Vocal lesson - basic singing technique

In my first vocal lesson with Mr Quinn, and he taught us the basic techniques of singing - this includes posture, breathing and supporting. He said that for posture, our heads should just facing outwards but help up high, shoulders relaxed, legs bendy not locked, feet firmly on the ground and about shoulder width apart - this is all to help open up the lungs and provide a more healthier and unstrained sound. He then said for breathing, we need to breathe from the bottom of the lungs using the diaphragm, an we should feel the muscles of the lower back expand and the stomach would expand when you inhale, and then they relax when you exhale. For supporting, he taught to fill up our stomachs full of air, and when we go to sing we have to squeeze our stomach muscles to push the air out from our stomachs using our diaphragm and stomach muscles. I think I did this well, the techniques made the vocals sound a lot stronger and thicker, and gave a lot life to the vocals.

Guitar lesson - sweet child of mine

In my guitar lesson today, we looked at the song 'Sweet child of mine' by Guns n Roses which is part of the grade 5 song library. When I played the opening riff (an arpeggio figure), my guitar teacher, Barry, said that I play the right notes, but I don't play it right; I use barring a lot in this riff, as a result it sound like the notes bleed into each other which doesn't sound right. He said to not bar it and play the notes individually but still make sure it flows well and is it staccato; he showed me which fingers to use on which notes and I practised it slowly a couple times, and already it sounded a lot better. The very last lick in the riff just before the first kicks in, is very hard because it uses pedal notes (where you keep going back to the same note) - I found it hard because again I needed to play the notes individually - no barring - and still have that nice flow to the play. It was really just a case of educating my fingers and trying to lock it into my muscle memory. The first solo I found very hard because it is heavily dependent on tone bends (including pre bends) and i find tone bends as difficult as it is let alone pre bends. I first became familiar with how the solo goes before I started to worry about the tone bends and educated my fingers of where they need to go throughout the solo. When it came to learning the bends (note they are all full tone bends, so a whole step up, as a pose to a semi tone) I figured out the position of the string during the bends so that for the pre bends, I knew where to bend the string to because obviously I can't sound the bending upwards (hence why it's called a pre bend). I practiced the solo slowly and gradually got a bit faster, but I still need to continue to practice it because I'm still not very comfortable with doing it. 

All along the watchtower - Verse 2

Today, my aim was to learn the second verse and the second chorus/lead solo - the verse isn't too bad in the sense that I'm already familiar and comfortable with the chord changes and shapes, but the strings are individually plucked for two beats then an upstrum on the third, then a one beat rest; this wasn't too hard, just took me a while to get used to and memorise - so I just practiced it slowly bit  by bit until I was confident and comfortable with playing it. I think I played this well n the end, my chord transitions are still smooth, and the plucking was smooth and consistent throughout, however I do need to work on my chord shapes because sometimes I get a muffles sound from the upstrum because I'm pushing down on the fret board hard enough. .

All Along the Watchtower - verse 1 and chorus

In today's practice, I was learning the first verse of the song. Throughout the verse and chorus, it is the same chords repeated (C#m, B, A), just sometimes played in a different way. At the verse, the chords are just simply strummed for one beat and a rest/mute for another, then after the A there is a hammer on to pull of which I pluck with my finger to get more of a harsh sounding staccato sound.
Then chorus is the same chords in the same time signature and positioning of chords and strums, but they are strummed twice for two beats, then an upstum/downstrum chuck/tassel is added on the offbeat after each chord.
I found the verse very easy straight away as it is just simply chord changes, all on the same route string (A string) so switching between chords was easy because I just had to slide down the fretboard with a couple minor finger position changes. However in the chorus, the addition of chucks/tassels took me a while to get used to because they are on the off beat so it threw me off a bit, and also made the chord changes quite hard because had to move my fingers completely to cover over all the strings.

Jesus of suburbia: Guitar - 'I. Jesus of suburbia and II. City of the damned' keeping correct tempo 23/09/16

In today's practice I learnt the first two 'sub songs' 'I. Jesus of suburbia' and 'II. City of the damned' and I learnt them both by using tabs with the music score and notation above the tab. Both are quite easy and not very challenging, as it is mainly just using different power chords. The only challenging part about both is the strumming pattern at some points, because when I read what the pattern is, it is different to how I thought it would be from just listening to the track - for example there are up strums where I thought they were down strums, and sometimes there are more strums in a bar than I thought. This threw me off a bit because it is obviously different to what I am used to. I practiced this by playing it slowly to get used to it, and I got faster and faster then eventually played along with the track. I eventually got the strumming pattern, and I now find it easy because I have practiced it a lot. One thing I do need to work on is switching between the bar chords - I have never really felt very comfortable doing bar chords, and in City of damned there is lots of switching between just normal 5 chords (power chords) and bar chords. I practiced this by getting familiar with the bar chord shape and working out the easiest way to switch to them from the power chords. Once I had done this, again I practiced it slowly and got faster and faster to get used to the switch, and I eventually got it however I still find it hard so I do need to keep practicing.

Jesus of suburbia: Vocals - supporting vocals with diaphragm, breath control 28/09/16

In today's practice, I was working on the vocals for this song. I had a vocal run through of the song from start to finish just to get a feel of the pitch, dynamics and general tone of the vocals and so I know what to work on. In terms of pitch, it generally isn't too challenging however at points it does jump quite high. I feel I need to work on these points because when it does go high, my voice sounds quite weak and I feel the strain within my vocal chords. To work on this, I really practiced tensing and squeezing my diaphragm to really push the sound out from my stomach/diaphragm area rather than my throat. Once I practiced it this way, I found that my voice sounded a lot stronger and supported, and I was able to hit the higher pitched notes easier - however I still need to work on/practice this technique because it very hard to get the hang of, and sometimes I don't realise I am singing from my throat. Another aspect I focused on was my breath control; at some points in the song, there are long lines of lyrics with no breathing time, and a few long held notes. I think I covered this quite well as I have had previous practice of breath control and I feel quite confident in holding long notes and controlling my breathing. To practice this, I did a breath control exercise called 'bowman on horse back'. This is where you breathe in as much as possible and hold it, then do a movement, then breathe back out forcefully and quickly from your stomach, making a loud 'boom' sound as you do. This helps to increase your oxygen capacity in your stomach per inhale. I did this a few times to just warm up my diaphragm and practice breath control, then when I applied the technique to the song, I took deep breathes from my stomach and up through my chest - inhaling as much oxygen as possible - before I start to sing so that I can easily hold long notes and/or take less quick grasp of air throughout the song so that the vocals have more flow to them. For my next vocal practice, I need to work on my diction and articulation as sometimes I tend to slur my words when singing. I am also going to focus on the dynamics of my voice, looking at when to increase and decrease my volume depending on the lyrics, dynamics of the music, or whether the music is soft or heavy.

All along the watchtower reheasal log 17/09/16

Today I started to learn my second song choice, All along the watchtower by Jimi Hendrix; this song is a lot more complicated than Jesus of suburbia so I started straight away with the tab notation sheet music. Today I just worked on the opening chord riff, then the first lead solo. The opening riff is very easy, just 3 chords, 2 of which are major and 1 is minor. The lead part however, is rather challenging because it is heavily dominated by tone bends, so it is hard to make sure I bend them to the correct pitch, most of the bends are whole step bends. There are a couple of hammer ons and pull offs which are normally easy but because in this song they are done quite fast, it took me a while to get but eventually I got it. I just kept practicing it slowly in small chunks instead of all together and at the original tempo, and once I got it all, I practiced it all together repeatedly, increasing the tempo each time.