Reggae: Practice

What Practical Preparation Did I Do

Before our rehearsal, I sourced lyrics for the different song choices, ensuring that I would be ready for any possible song my band could choose. I listened to each song to familiarise myself with them, but could've listened to each song more as my time was split between the four possible choices instead of just one song. 

What Musical Preparation Did I Do

I did very little musical preparation for this brief. I did learn some different syncopated rhythms, but ultimately had no new musical preparation that was specific to this brief. 

How Did My Band Develop The Song

The brief involved us creating an acapella version of the song, where each of us picked parts and could only perform with vocals or body percussion. We developed this in layers, creating a workshop style performance where each person explained their part before joining the main composition. We also shortened the song, as it was very repetitive and we found it hard to make the percussive noises for the whole five minute song. 

What Role Did I Take In The Band

I was the backing vocalist for both versions of the performance, but because our lead vocalist had time off due to illness, I had to take the lead on many of the vocal-related developments, including switching to lead vocals for some of the early recordings. 

What Kind Of Performance Was This?

Our aim was to create an acapella reggae workshop, aimed towards primary-age children. We also had to perform an instrumental version of the song alongside the acapella as part of the workshop. 

What Were The Stylistic Traits For My Other Band Members?

How Did We Decide Our Aims And Objectives

In our first rehearsal, we first decided on our parts for the acapella, listening to the song on repeat to decipher which parts were needed. After deciding our parts, we rehearsed the acapella version, making sure we could perform the song acapella without a backing track whilst staying in time. After we had the acapella down, we then transferred our knowledge of the song to our individual instruments, building up the instrumental version quite quickly as we already had a fundamental understanding of the song. 

Two Examples Of How I Listened To The Opinions Of Others

My bandmates had the idea to shorten and rearrange the song, as their instrumental acapella parts were hard to sustain across the whole length of the song, so I listened to their ideas as to which parts we should cut out and which parts we should keep. I also had to sing lead vocals in our recording last minute, as through listening and communicating with my band mates I figured out that our original lead vocalist would be unable to perform as intended.

How Was The Order Of The Arrangement Decided?

As mentioned above, my bandmates had trouble sustaining their acapella parts for the whole song, especially as the song is longer than average. We decided to cut out some of the verse as well as some instrumental sections, leaving us with a shorter song to preserve the quality of our performance. However in our instrumental version, we stuck more to the original structure, as the trouble we were having was specific to the acapella version.