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)