I first sang this song at the audition for Music for Scotland. That was when I decided that I would like to choose this song for my solo performance assesment. I thought it would be a good idea to do some research and perforn it in the class in front of everyone.

All these things that I've done is one of the most iconic songs by the Killers. I thought this song would be challenging for me because it covers a wide range of my voice, and some of the high notes are at the very top of my voice. I worked on my technique and Taylor gave some tips of what to do in terms of support, breathing and space. When I was practising the song I worked on it by sections and focused on the parts that were harder for me. 

To me this song is about facing difficulties, going through hard times and overcoming them. When I practised the song I tried to relate the words to some of my life experiences and to different situations. This helps me staying in character when I'm performing. All These Things That I've Done is a rock song therefore it needs a lot of energy so that the song is delivered properly to an audience.

I got a backing track online and I wanted to push myself and perform as if I had a band playing with me. I practiced some actions but I wasn't very confident and ended up not doing what I had previously practiced. When I was performing I didn't get into the song and didn't perform it how I had planned it.I think that I was too cautious and was trying to focus on my technique. In order to improve, I want to get a band to accompany me on my solo assessment as I believe this will help me getting a bit more confident and relaxed. I also think it will allow me to explore the dynamics of the song a bit better.

According to Oxford Music Online, Jazz is a musical genre of black American origin. It is characterized by syncopation, cyclical formal structures and melodic and harmonic elements derived from the blues. Jazz can be seen as a creative and interactive process involving improvisation. A very common rhythmic approach to phrasing known as swing is related to this genre.

In terms of its origins, the ‘classic’ Jazz has its routes in the Blues from New Orleans. At first the instrumentation used was trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano, drums, banjo or guitar and bass. New Orleans jazz reached its peak with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band during the early 1920s. It was in this band that Louis Armstrong learnt and developed his skills. Jazz would then spread to Chicago and New York due to migration to the north. Distinctive styles of jazz started emerging in other cities such as Kansas City, St Louis and Memphis.

Louis Armstrong developed the concept of an improvised jazz solo. Before Armstrong, Dixieland was the style of jazz everyone was playing. This style featured collective improvisation where everyone soloed at once. Armstrong developed the idea of individual solos and this would become the norm.

One of the most influential jazz musicians was Duke Ellington, born on 29th of April 1899, in Washington DC. Ellington started playing the piano when he was seven and playing jazz when he was a teenager. He would then move to New York City to become a bandleader and one of the most important jazz figures in NY. He was one of the creators of the big band sound of the swing era.

As music developed and spread around the world, artists influenced by Jazz, other styles of music characteristic from their city/country, and cultures started developing other kinds of jazz. Other styles of jazz include Gypsy Jazz, West Coast Jazz, Cool Jazz, Avant-garde Jazz, Modal Jazz, Afro-Cuban jazz, Free Jazz, Latin Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Punk Jazz, Acid Jazz, Jazz Rap, Nu Jazz, Indo Jazz and others.

Autumn Leaves

We played our own arrangement of Autumn Leaves, a Jazz Standard composed by Joseph Kosma (music) and Jacques Prevert (lyrics). We played five choruses. In the first one we sang the lyrics, in the second one both guitarists improvised, in the third the singers improvised, in the fourth there was a bass and a drum solo, and in the last chorus we sang the lyrics again.

We recorded a couple of takes when we were practicing:
https://soundcloud.com/rpereira-1/sets/autumn-leaves/s-cGN2X

We changed the key of the song to C minor to suit our vocal range. The scales I used to improvise were mostly C minor scale and minor pentatonic scale. As I knew the melody of the song really well and the chord progression, it was easier to improvise. Serena and I decided to do a “call and response” improvised solo. I really enjoyed it because I could use some of her ideas and develop them and she could do the same. These recordings are from our fourth rehearsal. Although we can hear a guitar repeating one of the lines I sing, during our fifth rehearsal we developed our solos and really worked on interacting more with each other. I enjoyed having to listen to what Serena was singing and use it as a starting point for an improvised phrase. I listened to some scat singing and started to experiment in this song but this is not very noticeable in these recordings.

After listening and watching our actual actual performance, I noticed that I was out of tune during most of the song. I think it got a bit better in the first part of the solo though. As my solo was after the guitar solo, I thought that I shouldn't approach it in the same way as I would if I was soloing on my own. I tried to give continuity to the guitar's solo and build intensity. I tried to use some scat singing in my solo and explore different sounds and rhythms. The idea was to give the drummer an opportunity to interact with the solo as well. I think that I managed to outline the chord changes. I think it is quite intuitive for singers because the melody of the song outlines those changes. At the end of the vocal solo we tried to layer our solos and improvise at the same time. Before our performance we had tried this idea and it worked, but during our performance I think that we weren't as relaxed and we weren't as creative.

Overall, I think that the whole performance was good. I still need to work on my technique when I’m singing in a lower range. I think we could have improvised more when we repeat the lyrics after the solos, changing slightly the way we sing and approaching the phrasing and the song in a different way, keeping it interesting.

The Andrews Sisters - Nice Work If You Can Get It

After spending a few weeks playing Autumn Leaves we felt like we wanted to choose a quicker song. The Andrews Sisters are amazing singing in harmony and we thought it would be great and really challenging for us. Not only for the singers but also for the guitarists, as the chord changes are quite fast. The problem that we had with this song was the three-part harmony. That made it harder for us because some of the harmonies sang by The Andrews Sisters didn’t make sense when sang by only two people. I went to Serena's singing lesson and we worked on a few harmonies with Taylor. This was extremely helpful because it allowed us to explore the song in a different way and get some ideas for improvising. We still had to sing most of the song in unison though.

