Advertising and Promotion

In order to organise the 'Open Mic Night', I am part of the advertising and promotion team. The purpose of this team is to spread the word about the event, and organise how we are going to advertise it, what we are going to call it, and make sure we get all the information we need in order to advertise it. My role in this is to design a poster. I have experience helping with the graphic design of Henley Symphony Orchetra flyers on Photoshop. (get evidence of this) I will use the skills I have from my experience doing this and my Art A level. I will consider appropriate orders for text and which information the other members of the team give me that are most important to have in big font or small font and so on. I will also check with other members of my team who are also designing forms of advertising such as journalism to make sure we use the same colour scheme etc.

Undercover Martyn

In our last lesson, we decided to practice 'Undercover Martyn' by Two Door Cinema Club as we are doing this on the open mic night. I will be playing Cajon, as we are doing an acoustic cover. Emma will be singing, Dan and Spencer will be playing guitar and Seb will play bass. We are doing a less upbeat arrangement of the song. We worked on which parts of the song should be kept calm and simple and which parts should be louder and more energetic. Once we had done this, we realised that we kept speeding up on the energetic parts, so we worked on keeping a steady tempo and not speeding up just because we get louder. I think it is almost there, and with one more practice we should have it perfect.

My Other Blogs

These are the links of my other blogs:

http://willhowellworkdevelopasamusicensemble.blogspot.co.uk/
http://willhowellsolomusicperformanceskills.blogspot.co.uk/
http://willhowellmusicperformancetechniques.blogspot.co.uk/
http://willhowellmusicinthecommunity.blogspot.co.uk/
http://willhowelllivemusicworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://willhowellauralperceptionskills.blogspot.co.uk/

Significant Musical Experiences

• I have been playing drums for over 9 years (since I was 7). I have done Trinity Guildhall drum grades at grade 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7. I gained a distinction in both 5 and 7, and got 96/100 marks for grade 7. I am now working on grade 8.
• I Played drums/percussion in orchestras at primary school.
• When I was in my last year at primary school (Aged 10), a friend of mine took up the electric guitar. He had also previously played drums meaning that he had a drum kit too. We decided that we would start up a band because of this, and began practicing and writing songs. We then realised we needed a bass player, and so our other friend bought a bass and began to learn it. We eventually called ourselves Negativity. We did various performances in school assemblies and other events held at our primary school. We also played at the Henley Youth Festival. We played mostly our own songs, and later on began doing covers too. We stayed together as a band for 5 years. When we were in year 9 we changed our name to Twist of Fate. We played the Henley Youth Festival most years too, as well as other battle of the bands and so on in the local areas. You can see us playing at the 2009 gig night at 0:25 seconds to 0:48 here.
• I took classical guitar lessons for a few years and although I didn't take an exam, my guitar teacher said if we were to do one, I would have done grade 5.
• My secondary school is endorsed with a prize from the Lion's Club in Henley, whereby one music student each year is awarded £200, or 2 students £100 each. I won this award at the end of year 11 for my general work throughout the music GCSE such as the composition, but especially in recognition of my drumming, and got the £200 prize! I put this towards getting an electric drum kit, allowing me to practice later on in the evenings without disturbing the neighbors.
• Every year, a music exchange takes place between Henley and Leichlingen, our twin town in Germany. You can either do Jazz or Classical (orchestra). I have taken part in the Jazz a few times meant spending 3 or 4 days with our German guests and 3 whole days being tutored by professional jazz musicians. At the end of this we perform our pieces to a public audience/parents, the other groups and so on. At the end of this we have a chance to see the tutors perform which is always amazing, as each tutor plays a different key instrument.
• While in year 11, I started taking music theory lessons to help with the GCSE and because I felt having more knowledge in music theory would be generally helpful to anything I do in music, or composing. I took the AMRSM grade 5 exam in summer 2012. I got a merit.
• Berkshire Meastros rock courses.
• Jesus Christ Superstar.
• Saw Ian Peice live.
• Seen lots of live music, a wide range of styles of jazz from gypsey jazz to big band.
• been to orchestras since i was young seen people such as nigel kenedy, tasmin little more than once as well as other top soloists.
• Went to Reading Festival 2012 and saw my favourite band Foo Fighters.

Rolling in the Deep

In friday's lesson (14/08/12), we were given the option to perform a song either solo, or in an ensemble. I chose to group together with five others to create an ensemble. The performance was going to be acoustic, and there wasn't a drumkit, so I chose to play the bongos. We performed Rolling in the Deep by Adele. We had two girls singing (one lead vocalist, and one backing vocalist). We also had two acoustic guitars and a cajon player. To make the arrangement work for cajon and bongo at the same time, I suggested that the cajon player mainly played just the main beat - the bass drum on beat one and snare drum on beat three. This left space for me to accompany it. I did this by adding ornamentation between these main beats, such as three against four rythms, and other fills. The performance went really well, especially considering we had only practised it twice before performing.

My Musical Goals

I have been playing the drums since I was seven or eight. I am now seventeen and currently working towards my Trinity Guildhall grade 8, which I aim to take sometime between christmas 2012 and summer 2013. I am aiming to get a distinction. After this, I will do a diploma. Looking to the future, I aim to get in a good band - possibly a few, and do regular gigs at venues and pubs, or even become famous and play festivals. This is something that I would enjoy, and also get paid for, which would be amazing. I am also into recording myself play, and for this reason am into posting 'Drum covers' of my favourite songs on Youtube. I enjoy the whole process of making these: learning and perfecting the song, recording and mixing the drums, and filming it. I also like the fact that I can see my progress from looking at my past videos, and as I am a perfectionist, I am always looking at what I can improve about my drumming for future videos. I aim to become popular on Youtube by getting more views and subscribers, and to build up a catalogue of my drumming ability to have at hand - for example if I was auditioning for something. Other future ambitions are to get work playing in musicals, and also do session drumming/become a recording artist.