Faith by George Michael - First vocal sing along

This song I find is very challenging in most vocal areas, the song gets quite high so I need to make sure I am supporting from my diaphragm properly so I don't strain. Also, what I noticed that there are variations in dynamics and tones throughout: he starts it quite quietly and almost like whispering but with a bit more audibility - in other words it is a very soft tone, which I found quite hard because of the nature of my voice and I find it vey hard to sing this way whilst still supporting properly because when I use my diaphragm to push the air out I naturally produce a stronger tone which is loud. Furthermore, I noticed that there are a lot of transitions between the soft tones and stronger tones going back and forth many a time throughout the song, and I find this hard switching from stronger tones to the softer tones. In terms of breath control and stamina, this song isn't that bad compared to Jesus of suburbia, but it still is quite demanding in stamina. To make sure I overcome this I need to make sure I fill my lungs with as much air as possible and then when I push it out, I am being efficient wit the air and not pushing to much out but at the same time make sure I push out the correct amount needed.

Jesus of suburbia - run through up to the end of Dearly Beloved

I wanted to do this run through to see which parts I was and which parts I wasn't confident in, and it turns out the only part I wasn't overly confident in was dearly beloved; this is because I am still having troubles with the strumming patterns and singing at the same time because the rhythm of the strumming pattern is very syncopated and the first and last beat/note really meet. So after the rehearsal, I practiced dearly beloved very slowly, and I counted the double strums on the G#5 individually and there is 4 all together before it moves to the three single on beat strums on the F#5 to C#5 to G#5, so that I can count them when singing so I know when to change (see video log entitled Dearly Beloved).  I had a few issues with the solo part, because it uses octaves which play the previous vocal melody, but it is written as octaves on the D and B string but that gives a very thin sound, whereas the original recording sounds much thicker as if it the octaves were played on the A and the G, like normal octaves are played, so I learnt it both ways and I will decide which one to use later on.

During the run through, I noticed that I lose my breath a lot because how fast some bits are with the vocals and guitar part, and also because it is such a long song I am obviously playing and singing constantly with few breaks throughout, so it is quite demanding in musical stamina. To overcome this, it is just a case of practicing it very frequently and using the correct singing techniques at all times. So from this, I can draw that I need to work on my breath control - to work on this I will do diaphragm exercises which test my vocal stamina.

Fade to black - Metallica

Today, I decided to learn a different song to widen and improve my range of techniques. The song opens with an acoustic riff, which is all picked - the only thing thing I struggled with was the speed and getting used to the awkward finger position movement because sometimes I would accidentally touch and then mute another string and then the next string would not sound because it's muted. To practice this, I done it very slowly and focussed on bending my fingers enough so I don't end up accidentally muting other strings, then I sped up and I became much more comfortable with the finger positions.

The next part is a lead solo part whilst being accompanied by the acoustic riff which underscores the solo. This is an extremely challenging part because it is filled with awkward finger positions, difficult techniques and fast licks. See vlog for further analysis.

Jesus of suburbia - 'III. I don't care' singing and playing

This part of the song is quite hard to sing and play at the same time because the strumming pattern is quite fast and inconsistent, which sometimes throws me off my singing because they are in time to each other. Vocally, the only challenging part is the words because it is quite wordy, and I need to work on my articulation because sometimes when I'm singing I slur my words and this is made even worse by the fact that it is very wordy. I also need to work on my breath control, for one particular part in this sub-song is very quick vocally and wordy, also with fast and aggressive guitar strum at the end of ever two bars - I think to work on this, I just need to practice it, just vocals first slowly then focus on articulating properly and increasing the stamina of my voice in terms of breath control and oxygen intake. The guitar is fairly simple for this part so I won't need to practice it on it's own therefore I will just put them both together and start slowly, and gradually build up in tempo so I can get used to focussing on my articulation and musical stamina at the same time. The next part is a challenge too, the strumming pattern is very fast and inconsistent, and it doesn't match the beat of the vocal melody so it is hard to sing and play this part. So to practice this, I simply played it slowly to get used to and comfortable with the strumming pattern, and then I put the vocals over the top, layering it bit by bit. This way helped me to feel more confident with playing and singing simultaneously. I think me breath control was no problem here, possibly because it is not as wordy nor vocally quick so it did not pose a challenge to me.

Improvisation in scales, and chord progressions

In today's lesson, we focused on improving in certain scales to different chord progressions; the scales we focused on were D blues minor/pentatonic, B natural minor/blues minor and C natural minor. My teacher played the chord progression from the book in D blues minor and I improvised using the scale, and I think I did it quite well. Barry said that I played very confidently using a variety of tones and licks, various techniques like tone bends, hammer ons and pull offs and slides. He then taught be about a second position in which the scale can be played in, so when using this second position as well as the first when improvising, you can get a bigger variety of tones and expand your lick arsenal. He then taught me the same thing for the other two scales, so I could practice using both positions straight away. With the second chord progression, Barry said that since I'm using the B natural minor and blues minor, I should switch back and forth between natural minor melodic licks to blues minor 'bluesy' licks to get a variety of different sounds. I think I did this quite well - I used both scale positions confidentially and had a even mix of the two, and had an even mix of two scales.
When it came to playing the chord progressions, I think I did this quite well because I had done them before with my previous teacher, but I still need to revise all the different chords and become more confident with them - the chords include (using C for example) Cmaj, Cm, C5, C7, C, Cdm7, Cag7, and Csus4.

Jesus of suburbia - III. I Don't Care

Today I started to learn the next sub song 'III. I don't care' which is probably the hardest out of the 3 so far because it quite a substantial tempo change, and the strumming pattern is almost like it doesn't follow the 4/4 time signature that the song is in, but it does - it just throws me off a little bit. It starts with a short guitar solo which is quite easy, there is one slide from 2nd fret to 7th fret which is hard because it's such a big gap and it's hard to make sure I slide to right fret as it is quite quick - but I practiced this by just educating my finger on how far to slide, and then practiced it slowly and gradually increased the speed. When it comes out of the interlude, the power chord part with the funny strumming pattern is hard mainly because of the strumming pattern (as mentioned above) but also the strumming is all down strums and it's very quick so it's quite hard to keep up. To practice this, I did a guitar warm up exercise (see warm up video) and really focused on my wrist off my strumming hand to loosen it up and increase my strumming speed and fluency. This really helped because I felt a lot more comfortable when doing the fast strumming, and my wrist wasn't aching like before. Also, for some reason there are no tabs for this part of the song, so I had to kind of play by ear to get the notation right.

All along the watchtower - second lead solo

The 2nd lead solo is probably the hardest part in the song because, like the first solo, it is heavily dominated by tone bends but here you have to hold another note on another string and the same time and bend the B string to match 9th fret on the high E string (for example). And this is done few times in lots of different positions, and I find it hard to bend to exact correct pitch and also making sure that I don't the release of the bend, and I also find that when I move up to the next position it throws me off a bit. The bends get harder as you progress up the fret board because they are quicker changes and quicker releases to bends. To practice this, I listened to this part of the track over and over to make sure I was 100% confident with the timings, and then I practiced it very slowly bend by bend, really making sure I was bending it to the correct pitch and not sounding the down bend/release. I think in the end, I got it fairly well - I am more confident with bend to particular pitches, however I really need to work on the transitions because they don't sound smooth or natural that much