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As a whole, I felt that the performance went well as we managed to get the intro down really well as everyone before the performances said it was the trickiest part of the song, so I was happy with the result of this performance. When it came to the solo/lead lines I would've liked my tone to be a little bit louder which in the recording Liam came over and boosted the level so you could hear me.

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In this rehearsal, I believe that the whole thing went well as a practice before the actual performance the next day. As a band, we chose to try and implement a change from the live version and the BRIT Awards. As for the technique in the guitar part, it was getting the timing of each staccato stab of the chord progression and then transitioning back to the normal rhythm. We practised this a few times before this take and as a result we all managed to get a clean take with that version.

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As an overall rehearsal of the song, it went well but there was an issue coming into the bridge. Due to me learning the song late I wasn't fully familiar with the song's structure going into that section which is why I turned around before that section. Due to this, the singers came in at the wrong time as they were waiting to hear a section of the song to help cue them which was where I didn't know the part fully. However, we all managed to recover and still got through the rest of the song without any problem. Another issue was that we didn’t have another guitarist and bassist so I believe that if we did that section would’ve gone better. But as an overall, the rehearsal went really well and everyone communicated with one another to help get the song ready for the performance on Wednesday.

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Overall, I felt that this rehearsal went really well being there was no tab to watch and learn, just chords to know the structure. I felt that I managed to capture the intro with my guitar following the piano and the rhythm. We went for a more funky feel as it was improv week, I believe that it made the song more soulful with the vocals as it gave a lot of space for the bass to shine through. The only thing that needed to work on was the bridge/breakdown but it was the timing of the vocals to the chords. To get this down Ava and I went through it until she was comfortable. We all left feeling comfortable ready for the venue on Wednesday.

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As an overall, the rehearsal did go well as we managed to get through the song multiple times. Though in the beginning when this video was taken we realized that we needed to work on the change into the pre chorus into the chorus as evidence in this video. So as a group, we chose the chunk over that section until we got it fully flushed out. We also wanted to keep in the flamenco section in our performance as not many of the other bands we doing it so we thought it would be cool if we could do it and in this video as a few time trying it, it went successfully. We did another run through after this video and felt more comfortable with our parts ready for the performance on Wednesday.

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For our performance, I felt it was the best we had done it since yesterday. I felt that going over the changes in the rehearsal really benefited us as we didn't mess up a single bit. There were a few times were I played the fingerpicking part a little bit wrong but managed to get through it without showing my mistakes but as an overall performance it went really well and you can tell that we were all happy getting those changes spot on every time.

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Overall as a rehearsal, I believe it went really well. We didn't have a bassist that day due to people being ill but I feel that I was able to still create a big atmosphere with Ryan. Before the rehearsal, Liam mentioned about changing it up so I came up with the idea to completely changed the end in this triplet rhythm helping give a driving feel to the song as it's quite tame because of the tempo. In this video, Ryan and I had only practiced this idea twice but i felt that we had the basic understanding and it still sounded really good. Overall, I felt that we were ready for our performance at the venue.

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Overall, for this performance went really well as our first take I forgot how to play the ending that I came up with but in our second take I got it right. We managed to get Kit with us towards the end of our rehearsal so this helped with timing and feel for the song. We did play it a little faster than the original track but we didn't go way of time with one another. For the band, I felt that the instrumentalists had good communication between each section. Because there was a mess up in the first take, Ryan and I decided to really make sure that we didn't mess it up again which I feel that we managed to convey in this video.

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I felt the rehearsal went well, as this was the final week, we wanted to create a sense of high energy so to do that we wanted to create a dynamic shift between the verses and chorus. So to do that, I took the lead synth part as well as the lead guitar part to create the driving part of the chorus and Ollie took the chords and took these extensions to create a big atmosphere. And to contrast that with the verses Ollie took the chords and played them as power chords whilst I took the lead part. We decided that we should try and take parts away towards the end due to the fadeout from the original track. So all that is left at the end was just drums and bass.

