Today im going to be working with a college band called Meraki so i'm not going to be able to work on my own FMP much through out the day. However im planning on creating another tik tok as the performance is in two days and i want to make sure that I have tried to boost the amount of ticket sales for the performance as i want to show my music to as many people as I can. Im also planning to have a chat with harry about recording as im doing sdtuff with meraki and want to book some time i for my own FMP.
After recording with meraki I had about a hour window to do some of my own stuff for my FMP and i wanted to create another tik tok especially a funny one that is really quite random. I thought I could ask lydia if she wanted to do some videos with me. We thought we would sit and look at some videos for inspiration and a viral video that a lot of artists did was someone coming up to them when there wearing headphones, then asking them what there listening to and it's there song although me and lydia thought of making a different kind of this video with a twist. Due to the fact I didn't have any music out I was going to have a picture of the poster so people can see it. Im then going to walk of and later on in the edit have a replay of me saying 7th of may. After Doing some takes it didn't look good and i wanted to do something that people haven't done before as then it is unique and hopefully people will like it and we also realised that it was going to take ages for editing and we probably wouldn't be able to have it released today which doesn't mean anything when im playing the gig in two days time. I wanted something that involved the poster as people can get all their information from it so i don't have to explain it which would bore the viewers on the post. I then asked billy whos running the event and harry my producer if they had any ideas. We thought it would be funny to confuse the viewer so we had me lie on the poster pretending to be dead. We then thought we could have one of the boys throw me to the side and the boster be under me they pick it up show it to the camera and then say 7th of may.
I also asked if harry would want to do this and he was extremely excited. After doing a walk through and one take we realised that we needed to focus on the poster for a extra amount of time. The reasons being is you need to hold it there long enough for the audience member to read all the information. We also realised it would look better if I had a larger amount of people saying 7th of may. We then asked joe the guitarist of the first year band i had been helping out if he wouldn't mind as as i have done a lot for him he agreed and also we thought it would be good if we had billy in the video as it is his actual event. They all throw me to the sid and I asked if they could put a obstacle for me to hit while i was being thrown. This way it would seem a lot more dramatic and hopefully the hit would cause the viewers to laugh. We placed a bin towards my legs so it wouldn't hurt ands I told billy to aim and fling my legs towards it and not worry if it hurts me.
After practicing we realised this was exactly what we were looking for. All we needed at the end was the boys to say 7th of may which they didn't need to practice. After taking some takes we got a perfect take. Afterwards we sat down and focused on editing the recording. We wanted to use some music with the track to help it gain popularity if we used something that is very popular at this moment in time. We took about 15 minutes trying to find a sound that didn't overpower the video so we couldn't hear what Harry was talking about in the video. We then found the wii sports sound and it fit perfectly with the recording with the fact it was so subtle but worked with the stupidity of the video. We then released the video on my tik tok and it gained the same amount of views as my last one in half the time but sadly slowed down after that getting around eight hundred views when my dream was to kit one thousand so it is extremely close and very successful.
Today the only problem we came across was the video idea we wanted to do didnt work as it wasnt what we were looking for, however to solve this situation we were able to use oner of the other ideas we had as we thought something like this might have happened so I knew to have some other ideas to be proparted and thanks to that we were still able to make som content in the short amount of time I had and post it on my tik tok and socials. Another thing is due to the fact that I have agreed to help a decent amount of people with there work im actually slightly behind on my own work so in the future I know not to take on as many jobs. This is the one thing I would have changed when doing this day and FMP project.
I did some more research into Promotion today looking at how it's different when you post on instagram and tik tok however I've decided Im gonna make another tik tok as its easier and better for me getting in contact with people sooner as the performance is happening very soon.
Today was extremely successful as I was able to release some promotion for the gig even though my day was full with different things I had to do. We were planning on doing some more work on my songs however i wasn't able to do this. However if I had done it again I would have tried to focus on having a studio session.