I think that my solo could have been better. I got a bit lost and didn't breath properly to reach the high notes therefore I got out of tune. It would be good to work on this song with more singers and split the harmonies. It would also be nice to have a horn section playing with us, as it is quite predominant in the original song. We did an arrangement with two guitars that could have worked better if we had had more time to rehearse this song. Overall, I think it was a good performance and I enjoyed it.

According to Oxford Music Online, in the late 1970s a new form of dance music emerged from clubs in New York City, that form of music was called Disco. Its name derives from the term discotheque used to describe venues that played pre-recorded dance music in the early 1960s.

This genre emerged from the black, Latino and gay clubs in New York in the 1970s and has its roots in Soul and Funk music. Musically it features regular bass drum accents on every beat. Orchestral instruments, synthesizers and Latin percussion can often be found in disco songs. The lyrics are usually quite simple and are usually orientated around dancing, romance and party-led life style.

The central figure in this genre is the DJ (disk jockey) who was responsible for selecting and sequencing the songs that were going to be played. Therefore, the trends and disco’s style would change according to DJs’ taste. DJs would often reconfigure existing recording by fading out one song into another. This led to the invention of the 12-inch single, which had been designed for easier editing.

Disco as a distinct musical style began to coalesce in 1973 with the release of recordings such as The love I lost by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, I’m going to love you just a little more baby by Barry White or Love’s Theme by the Love Unlimited Orchestra (produced by White). Barry White became one of the first disco’s stars.

While we were listening to some Disco hits, we came across a song called September by Earth Wind and Fire (EWF).

In 1969, Maurice White founded EWF, an American band that has songs that cover a vast range of genres such as Soul, Disco, R&B, Funk, Jazz and Rock. Some of their biggest successes were Shining Star, September, Got to get you into my life, Devotion, Reasons, Sing a song, After the love has gone, and others.

We decided to play September as we though it would be a good song for me and for Serena. Philip Bailey's falsetto contrasts with Maurice White's tenor voice and we thought it could suit our voices. 

We decided to split the vocal parts and I think that it worked quite well. In terms of the rehearsal process we had previously practiced the song at home so that we could take the most out of our rehearsal. I believe that we were playing the wrong chord after the chorus. In terms of my vocals, I think that I need to work more on my technique and there were some vocal parts that we were singing differently from the original song. I think we played the song with the right feel but in terms of stage performance I think we could have been better. In order to deliver the song properly everyone should be dancing and really into it, especially in this genre. 

My intonation could have been a bit better. I need to work on my breathing and on my stage performance. I was forcing myself to move and I wasn't very confident with what I was doing while singing, which comes across in the vocals during the first verse. I feel like I need to work more on this song so that it all looks and sounds more natural. 

After having played Punk on the first couple of weeks, it was time to go back to the decade of 1960-1970 and researching on a new musical genre, Soul Music (from USA). According to Oxford Music Online, this genre has its origins in black American people and the term soul started being used by some Gospel groups as part of their name in the 1940s and 50s. By the late 1950s, jazz that used melodic figures or riffs derived from gospel music or folk blues became known as soul jazz. During the 1960s a lot of singers and arrangers started using techniques from gospel music and soul jazz in black popular music of the time. Gospel music has provided a rich foundation for the singing styles of many stars and gradually the black popular music from that period became known as Soul. Due to its association with a number of musical practices, the ascendency of the term is linked to the Civil Rights movement and the growth of black cultural and political nationalisms of that time.

Soul, Gospel music, Jazz and Rhythm and Blues all shared approaches to harmony, rhythm, melody and timbre. However, the difference between these genres is in the way and degree to which these musical elements are used and in the subject matter of the lyrics. In Soul Music, the increased use of vocal technique to show spiritual ecstasy, intensity and devotion in a secular context intensified the connection between the singer and the song as well as the connection between the style of music and the black community.

In order to explore and learn about this genre we have picked a song called Soul Man by Sam and Dave, an American soul duo formed in Miami in 1961. It was formed by Samuel David Moore (Sam) and David Prater (Dave). They would achieve commercial success after signing to Atlantic Records in 1965. Between 1966 and 1969 twelve of their singles would reach the American pop and rhythm and blues charts. One of those singles was Soul Man which was written in 1967 by Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Hayes found inspiration in the African American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. After the 12th Street Riot in Detroit occurred, in July 1967, Hayes noticed that black Detroit residents had marked the buildings that had not been destroyed during the riots with the word “soul”. According to Hayes words, he decided alongside his songwriting partner, David Porter, to come up with "a story about one's struggle to rise above his present conditions. It's almost a tune [where it's] kind of like boasting 'I'm a soul man'. It's a pride thing."

In terms of rehearsals we managed to get the original song and we quite often listened back to the original song to check if we were playing in the right tempo. I didn’t get the sheet music so I often used the original track as my main reference. Before each rehearsal I always warmed up my voice properly as I was trying to use grasp in my voice to make it closer to the original. We decided to change the key of the song so that it suited both singers, dropping it by a whole tone. I think that having a week break before the assessment wasn’t ideal as I felt that I have lost a bit the excitement, drive and connection with the song. I think that the other singer should have worked a bit more on the melody in the verses as I think it was a bit different from the original. Overall, I think that we managed to deliver the song with the right feel and energy.