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QS17 2 Week 1 Room 2 Percussion Jess Con Ryder Mitch Tyler

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Beat those drums,
Break it down now,
Play it louder

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E G F#
E G F# G A

(As played on the bass guitar as notes, and electric guitar as chords.)

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Our peers had given us nothing to improve on for our piece. However, I believe the weaknesses of our song were the simplicity of our vocals which could have been developed further. A good solution to this would be to have more lyrics, for instance a differentiated chorus, or even a rap fitted into the structure. I would have also developed this piece by extending and developing the structure, particularly by adding new parts and repeating the verse after the middle 8.

As for my own strengths and weaknesses, I think I did well in following the drums on the rhythm and opening the song. To improve, I would have developed the structure in order to allow for some note and chord changes so that the part I played wasn't as repetitive.

Overall, I believe our performance piece was effective in response to the given stimulus, as a result of the rhythm we used especially. It does need developing further in the structure and vocals, yet I think it was a success.

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The final structure of our piece as seen in the performance. Our song opened with both the bass guitar and drums following a 3/2 clave rhythm. Four bars later, the electric guitar and acoustic guitar come in by playing the chords matching the root notes played by the bass guitar. Another four bars later, the verse begins with the lyrics ‘beat those drums (break it down now)’ and ‘play it louder’ repeated.  Following this, the texture and dynamics are lessened when the electric guitar and bass guitar are the only instruments playing for 8 bars as a middle 8, other than bringing the drums in on the 7th bar in order to build up to the outro. In the outro, all instruments bar the vocals are playing heavily in order to change up from the softer middle 8 in order to establish a structure. Different chords and root notes are also being played by the guitars and bass when compared to the start of the song.

Just prior to performing, we described our song as a happy one you can dance to, as well as ‘loud and proud.’ I feel that we accurately portrayed our take on the stimulus in the performance through our use of techniques, especially the rhythm. After viewing our performance, our peers described our song as having a good bass riff which followed the drums well. The vocals are also described as ‘positive’ and ‘upfront,’ which suited our view of the song as being proud and upbeat. Therefore I would describe the strengths of our song as being the powerful vocals and the use of the bass and drums playing the beat together in order to push the song.

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Our performance used a drum kit, a bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and vocals. In the early structure of our piece, we opened only using the bass guitar and then bringing in the rest of the instruments afterwards. This later changed in the performance by opening with both the bass guitar and the drums, and then bringing the electric and acoustic guitar in after, followed by the vocals.

Another development of the piece was the vocals themselves, which we took from the stimulus as the phrases ‘beat those drums (break it down now),’ and ‘play it louder’ as our take on Latin music; the drums and beat are a key feature in order to push the song and allow people to dance to it. These lyrics were repeated throughout the song accompanied by changes in the texture and dynamics of the instruments to outline the structure of the song.

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For our stimulus this week, we were given a Djembe, a West-African drum. The initial idea of our group after seeing the drum was to use the ‘3/2 clave rhythm’ in our song, as we had studied the features of Latin and African-fused music previously. I feel that this feature was a suitable choice for the given stimulus as it suits the genre the drum is used for.