, with the
exception of Burden of Proof where most of us forgot the structure of the song and dropped out
halfway through! We received a lot more positive feedback in spite of this, and I talked to the
landlord who said he'd been willing to give us a gig in April/May time.

[3 hours]

For video footage of our first set, visit:http://www.esnips.com/doc/34b3abd9-dee2-45f1-8ab0-652095f4cb8b/18th-March-set-1

On the 25th of March, I played a headlining acoustic set at the Derby Singer-Songwriters club playing mostly original material. Unfortunately not many people came and I was only paid £8 for the night, but it was an enjoyable experience. Songs I played included:

Condemned

Final Release

Patriarch

Midnight Musings

A False Identity

Upon Reflection
Betray

This Infectious Mood

[2hours]