Today is the day of the event so I have loads of things to prepare for the event and my set. I started of the day by asking billy when sound checks were as I needed to know when he needed me at the venue. This was important as im playing in two bands and I need to practice with both before the gig as we haven't practiced much as a group to do with everyone doing there own FMP's. Im planning on practicing with Meraki first and then spending a hour practicing with my band for tonight so everyone is prepared. I'm also planning on getting there earlier before my sound check as I need to get changed and then also i want to help with any setting up they might need. Im going to also plan on talking to billy on when bands are playing as they were mixed up slightly and I wanted to make sure i was completely correct on when I need to go on stage.
I Started of my day by trying to find billy to get in place a full plan for my day to make sure that im not behind on anything. After finding billy before my lesson he explained to me if i could be there for around 6 that would be perfect. After hearing this I new that I had tov know talk to the other members of meraki to figure out what times they wanted to practice. I was aiming to have one at the start of the day to midday and the others from then to the end of the day. i messaged vinny and joe to meet me in G11 and talk about it as it was are practical session. They explained that they wanted to rehearse in this lesson and POS instead of doing live lunch as they were able to talk to the teachers and they allowed this. After hearing this i had to plan out my rehearsal sessions with my group and i realised that I have another practical lesson after the break of POS which was only a hour long. After this I asked everyone in the band if this would be enough time for them to be comfortable for the gig this afternoon and they agreed. After this i had mapped out my whole day ready for my first rehearsal with meraki. After are first rehearsal session I was pretty comfortable with the set apart from one song so was practicing it while I quickly rushed to get some lunch. After this we went into are second rehearsal session with meraki and while this was happening I kept checking with the others is there hundred percent free for are rehearsal and they were positive which meant that I wasn't stressed for the performance.
After this I contacted billy if he could get set up a bit of time before we finished as that way we could save time with setting up and I also said to lucie to just bring her bass completely ready so all we have to do is plug in. I also asked billy if he could get me a microphone and a leed to save even more time and he did which was very nice and extremely eficent. We then practiced are songs, I wanted to go through the ones we hadn't done as a group first as we can make sure everyone was extremly clear on what they are doing and don't get confused or lost when we were performing. We started of with wagon wheel as everyone apart from George know how to play the song but we haven't played it together so have to make sure we play a similr styler of it as there are loads of different ways to play the song. We first had lucie and billy check they play it at the same tempo and so on and then while they did that I showed george the song and explained to him how i wanted him to play the song as we do play it slightly different to the original. After showing george the sonh he very shortly caught on and understood what was going on and after I asked if everything was alright with lucie and billy and they had one problem. This being they had learnt two different versions with tempo. The way we over came this was I sang it at the tempo they wanted and after that they found a new tempo and followed it together and explained it to George as well to make sure he knew what he was doing as he didnt know the song before this recording session.
After this we did a few takes of the song, after talking to them for the end of the song as I wanted to try something that did with another band i'm in that do this song and when we do it we get a great response from it. The plan is to during the multiple choruses at the end of the song at the start of each one it does stabs for half of the choruses. The reason I wanna do it is it catches peoples attention and also people usually clap along as its really simple and actually makes the song a lot more catchy. This took a while to explain to the others so what I did was get a video of me and the other band doing it and showed them. After this they caught on quickly and after ten minutes of practicing this section I asked if they were ok with the song and they were very confident. After this I wanted to move on practicing one last breath as it is the other over that we have practice separately but never as a band. This didn't take long as everyone in the band new the song prior. After this we had a full run through of the set list in order and everyone was very happy and satisfied with the set list and after this i was a lot more confident and wasn't worried about the performance and all I know had to do is help billy with the performance and actually perform.