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I felt that the performance went well but I would've liked if we were able to do that dynamic shift that we tried in the rehearsal but in saying that I felt for the bridge our dynamics were level and gradual coming back into the ending chorus'. The bands communication was clear and felt that overall we knew our parts and were able to fully play the song to the best of our abilities.

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For the third week, I was unable to attend the lesson due to an illness but I still spent time learning the song and knew the overall feel of the song. Jimi Hendrix has a specific way of doing vibrato so I took the time to listen to how far he bends the note and the duration to get each vibrato as clean and close to the track as possible. I wanted to keep my right hand quite loose when playing the main riff throughout the song as Jimi was known to be purposely sloppy when playing rhythmic riffs. I believe that in doing this research, it has helped me get an overall better understanding of the feel of the song. For the solo I decided to learn parts as I was under a time restraint but in learning common tendencies in Jimi's playing style, I used certain runs and licks in my improvised solo for the live performance the next day.

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For my track I've taken influence from Linkin Park. This is present with the production of the track but as well as their structure and playing style. In the writing process I've taken the style that Rob uses when playing which is a little sloppy but is still in time when it comes to the rakes in the intro and verses. I listened to a lot of the Meteora album and with the heavier songs the bass continues going through for the first part of the verses and then all the instruments come back in. As a result, I chose to do this with my track.

Tonally for the song, I've chosen a more overdriven sound for the guitar and for the bass, I've chosen to get have a slightly clean tone but it is overdriven slightly but in the amp I have the drive up more so when I'm picking harder for the chorus and breakdown the grit of the tone comes through. This is all very similar to how Linkin Park do their tones so stylistically I'm on the right track for the sound I wanted.

As for production, I know for the guitars they quad tracked in Linkin Park songs because of their being 3 guitarists so for me to get that full sound I decided to only have 3 tracks: centre, hard left and hard right. With this I was able to get the song in the beginning to sound almost as if it had a low pass filter on it but when the full intro idea comes in, it has a more full and in your face sound.

I've found whilst writing my song, that I like to try and almost get the exact sound of the artist/group I'm trying the emulate but then after I've finished, I'll look at the track and go where can I add my own flair and through that this is where this track has gotten too. This also helps when it comes to gathering ideas for a song as I'll listen to a lot of that artists songs to get a foundation and from that a riff or melodic idea will sprout and I'll get straight to recording it.

My track as a whole is on the faster side being 193BPM which helps with a very driven feel but also gives a sense of urgency. As for the time signature is 4/4 and the key signature is D minor however I'm using a lot of the phrygian mode using a lot of minor 2nd intervals between the open and first fret. This helps to give a more darker, mysterious sound but as well as that in the breakdown I'm using chromatism from the 3rd to the open fret.

As for the harmonic structure, I'm using a lot of power chords but I do include octaves coming out of the chorus into the vamp before the 3rd verse. As for rhythms, I use dotted rhythms and muted racks across the strings. This helps the riff give a sense of drive but never deviates over the bar line. The muted rakes across the strings help divide the riff and help it sound less muddy having the open strings playing through the whole thing. This also gives a more percussive sound

to the song.

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Overall, I believed everything went well and that I managed to capture what I talked about in my rehearsal log. I think my tone could've been a little bit more stylistically more accurate but apart from that, I think my part was close to the original source.

As a band, i felt that there was a clear communication between the band on where parts were. Because I was ill the lesson before, I hadn't practised with anyone so I stepped in for this band and managed to get through the song as a band with never rehearsing with me.

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My initial ideas for my LPW are: early 2000’s heavy rock, grunge sound (Linkin Park as main inspiration). Straight forward structure being intro, verse, verse, chorus, vamp, verse, verse, chorus, breakdown, double chorus leading back into the intro/vamp idea.

I have chosen to submit my formative as a live performance and DAW piece over the alternative recorded demo as I found that I could create a song within the time period without an issue. As for if I wanted to work collaboratively or on my own I chose on my own as I already have the sound I want to create which will lead me to writing the piece a lot easier without trying to find other people to learn and play my music.

