17 March, 2014: Introduction to "Time Will Tell"

In the past month, progress has slowed considerably and whilst our first group song, "Kiss From a Rose", is nearing completion we haven't set and acheived any fundraising targets and thus I feel we've been falling behind.

However, today marked a change as we had a very productive session. The atmosphere was initially rather tense as there were disagreements within the group as to what group song to rehearse. We settled on Bob Marley's "Time Will Tell" from his 1978 album Kaya) which some of us had performed previously as an ensemble, however 2 of those who had were not present for this rehearsal.

Pressing on regardless, we arranged the instruments as such:
Guitar: Kian, Stefan
Bass: Dylan
Cajon/Percussion: Luke

Whilst the guys rehearsed on their instruments, I took charge of teaching Tamara and Elica the song as they were unfamiliar with it. Whilst Kian suggested we harmonised the verses, differing from the original recording, I suggested that on the chorus we switch it up by having a call and response featuring a lead vocalist - a role which would alternate - and the rest of the group. I think these changes will make our performance of the song unique, better suited to the number of performers we have and give everyone a chance to showcase their ability in performing reggae music.

We arranged the song; instrumental intro, first verse, chorus, second verse, chorus, first verse, instrumental outro

Here is a copy of the lyrics in our arrangement, which I've color-coded to differentiate between solo lines and harmony lines.

Color Key:
Solo: Kian
Solo: Me
Solo: Serena
Harmonised

LYRICS: "Time Will Tell"

Verse 1
Jah would never give the power to a baldhead
Run come crucify the Dread.

Chorus
Time alone - oh, time will tell:
Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell;
Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell;
Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell.
Time alone - oh, time will tell:
Ya think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell.

Verse 2
Lock them up; oh, not the brothers,
But the ones who sets 'em up.

Chorus
Time alone - oh, time will tell:
Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell;
Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell;
Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell.
Time alone - oh, time will tell:
Ya think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell.

Jah would never give the power to a baldhead
Run come crucify the Dread.
 

Bob Marley "Time Will Tell"

Our version - by the end of the rehearsal

The performance still needs development; as the harmonies were not always right with some people singing an octave above lower parts rather than harmonising with them whilst I kept singing into Kian's solo "time will tell" after the "oh" in the chorus. Furthermore, I feel we could slow the tempo some more as it's considerably faster than the original and robs the song of much of its laidback groove - which is a definitive element of many reggae classics.

However, I'm really pleased we got through one song in limited time. If we consistently make progress this swiftly then the likelihood of our event being a success will increase tenfold.

13 February, 2014: Talent Show review

On February 13, 2014 - the day of the show - we made efforts to confirm with the acts who'd put their names forward to perform in the show and to our surprise the vast majority of performers either were hesistant and unsure or dropped out without giving us any prior warning only hours before the show was due to take place.

I was incredibly dissapointed as these performers were from fellow performing arts and music courses, who we have performed with and supported in the past but let us down in a might way when we presented them an opportunity to perform and showcase their talent before a paying audience.

Undefeated, I made plans to perform once our timetabled lessons were finished. Most of the group opted to go home despite me explaining the dire situation that the imminent fundraiser had become. I asked the group if they could prepare some performances at short notice so that we would still have a show to put on for our audience but to little avail, so I started rehearsing "Fire" by Michelle Williams - which I'd previously covered and posted on YouTube and also performed at my college's monthly Open Stage event - and Serena and Stefan offered to sing backing vocals for me during the chorus.

My acoustic cover of Michelle Williams' "Fire"

  

I also rehearsed a cover of Amy Winehouse's arrangement of the 1936 jazz standard, "There Is No Greater Love", composed by Isham Jones, with lyrics by Marty Symes. However, despite me mentioning this to Stefan - who hosted the Talent Show - he only announced I was performing one song and so I did not perform the ballad.

This was the least of our worries though however. I stayed in college right up until the event, which was only attended by just over half of the group (myself, Serena, Stefan, Luke and Crystal). We attempted to set up the small hall for the event, placing chairs, moving instruments and PA equipment, only to find that we could not get any sound to play from the PA system and have sound from the microphones as well - it was either or. This proved to be a big headache which resulted in the show starting a full hour late, as we had to wait for a tutor to find a solution, whose was busy in the hour before the show.

On a positive note, Crystal, in response to my request for performances from within the group, brought along her little sister to perform a cover of Sara Bareilles' 2007 breakthrough single "Love Song", which led to her winning the show, which was judged on audience response to the performers.

I performed first, singing "Fire" with support from Serena as Stefan decided to drop out literallly last minute (much to my annoyance). The performance went well and was well received by our dissapointingly small audience (of less than 10 people), made up of Serena's immediate family and aunt and 3 performing arts students.

Manny - a singer-songwriter friend of mine and Stefan's from outside of college - performed beautifully an original song of his which was very well received. He was followed by Crystal's youngest sister, who only being a child was understandably very nervous and she had to start her performance over after missing her cue for the first verse. She gave a lovely performance in the end which we and the audience loved. Lastly, Katie gave a heartfelt performance of Bruno Mars' 2010 hit single "Grenade" - somewhat out of pity for the poor turnout.

We made virtually no money from this fundraiser as we didn't feel comfortable charging the performers or audience for the mess that the event became. Once it got underway it was evident that it had potential.

