The following sample essay on In Preparation for My Live Performances tells about style techniques.
I have been attending the Band Skills workshops to be able to give me that increase in self-confidence and self-expression because coming from a background of not having regularly performed in front of a live audience, I believe the more I perform on stage, it will help me become a better keys performer. The first song was Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. The chords for this song were relatively straightforward and I was able to pick it up quite quickly.
Feedback from my lecturers, was positive however I could be more creative and introduce more style techniques. I took that on board and practiced the song, thinking of the best way to improve on it.
Being someone who wants to one day advance to becoming a professional performer in the outside world, as much as coming together and performing in an ensemble is good for my teamwork abilities, I also need to learn from it and be willing to work hard independently and a piece of advice I got from my Technical Studies lecturer is to practice daily! This will enable me to remember what I’ve learnt as also educate myself on the different fundamentals to music-making especially since this is something I am passionate about.
Other songs played during our band skills workshops were Put Your Records On by Corrine Bailey Rae and Do I Do by Stevie Wonder. Do I Do had more chords to learn so it did tell me that I’d need to work extra hard to ensure I do it correctly.
Preparative skills that lead to a successful performer is to have the motivation to practice my stage craft every day, to avoid being stagnant and losing my drift. I aimed to add harmonies as well as 7th’s and 9th’s to the chords. A downfall was that my volume was low. Despite this being a complex song to learn, I did my best and I know there is a lot to be learned from it. I had missed a lesson and when I returned the following week, I was nervous to play on stage to play because I hadn’t rehearsed the song and I did mention this to my lecturers.
The song for that week was No One by Alicia and a feeling of anxiety came over me that I would play incorrectly as I didn’t have confidence in believing that I can learn to get the chords by ear and knowing that 100% of the song has the piano mainly outlined in it. I went up on stage and did my best, from the start till the end. Everything went smoothly and my feedback was positive. It was mentioned that it sounded as if the keyboardists weren’t swapped, meaning I sounded exactly the same as the other person who played at the start and it was nice to hear that, which really boosted my confidence to know that my ears are getting better when it comes to figuring out chords through listening. I had played 3 more times with the band and got motivated to audio record myself because of how impressed I was.
In Preparation for My Live Performances. (2019, Nov 30). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/in-preparation-for-my-live-performances/