Bella's Blog

Genre - Rock

Song - Are You Gonna Be My Girl

Artist - Jet

Album - Get Born

Released - 2003

Session Objective - To accurately represent the genre of Rock with our rendition of Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, and have a successful jam session.

Stylistic Characteristics;

Lead Vocals, Tambourine - I listened carefully to how Nic Cester projected his voice, and tried to replicate the raspy tone that he has. With the Tambourine I focused heavily on my timing and listened to the way it rounds off the end of the song.

Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals - Rhys replicated the original by playing the fast chords that the entire song relies on.

Guitar - Elliot played with the Guitar overdriven, this really made the song feel like a rock song.

Drums - Mimi played the drums the exact way they are played in the song, this created a real Rock vibe.

Bass Guitar - Ruby studied how Mark Wilson played the Bass so that it would be accurate to the original and create that rue ‘Rock sound’.

My contribution to the session was mainly ensuring that I was in time with the rest of the group, timing is something that I often struggle with so it is important that I take extra time to make sure I am getting the timing correct. 

The session was pretty successful, although the song needs a little bit more work, as a group we worked well together and really listened to the constructive criticisms that we were given. 

Genre - Acoustic Pop

Song - Let her go (acoustic version)

Artist - Passenger

Objective - The objective of today’s lesson is to create a near perfect replication of the song ‘Let her go’ by ‘Passenger’.

Group - Demi, Elliot, Mimi and Myself.

Stylistic Characterisation;

Guitar - Learnt to play exactly as it is in the acoustic version of the song (Elliot).

Piano - Gave a different tone but simple effect (Mimi).

Vocals - Done exactly the same as the original song, Demi and myself attempted to use the same accent as Micheal Resenberg does within the song. Harmonies were attempted but were difficult to maintain throughout the song.

My personal contribution; I believe that I encouraged the group to keep practicing as well as listening to the criticism that I was given. This made obtaining a finished song much easier as we were able to work together well.

Genre - Country

Song - Tennessee Homesick Blues

Artist - Dolly Parton

Album - Rhinestone

Released - 1984

Nominations- Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance

Recorded - 1983

Session Objective - To accurately represent the genre of country with our rendition of Dolly Parton’s ‘Tennessee Homesick Blues’.

Stylistic Characteristics;

Guitar - Mostly finger picking to create the classic country sound, using the original structure and notes (Elliot).

Bass - The bass line was exact to the original song creating an accurate rendition (Mimi).

Before we get down to the nitty gritty of actually learning to growl, you need to listen and learn from some of the great proponents. This was originally one of the many saxophone effects often used as a novelty.

Apart from the fact that it is now one of the main hallmarks of rock and blues saxophone playing, it was also used in mainstream jazz: notably Ben Webster, Illinois Jacquet and Earl Bostic. Charlie Parker also did it on occasions as did avant-garde pioneers John Coltrane and Archie Shepp.

If you want to growl, don’t growl! - The first mistake people often make is to think you actually growl (or even roar) into your saxophone. You can try your best lion, dog or badger impressions, but they are unlikely to be as successful as just plain humming while you play, which is generally accepted as the best way to make a saxophone growl.

Okay, so humming a long with what you play seems easy enough, but it’s also a common mistake to think you hum the notes you play. However the pitch of the note you need to hum is not necessarily the same note as you are fingering/playing, infant if you hum exactly the same note in tune, then the chances are this will not work at all. We don’t need to get into too much acoustic theory, but very simply the reason we hear a growling sound is that note you sing causes interference with the note you play, and the result is the distorted tone.

The ideal note to sing can vary, it could be a harmony note or the same note slightly out of tune. However I’ have not yet found any real rules about whether there is a specific harmony or pitch relative to the saxophone note, so I find the best method is a kind of trial and error which, before you realise it, becomes automatic.

How to practise growling – the exercise

This is a very simple exercise, don’t try to force the hum.

Play a clean note, then while holding the note steady, hum any old note in the back of your throat.

Alter the pitch of this hummed note by sliding it up or down until the interference with the saxophone note creates a distortion and hold it there for as long as you can.

Repeat the process with different notes, (if you want to be really disciplined you can go slowly up and down the chromatic scale) doing the same on each note. You will gradually get a feel for which note to sing or hum, and after a while you should be able to do this without thinking about it.

