4 December, 2013: Rehearsal "Otherside of the Game"

Serena, Kian and myself met at my house, where we rehearsed Erykah Badu's "Otherside of the Game" for an hour and 30 minutes. Kian had learnt the chords for guitar in his own time and brought both an electric and an acoustic - as he prefers playing with the former.

In our arrangement, Serena led the song, whilst I and Kian supported on vocals and Kian also accompanied on his electric guitar. We incorporated elements from various recordings of the song, including the one below.
For example, we harmonised the line "pays the bills" - as seen at approximately 0:35 in the video - similarly to how Badu and her band performed it for this particular live recording. However, I suggested that we not harmonise anything until after the first verse, to build interest as the song progressed. This differs from both the original studio recording (which doesn't contain any harmonies on the "pays the bills" line) and the live performance featured below in which the line is harmonised throughout.

Below are the lyrics of "Otherside of the Game" -  green text represents the sections of the song which we rehearsed to a near-performance standard and red signifies areas which are much more of a working progress.

Whatcha you gonna do when they come for you
Work ain't honest but it pays the bills
What we gonna do when they come for you
Gave me the life that I came to live

Do I really want my baby?
Brother tell me what to do?
I know you got to get your hustle on, so I pray
I understand the game sometimes
And I love him strong but

Whatcha you gonna do when they come for you
Work ain't honest but it pays the bills, yes it does
What we gonna do when they come for you
God I can't stand life withoutcha

Now, me and baby got this situation
See brother got this complex occupation
And it ain't that he don't have education
'Cause I was right there at his graduation

Now, I ain't sayin' that this life don't work
But it's me and baby that he hurts
Because I tell him right, he thinks I'm wrong
But I love him strong

He gave me the life that I came to live
Gave me the song that I came to give
Pressure on me but the seed is grown
I can't make it on my own

Summer came around and the flowers bloomed
He became the sun I became the moon
Precious gifts that we both received
Or could this be make believe

Whatcha you gonna do when they come for you
Work ain't honest but it pays the bills
What we gonna do when they come for you
Gave me the life that I came to live, yes you did

Don't worry baby

I know there's confusion
God's gonna see us through, yeah
Peace out to revolution, but we paid though

Don't you worry, keep your balance

(What you gonna do, What you gonna do)
The work ain't honest but it pays the bills
(Yes it does)

Don't you worry keep your balance
(Don't have to worry baby)
Gave me the life that I came to live
(Yes you did)

Don't you worry keep your balance
The work ain't honest but it pays the bills
Don't you worry keep your balance

You gave me the life that I came to live

Gave me the song that I came to give
Pressure on me
But the seed had grown
I can't make it on my own

Summer came around and the flowers bloomed
He became the sun I became the moon
Precious gifts that we both received
Or could this be make believe

Oh yeah
Badu is with you baby
We gon' make it, yeah
Me, you and the baby

You gonna do
Whatcha you gonna do
Go, yeah, baby, baby
Oh go on

See I ain't tryin' to bind your life
But I want you to do what's right
I'm your wife

Peace out to revolution
I know there's confusion
You gonna what you gotta do now

By the next rehearsal I aim to have learnt all the lyrics so that we can focus our attention on perfecting the arrangement so that we can start performing it as soon as possible so that it will feel completely natural by the time of our major performance.

3 December, 2013

In this session we pressed forward with key marketing and staging plans, naming the event The Lounge, in refernce to the live lounge staging of the event.

To create a chilled lounge environment we will need the following:
- Lamps (lava, fairy)
- Candles (possible health and safety issue)
- Flowers (rose petals)
- Sofa chairs
- Stools
- Rugs
- Warm colours: cream, brown

We also compiled a list of critical things we need to check at the venue before the event:
- What lighting they have available for us to use
- What Public Address system do they have and is it suitable for our event
- Number of chairs, sofas and tables
- If cafe is available for rent and at what cost

Also during this session Kian began learning the chords for Erykah Badu's "Otherside of the Game" on an acoustic guitar whilst me and Serena sang through the song, with her singing the lead vocals and me providing some backing. I improvised harmonies based on this live recording of the song:

27 November, 2013

In this session we presented our ideas thus far before the class, covering our choice of event, venue and style as well as fundraising, how much we've raised and how much we plan to raise. Our presentation was not as detailed or as organised as it could have been due to numerous members of the group (including myself) not sending their slides to Tamara (who was tasked with creating the PowerPoint presentation) until it was too late, at a time when she was not available to add them and so it was less cohesive than it should have been, which somewhat reflects tensions and divides within the group. A consequence of this was that ideas were presented to other groups which had not even been shared with or co-signed by the rest of the group - such as the lounge set up.

After presenting, I felt it was paramount that we all compile a list of things we need to accomplish as a group and also individually by the next session so that our time together could be used most effectively. This is the list that we made as a group:
- List things we need
- List things we have and can contribute
- Research cost of obtaining things we don't have
- Create name for event

This is the list of tasks I set for myself to complete by the next session:
- Update Finance spreadsheet
- Inquire into cost of Lounge set-up and update expenditure
- Present updated financial report
- Draft design ideas for posters and tickets

Lastly, we set a £2 entry fee for our games tournament, which we postponed indefinitely and added the game Injustice: Gods Among Us.

19 November, 2013

In this session we discussed our plans to host a Games Tournament in college - for which Crystal secured sponsorship from entertainment retail giant, HMV, who offered to provide a games console and video games.

During discussion, one of the games that was a favorite amongst the group, Call of Duty: Ghosts, was ruled out as it can only be played by one person at a time. We eventually settled on Halo 4, which can be played by a maximum for four people at a time, allowing us to have up to 16 players participating at the tournament at one time on four consoles. We also finalised our console choice, picking Microsoft's Xbox 360 over Sony's PlayStation 3 as Crystal could bring in three Xbox consoles to add to the one provided by HMV.

Furthermore, we set a date for Thursday, 27 November, 2013 to hold the tournament and Dylan and Luke went to speak to students of a Games course to see if they could offer assistance or be interested in participating, whilst myself, Kian and Serena had our first rehearsal of "Otherside of the Game", which we plan to perform together during our final performance event. Due to the time we spent dileberating on various elements of the games tournament, we did not have time to achieve much during our short rehearsal but I became more familiar with the lyrics.