Milestone: By the beginning of Term 4, I aim to be able to play a full set of 3 songs with my band, by practicing both individually and as a group to upkeep a supportive environment and have a successful performance.

Practice: The micro habit I'll do 2-3 times a week is to practice guitar for 30 minnutes individually, and have a weekly meet up with my band to practice together.

Anticipate Obstacles: Things that could get in the way of achieving my goal include absences of people in my band including myself which may disrupt our practice schedule as well as personal practice times disrupted by schoolwork and extracurricular commitments. If these happen, I will communicate effectively with my band to decide on catch up days or taking extra time in my personal rehearsals to catch up to any I've missed.

Check-In Plan: Every 3 weeks, I will check in on my habit consistency and improvement on my personal skills as well as our dynamic as a band.

Check-In 1: I plan to be able to play one-two songs by myself on guitar in full, and also play one song in full with my band.

Check-In 2: I plan to learn all the songs in our set by myself and finish our second song as a band

Check-In 3: I plan to be able to play the full set of 3 songs by myself as well as with my band

Transfer: At the end, I will show my growth by reflecting on our rehearsals (with evidence) and our collaboration as a band and how the outcome of our performance was greater than our individual parts.

Our first practice was partially productive for a few reasons: we experimented playing different songs as a group and found songs that were only mildly and realistically challenging to play as well as easy to sing. This was very useful as playing the songs and singing in individual practice to choose songs would not reflect the band dynamic and how it would sound when we played together.

Negatives

Despite our productivity, we noticed that we could have made more progress with choosing our final set of songs. We did a lot of experimenting and finding songs in rehearsal which could have been done earlier, as sitting down on our phones trying to find songs to play isn't a productive use of the limited time we have together.

Improvements

To further improve this, I would suggest focusing on pre-planning for our collaborative practice sessions more so that we can get straight into practice and use our time together effectively.

Compare your original plan with the actions you actually took. What patterns do you notice and if there were differences, why?

In our original plan, we planned to spend an hour playing but we often got distracted and wasted our time. It is also inevitable that humans make mistakes during a song that we have to accept as we can't help nerves and slip-ups. A pattern I notice is we practice well together and don't disagree too much.

Can you identify causes for any challenges or setbacks you faced?

• Playing on time - disrupted by not memorising chords and having to scroll on the screen when we are playing the chords

• Confusions with strumming patterns - both guitarists play different strumming patterns and sometimes we get confused and start playing each other's.

  
  

What feedback do you think is most valuable at this stage?

Pointing out other's mistakes and helping them get better by playing their part properly for them and allowing them to learn by being patient and providing continous support until they get it right.

• Create plans and goals

• Make a rough list of songs which we could perform

• Brainstorm ideas

• Had at least 1 or 2 practice sessions

By the end of check in 1, we should have created a list of plans and goals for our band to grow. Made a rough list of songs which we want to perform/play. Brainstorm any extra ideas which we may have along the way. And, have completed at least 1 or 2 practice sessions.

Check in 2-

• At least have 2 songs down

• Main list of songs finalised

• Changed up the sounding of songs/created new versions of it

By the end of check in 2 we should have at least two finalised songs which we can play from start to finished. Have a list of songs which we want to perform finalised. And have changed up the sounding of songs or created new versions of it.

Check in 3

• At least 10 practice sessions

• Completed planner with evidence

• Finished and recorded personalised songs

By the end of check in 3 (our final check in) we should have completed at least 10 practice sessions. Completed our finalised planner including evidence from practice sessions. And, finished and recorded at least one personalised song as a band.

Element chosen: Outcome greater than individual parts

Feedback: We spent quite a lot of time on our phones trying to pick songs, which we actually could have done during the pre-planning stage when we were in class or during our own time, instead of wasting valuable practice time to do so.

Improvement: An improvement to better use our time would be to plan the songs we want to try ahead of the rehearsal, whilst still giving ourselves some time to choose new ones on the spot if anything good comes up.

Feedback: We spend too much time learning one song trying to perfect it instead of trying to learn other songs as well.

Improvement: To better use our valuable practice time as a group, it would be good to just play a song in whole about 3 times over, then work on our individual flaws in our own time to catch up to standard. This way everyone is on the same page and skill level whilst still maximising the limited time we have to practice as a band.

This song has no bar chords, which makes it easy for my fingers and smoother for my transition in between chords.