Practical Use - As with any effect, the growl can lose its “effectiveness” if overdone. That isn’t to say there aren’t contexts in which you can usefully use the growl constantly, but these are often kept to short solos in an appropriate genre, e.g. Rock & Roll. It’s useful to be able turn it off and on, or vary the intensity.

Growling as a Part of Your Tone - Ideally you will learn to control your growl to such an extent that you are able to add just a very very slight amount to your sound. You should be able to do this so instead of being heard as an actual growl, what it does is just give your tone a little bit of edge or brightness.

There are many different schools of thought on how to teach or learn jazz improvisation. I’ve had a lot of people recommend learning all the relevant scales and how they fit chord sequences, others have recommend learning lots of established phrases, licks and patterns, while some recommended just learning and playing tunes by ear. After extensive research I’ve come to the realisation that the best jazz improvisers often can’t explain the process, it is something totally intangible: a combination of intuition, imagination and great ears.

There are some improvisers who know relatively little theory but have the rare gift of hearing the chord changes and automatically knowing what to play. For the majority the best results come from a combination of hard study (private and tutored), lots of focussed practice, regular playing with other people and listening to the greats.

Learning to improvise jazz over chord changes can be quite intimidating at first. It was recommended to me that once you understand some of the very basic theory it is a good idea to practice playing some simple modal patterns, as in the Dorian Patterns section. At all times bear in mind that although it is important to know the scales, you should be striving towards melodic playing, that the scales and modes are just a means to an end. After a while you should be able to combine the simple modal two-chord sequences with other chords so that you can improvise over more interesting progressions.

Why does saxophone music often has chord symbols written above (or below) the staff, in other words, what are the chords for?

This shows the harmonic structure of the song. Usually the pianist, guitarist or rhythm section musicians will play an accompaniment to the tune based on this structure. Usually, after the initial statement of the tune (aka “head”), the rhythm section repeats this harmonic structure – while the soloist improvises something which fits the chord changes (aka “changes”) – and usually end up with a final statement of the tune.

Improvising well can be very tricky. It is basically a speeded up form of composing, and the skilled jazz (rock or blues) improviser should be able to make up musical lines which not only “fit”the chords, but which also have some melodic interest and ideally some real shape and structure with tension, release, climaxes etc.

Here are some basic ways of making an improvised melody fit the chords.

Chord notes - Playing the chord tones as arpeggios, or jumping from one chord not to another.

Scales - Arpeggios are usually notes of a scale that are spaced apart, so by filling in the “missing”notes in between, you get a scale.

Bending notes on the saxophone usually involves starting the note at the correct pitch and bending it downwards, or starting at a lower pitch and bending it upwards. (This is the opposite of the guitar which bends a note upwards from pitch or downwards into pitch). The vibrato exercise starts off with note bending, so you can use this exercise to get started. This is a technique that takes quite a while to master. It involves slackening the jaw which increases the gap between the reed and tip of the mouthpiece. In order to maintain consistent airflow you need a strong diaphragm muscles to do this. The following examples are upward bends, note the various lengths of chromatic runs which start off the bend.

Once you have got used to the note bending in the vibrato exercise, you can adapt it to get some much larger bends than on semitone. You will probably find it easier on higher notes of the higher pitched saxophone, for example it is possible to bend a top C on alto down two whole tones, and you can bend a top E down a fifth. 

As well as, or instead of, dropping your lip to bend the note, you use your oral cavity and tongue position to enhance the note bending. It is very difficult to describe what happens inside your mouth to create the bend, but many people find the easiest way to understand the technique is to start with just the mouthpiece. While blowing a note move your tongue away from the reed back towards your throat (but do not change the shape of your throat, it should be ope and allowing the air column through as usual). You may need to curl your tongue slightly. More or less by trial and error you should be able to find the position of your tongue at which the pitch changes. Once you can do this, it is just a matter of practice – try it on different notes and each time bend slowly and evenly down and then back up at the same rate.

This week we worked on ‘Harvest Moon’. Which once I had a Saxophone part for went relatively smoothly. The Saxophone adds an extra layer which enhances the rhythm of the song, I really like what we have done and I’m proud of all the work the three of us have put in to ensure that we have stage worthy performances. I really look forward to continuing working with this band beyond this project. 

