For my demo, I chose the song ‘Valerie’ by Amy Winehouse because it is a song that I know very well and there was a lot that I could do with it. Unlike last term, this term I chose songs that were in my comfort zone. I decided that for a higher chance of success and self satisfaction, I should choose songs I know will sound good and I could get a clearer vision. I have always admired the sense of improvisation that Amy Winehouse seems to have in terms of rhythm, runs and pitch so I wanted to practice and make this one of my skills. This being a slowish pop ballad, I figured that this was a better as a demo as it doesn’t require a lot of movement in performance and I though I could show off some of my vocal skills in a clear, mixed recording. I really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere this rendition creates and how the lead and backing vocals fit together so soothingly.

For my performance, I chose ‘Hold Back The River’ by James Bay. Originally, this song is a slow, acoustic love song with passionate vocals travelling through registers. I am very fond of this song and its artist and I knew that I could change a lot about it. My first vision for my performance was that I wanted to connect with the song emotionally and be moving around a lot on stage. When we did this song for our Pre- production class, my drummer mentioned it being heavy metal which led me to the idea of indie rock. I really love the repetition in the bridge with the potential for a eye opening dynamic build up with instruments and vocals. I have always appreciated the space to show variation of different vocal registers and even more with an Indie Rock version. I also explored a lot of different techniques with this song.

I usually learn songs by listening to them on repeat constantly. I sing along with the lyrics in front of me once I have the melody in my head. I didn’t have much trouble learning this song fluently as I was already familiar with it. I already love harmonising with my favourite songs so working out the harmonies for ‘Valerie’ was a breeze (I found that the three part harmony was split in 3rds). My inspiration for my rendition of ‘Valerie’ was the BBC Live Lounge studio version. I made the decision to sing the backing vocals myself, differing it from my inspiration.

For ‘Hold Back the River’, I changed quite a lot. I changed the structure (gaps between chorus and next verse, and added an intro before the original intro consisting of the bridge chords. I used a raspy tone (similar to the likes of ‘PINK’. I also changed the melody in the last bridge/ outro.

For my Demo, I started out my recording a practice demo along with a backing track to practice my harmonies and melody. Later on in my project, I booked a slot at Small Pond Studios and recorded all of the instruments in together. I learned to do them together after last time when my timing was off due to recording at different times. I then mixed my vocals and instruments using preset EQ’s on garage band until I liked how it sounds. I thought that this would familiarise me with the different styles I could make using EQ. I also added reverb.

My performance mainly required lots of practice as a band, which we did. On my stage presence rehearsal I felt I had a breakthrough with my confidence. I was walking around the stage, singing with emotion, using my hands, and I even put my foot up on the monitor.

Learning and Improvements of Demo:

Although I am not confident in Logic Pro X, I feel that I have definitely improved my skills since last term in recording tracks, applying reverb, EQ presets and timing. Although I am not confident in production, I feel that I provided a clear decently mixed track. I practiced lots to perfect the vocal runs at the end of the song as well as the ‘professionally, slightly off timing’ of the vocal rhythm. I think that I portrayed these skills to the best of my ability in the recording. I am also very happy with the accuracy of the backing vocals and the technique that I used to form soft sounding backing vocals. Since last term I have improved in my time management as I chose my songs more early on leaving me more time to develop them.

Learning and Improvements of my Performance:

I was confident in my vocals and my band because they always sound generally tight. My voice has been on and off recently and I feel that it wasn’t my best performance vocally and I slightly blame the fact that I didn’t warm up efficiently. However, I am so proud of my performance. At this stage in my journey, it couldn’t have been any better. This term, I was repeatedly thrown into the deep end with performance expectations from my lecturers and I am so happy that they did because it gave me no choice but to grow. 

Overall, I am very happy with my performance and my demo. There is definitely always room for improvement but I feel that I have grown as an artist with this project.