Strum Difficulty: Easy

The strumming in this song only goes down, which means I don't have to be hyper-aware of my strumming as I play and I can focus more on the chords.

Overall Practice Required: Minimal

Easy chords and strumming means that I can focus less on practicing this song in my individual rehearsals and shift my focus more to the harder songs.

All the chords were quite simple except the bar chords (B and C#m) which would need more practice to ensure that I press down on the strings enough so that they don't sound muted and hit the right note.

Strumming Difficulty: Easy/Intermediate

The pattern was a mix of up and down strumming, but after the intro and the first verse its pretty easy to get used to and keep in time.

Overall Practice Required: Average

This song would need more practice than Yellow, as the chords and strumming aren't as straightforward and a lot more focus is required to stay in time with the strumming and switching of the chords. However, with the right amount of practice this would be a really fun song to play.

We interviewed some peers in our grade who have had experience playing in bands multiple times and have performed as bands on stage. Two of our interviewees have also won the GIHS Infinite Echo two years in a row (2024 and 2025).

Looking at your evidence, how can you differentiate between what shows genuine growth and what shows gaps?

From observing the evidence we have collected, most of the videos only show our well-put together rehearsals rather than the ones that we make mistakes in (for example, "bloopers"). Including this could strengthen evidence to show our genuine growth over time, however our videos from the beginning of rehearsals until now have shown improvement over a longer time period.

From the evidence you’ve collected, which piece would you defend as the strongest demonstration of your growth?

I think the videos of us collaborating both individually and as a team best represent and reflect on our group dynamic and strongly demonstrate our progress and growth.

Based on your feedback and reflection, how could you design a new approach for the next check-in that improves on this one and designs better growth?

Next time, filming outtakes or "bloopers" of us messing up will show natural mistakes and help us look back on the footage and focus on how it can be improved further.

Feedback: We need to show the "bloopers" or "outtakes" of our practices in our video footage as right now we are only recording the good songs we play rather than the mistakes we make that could show genuine growth once fixed.

Improvement: Next time, filming a video of our entire band practice rehearsal to capture both our good and bad moments will help show our progress realistically and show growth more strongly.

Can you identify causes for any challenges or setbacks you faced? What factors contributed most?

I think the reason for some of our setbacks were that our rehearsing times were inconsistent. We had to manage uncertainty when we had to skip a band practice due to unavailability as well as people going away on holiday, etc. This inconsistency put us off a bit as a group and took up our valuable practice time trying to catch up for lost time.

How would you critique the strategies you used so far? Which would you recommend continuing, and which would you abandon?

We think the least effective strategy is just playing the songs at every band practice and individual rehearsal. For future practices, we recommend starting by practicing chord switching, timing with metronomes, etc before jumping straight into learning songs. This will waste less time trying to switch chords easily and stay on beat.

What feedback do you think is most valuable at this stage, and how would you justify its importance?

The most important feedback so far is of our performing stances. We are seated most of the time and should ideally improve our posture, etc but it would be great to have someone externally share their thoughts on how we look whilst performing.

Lana: 30 minute singing lessons every Monday as well as an hour choir rehearsal at the end of the day. I practice half an hour outside of school every week and this amounts to two hours practice every week. Band practice will add another hour to this time, thus I will be ensuring I am practicing my skill while getting ready for the next meet-up

Sanemi: Practice 3-4 times a week. Guitar lessons for 30 minutes a week, and band practice once a week for an hour

Elly: I practice playing guitar at home every single day from 10-30 minutes. Also practicing every wednesday with the band for 1 hour. This will allow for me to develop my skills as a main guitarist at home, then practice as a band altogether.

1. Choosing responsibilities where your skill sets lie, which ensures everyone is contributing and enjoying being part of the band equally

2. Trying new roles and responsibilities to add variety and make rehearsals and the band dynamic more interesting

Both responses were highly useful and shifted my perspective on how band dynamics are formed during rehearsals and with responsibilities.

Check In #1: Met all progress markers and even had an extra band practice session than we had to

Check In #2: Was supposed to finish 2 songs, however as we spent too much time trying to perfect one song we only just started the other one. Improvements for this discussed in Check In #2 include that we spend less time trying to perfect a song in our limited time together as a band and instead work on it individually

Check In #3: We were supposed to have 10 practice sessons together, however some of us were sick, away on holiday and too busy so we only had 8. However, we were still able to finished learning our full setlist of 3 songs.