In producing this track, I believe I will learn how to effectively EQ and compress my work through my production lessons helping create a more balanced and well mixed track. As well as that, this track will help me get used to tracking different instruments on my own but when getting into a studio it will help me as I will be comfortable in the process. Another thing that will help me is comping together parts that maybe I didn't quite get right in one take but I got right in another and comping them both together for a seamless track.

I don’t believe there will be many challenges in this format as in writing the track but my main challenge will be remembering to document what I’m writing.

When it came to coming up with the initial riff, I was just playing Linkin Park songs and had accidentally played the riff wrong but still liked the sound of what I had played. However, what I played wasn’t that easy to play so I changed some notes around and changed some of the rhythms to fit into the time signature. Once I had done that, I went into my DAW and found a tempo I liked which was 193 BPM and I chose the song to be in 4/4.

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After last week's update, I wanted to learn typical chorus chord progressions in the heavy rock, grunge, nu metal genres to help me with writing my chorus for my track. After listening to songs like Faint, Papercut and One Step Closer I realised that they all follow a similar progression Im - III - VII - IVm. So while doing this research I wanted to follow a similar progression but instead of going up and down the fretboard I wanted my progression to be ascending with these pushed quarter note rhythms with dotted notes as well to create a sense of urgency in the piece. Being in a minor key, I chose the phrygian mode as it contains the iim chord which creates this tension between in IIIM and Im chords which helps leading back into the next section of the song.

I had this idea after playing around with this week's song Treasure by Bruno Mars. My group decided to do what Bruno’s band did for the second verse at the GRAMMYs with the pushed  chords to help create a new feel to the song.

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For this week, I wanted to work on the authenticity of my tone for the song. Linkin Park have this high gain tone in most of their songs with the mid section boosted, so to capture that on my Line 6 Helix I found a capture of a marshal plexi amp head with a paired messa boogie cab and dialed teh tone to what i thought sounded closest to a Linkin Park sound.

As well as that, I chose to spend time writing the drums to the next section i wrote. I wanted to slightly change the drums in the second verse because I didn't want it to sound too repetitive so on every other bar i displaced the kick on the third beat.

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For this week's entry, I chose to focus on the breakdown section of my song. I wanted to create an uneasy feeling using chromatic notes down by the bottom three frets and open string. But for the drums, I didn't want to go straight for a half time feel and kept the first repetition as a full groove with the crash going on every beat then after the second repetition I then went for the half time groove on the china.

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I feel that my progress in my DAW track is going well and is following the time schedule and deadlines. However, the written work is getting behind due to my house not having internet so whenever I'm in an area with WIFI i try and chip away but it is hard because I can't reference my work fully.

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I've come to the end of the writing process of my track and am happy with the outcome. I believe that I have clearly shown where my inspirations have come through and spending time to create the correct tone and structure highlight the 2000 nu-metal sound.

I'm going to use what I've learnt in my production lessons to start to EQ the guitar, drums and bass tracks.

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I've done the EQ for all the parts recorded and am happy with the result and now the track sounds closer to the overall sound I wanted to go for. I am going to start the final tweaks to the song by adding compression to the drums

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I have now finished compressing the drums and now I feel that my track is now fully ready to submit. Overall, now adding the compression, the drums now feel almost lifelike instead of midi which I am happy with.

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Overall, this task has been fun but also stressful. I have had a lot of fun learning new techniques in my production lesson aiding me in my track to help it not sound so flat and helping elevate my track to a new level. During each performance has helped regain some confidence back after not performing for a whole year and now with what I have learnt from each song, I have tried to add little parts into my track.

The stressful part was trying to navigate uni work with work and trying to fix not having WIFI but coming to the end of the term, I felt that I have now found that balance and am able to take it into new term.

Producing my track, I have learnt that it takes a lot more time than I thought to mix and master a track and that through EQ, you don't follow the audio wave you take certain frequencies and duc or boost. When I first saw the difference in my guitar tracks after they had been EQ'd was unreal and now whenever writing I now have created a cheat sheet for myself.