I was late to the venue due to the fact a member of the band forgot some of his equipment at the music building and asked if I could reach back and get it for him which I didn't mind doing so i made sure he informed billy were I was so he didnt stress. I was able to make it to the venue with still a lot of time to spare before both of my sound checks. I then went over to billy and asked him if he needed help setting up the equipment or anything like that and all he wanted me to do was make sure everyone was ready for sound checks and had there equipment so I went round double checking especially with the people I was playing with. After all this was sorted with I went upstairs to the terist area of the venue as i needed to do some vocal warm ups before both of my performances due to the fact I have been singing a lot today which means my voice is slightly strained and we want it to go well and me not struggle while performing. We then had are sound check shortly after due to the fact that my band with the first years meraki were playing third to last and when you sound check you do it in reversed order. When setting up with meraki we had a lot to go over in the sound check due to the fact we were using two pedal boards that were going to be producing completely different tones and sounds and we had to make sure with the sound engineer andy if he was ready and everyone was going to be heard in the venue as that is one of the problems with bomba due to the design of the building and sheer size. I wanted to put myself in a place in which I wouldn't have to change for my own set so I decided to have me slightly of centre to the monitor and move my microphone back slightly. The reason I did this was because of the fact that I didn't want to stand directly in front of the bass drum as it over powers everything and due to the fact the others are using pedal boards my only way of hearing them was the monitor. This is why i stepped back so the sound and monitor was pointing at my head instead of my body as I needed all the help I could get. After sound checking all the equipment we were ready to go an d packed all of are equipment I up and I made sure vinny and joe didn't change there pedals.Then people started coming in and I had my band all set up on stage ten minutes before playing so when we walked on everyone was ready and prepared to just go. When we started to get ready to perform a large audience started to form at the front which was really nice to see and I was able to obviously have a lot of people i didn't know see my music which might be because of my promotion I hope. The set went really well and we got some amazing audience interaction and I believe we had the biggest audience of the night which is why I pushed to play first and i'm glad i did. A few songs went wrong but I got some amazing feedback and I loved playing my original music on stage. After my set loads of people came to me and were extremely supportive and everyone had great feedback on the performance. I was informed that a few songs seemed a bit under rehearsed.
A huge problem I have had to face is planning, for example We only rehearsed properly as a band on the day of the performance and my peers have always hated on practicing on the day let alone it being the first time practicing as a full group. What those caused was a lot of worry in the group for the performance and that made everyone very likely not achieve there full potential. One thing that allowed us to overcome this problem effecting the performance is the people I am working with are not only session musicians so this is why they were able to work really well together and the performance went really well. However they also new the songs before hand just hadn't practiced it together. We were also able to get a long rehearsal session so we didn't have to rush so I could keep everyone relaxed. We also struggled with me being late to the venue because I was asked to get some equipment for someone else as I was close to were it was. The way I dealt with this wa I called my members of the band and billy the person who was organising the event. Even though this was a bit over the top although it meant that everyone new were I was and no one was worried. Due to the fact I was playing with multiple bands it meant that I couldn't focus solely on my music so I had to remember lyrics. This caused a problem with both bands i had to perform 10 songs and as i hadnt practiced much with both bands I couldnt remember the lyrics. The way i over came this as is I used my ipad and my stand for lyrics whern performing. However thanks to me knowing the majority of the songs I only needed to use it for cues. This helped my performance massively and solved the situation.
Todays performance was extremely successful and I was able to show a large amount of my music to a large audiance which is what i wanted to achieve for the performance. The rehearsal session we had before was perfect and we were able to run through everything and make sure everyone was completely prepared for the performance. There was around 60 people watching my performance which exceeded my expectations as we were the first band so I expected a lot less however we had one of the best audiences for the performance out of every band which made me really happy and also think that my promoting of the performance caused this. I also got loads of good feedback although if i was to do it again i would have planned my rehearsals more as there were a few songs that went wrong and i also would have picked to play some different material as i thought that would have not only worked better with my music but the audience would have enjoyed it more as well. However overr all it was a very successful gig and a lot of people i didn't know were able to see my music.