I believe the failure of the event lies with preparation. We should have attempted setting up the PA ourselves in advance of the show date or at least the morning of rather than an hour before. In addition to this, we should have arranged a rehearsal some days before the event, which would have provided an opportunity to confirm each act, time them and create a running order from that. Had we arranged this, we would have realised much sooner how unreliable the performers we had enlisted were going to be and changed the format of the show to have a 50/50 mix of performances by ourselves (which we'd actually have a fair amount of time to prepare) and others. 

Overall, the event was a major embarrassment for the group but a much needed wake-up call that if we are going to put on an event as big as that we need to plan better and also have the full support and input of the entire group.

4 February, 2014: The Talent Show Fundraiser Poster

In this session we decided our job roles for our next, upcoming fundraiser, the Talent Show. I also brought in laminated posters which I designed to promote the event to coincide with the sign-up sheets which Serena had printed and posted around the performing arts areas of the campus.

The poster which I designed for the Talent Show

We also focused attention on the following fundraiser which Serena suggested to be a Quiz Night, which we quickly agreed upon. I feel that we are becoming more efficient in our decision making but there is still a way to go.

We discussed:

- Having teams of between 4-6 players with a cost of £1 to enter per persons

- Multiple choice questions

- Multiple rounds to make the event longer, more worthwhile and interesting for its participants

- Round suggestions; name that song amd name that face

- Nostalgic/childhood theme

- Possible topics:

-- Kid's TV: Thomas the Tank Engine, Brum, Pingu, Ed, Ed and Eddy, Tweenies, Teletubbies, Noddy, Powerpuff Girls, Danger Mouse, the Clangers, Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, Tom & Jerry, Timone & Pumba, Jungle Run, 50/50, Top Cat, Arthur, Pinky & the Brain, Raven, That's So Raven

-- Music: The Spice Girls, Blue, Backstreet Boys, Misteeq, S Club 7, B*witched, Jennifer Lopez, Dido, Anastacia, Sisqo, N*Sync, Destiny's Child, Joss Stone, Christina Aguilera, Jamelia, Britney Spears, Lemar, Daniel and Natasha Beddingfield, N-Dubz, Pink, Mary J. Blige, Blackstreet, 5ive, Kylie Minogue, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Christina Milian, So Solid Crew, t.A.T.u

We had a lot of fun discussing nostalgic themed topics and it certainly united us in a way which I have not seen before.

20 January, 2014: First group rehearsal

Overall punctuality was lacking and so we lost a considerable amount of valuable rehearsal time (over a 1/4). In addition to this, one of our group members who is a guitarist was not present and so we could not rehearse "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers as planned.

Instead, we started on Seal's "Kiss from a Rose" and managed to get up to the second verse. We arranged our rendtion with accompaniment from a keyboard, guitar and a cajón, as a full band (as featured in the original recording) would be unsuitable for the relaxed, live lounge setting we are aspiring to create for our final event.

We harmonised very well together by the end of the rehearsal, by which point we had split the first verse between myself and Serena whilst Kian led the chorus and I harmonised with him. As a group we collectively harmonised the introduction which is a recurring motif in the song but we opted to sing only the vowel "ah" as oposed to the "ba-ya-ya" that Seal sings in his original arragement.

The original 1994 music video released for "Kiss from a Rose"

14 January, 2014: Set List Changes, Job Roles and the Costco Trip

In this session we made some adjustments to our agreed set list as Elica and Tamara requested to switch their songs "Ignorance" (by Paramore) and "Hurt" (by Christina Aguilera) to Paramore's "The Only Exception" and Jessie J's "I Miss Her" respectively.
 

Paramore "The Only Exception"

Jessie J "I Miss Her"

We also clarified each of our job roles within the group as there was some confusion. With this information we can produce an accurate flow chart which details our job roles and responsibilities and how they correspond with one another.

We discussed the dates we wanted for the date, aiming for the end of April and settling on Thursday, 1st of May at 7PM. We approved this date with our tutors but still need to confirm it with the venue. We also set our date for rehearsals of the group songs (which will feature musical contributions from everyone in the group) as every Monday from 2PM 'til 4PM.

We then turned our attention to the matter of refreshments on the night. Kian and Serena suggested people who they know who could possibly volunteer to serve condiments and beverages (both non and alcholic) - though these would be incurred at extra cost which I will have to budget for as the head of finance.

We also arranged to go to wholesale retailer Costco the following day to research the cost of food that we may wish to sell at the event so we can produce a shopping list later which is not too extravagent and reduce the likelihood of overspending - had we skipped researching and starting buy food without properly calculating how much we are likely to sell, profit margins etc...)

We arranged that either and/or both my mother and Crystal's father would chaperone us on our Costco trip - mainly because one needs to be a member of the store to purchase from there (which both of our parents are) and secondly for the free transport.

Our local costco in Kingston, Milton Keynes

The following day, me, Kian, Serena and Crystal - transported and chaperoned by her father - made the trip to Costco to research their produce and prices. Whilst browsing I took pictures of the produce we discussed potentially buying for our  final show.

Here are the pictures I took

 

5 December, 2013

Serena informed me that she deducted £5 from our earned funds to bake produce for the next bake sale.

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.