This week Ruby and I visited The Academy of Contemporary Music. We along with other classmates were given a tour and were privileged enough to be able to sit in on a lecture called “Hassle - Artist Development - Route To Market“. It was a brilliant opportunity for us as aspiring artists as we were able to get a real feel of what is required of an artist to make a name for themselves.

This week we worked on ‘After Hours’ which went really well. We were able to record our rehearsals and hope to upload footage from these to YouTube. The song is probably my favourite that we are doing and the peer feedback that we received for it was really satisfactory. This song will probably require the least amount of rehearsal in the run up to our performance. 

Next week we will be rehearsing ‘Harvest Moon’, this is the song I am least looking forward to us doing as improvising Saxophone parts is proving to be quite a difficult task for me. I plan on asking for directional help with this from Ramsey (my Musical Performance Lecturer).

The venue we have chosen is Eton Wick Football Club, they host Open Mic Nights which are open to whoever turns up. We have email confirmation that we are more than welcome to just bring our instruments and wait for a suitable slot. They only happen once a month so the one we will be attending is on the 13th of March, giving us more than enough time to perfect our songs.

This week, because we were doing the final arrangements for the venue, as a band we only revised the three songs. This was useful because it meant that going into the half term we have the songs fresh in our memory.

We now have three songs nailed which we can individually work on over the half term. After the half term we will be working on both ‘After Hours’ and ‘Harvest Moon’ and then using our remaining lessons to revise our setlist and work out any kinks that may be remaining within the songs. 

In ‘After Hours’ Ruby will be playing Bass, Blu on Guitar and I will be doing vocals. This is a song which is perfectly suited for my vocal range and plays towards my strengths vocally which allows for me to work on other musical aspects such as timing and adding my own musical flare to the song. It also allows for me to work on the performance side of the project.

This week I spent time on our Twitter looking at ways to gain followers, the technique I tried worked out quite well and we currently have 15 followers on our Twitter account. Going forward I’ll be looking into payed promotions on all social media platforms to try and reach a bigger host of people. I am also looking into creating a YouTube channel for the band as this is a platform recognised for advancing aspiring artists.

This week as a band we started work on ‘Amplified Curiosity’. The song has quite an unusual rhythm and it took me quite some time to become accustom to it. However, once I had the rhythm we were able to get the song to a point where we were happy with it.

Communication between the group is easy and we are able to have extensive conversations about how we want to improve a song and are able to give each other constructive criticism which is vital when working on a limited schedule.  

Going forward we have decided to do ‘After Hours’ by The Velvet Underground and ‘Harvest Moon’ by Neil Young. Ruby and I will also be doing another original song which Ruby wrote called ‘Platonic Pining’ whilst Blu is also preparing a solo performance of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. 

As long as we continue at the pace we are working at we will definitely have these songs ready to perform by the time our gig comes around. The main problem we are facing is rehearsing outside of lessons as the three of us don’t have coinciding free periods which mean we are constricted to lessons and lunchtimes as well as rehearsing in twos.

After arranging with a fellow aspiring musician with much more experience in the industry than me, I had a professional create a profile photo and banner for our social medias. This same musician (@akaPhanton) shouted out our SoundCloud on their Twitter, which brought attention to our pages on both SoundCloud and Twitter.

This week as a band we worked further on ‘I’m a Man you don’t Meet Everyday’ and have now got it to a standard where we’d be happy to perform, we attempted to record it a couple of times for SoundCloud but the recording equipment that we had access to didn’t pick up the sound of the tin whistle well and as a result we decided to hold back on uploading until we could record something of better quality.

We then went on to look into what other songs that we might want to do and spent the best part of a lesson listening to them.

We’ve decided that we no longer want to perform ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ and instead want to do a song which Ruby has written herself called ‘Amplified Curiosity’.

In preparation for next week’s rehearsals we’ve arranged what parts each of us will be doing, Blu will be playing guitar, Ruby will be playing Ukulele as well as singing alternating verses with me. ‘Amplified Curiosity’ is what we will be working on next week.

As I am not the strongest of singers ‘I’m a Man you don’t Meet Everyday’ is quite a challenging song for me to perform but I am stepping out of my comfort zone to ensure that the song is given the justice it deserves.

This week I fulfilled my role as PR and Media manager by setting up our band Tumblr (aurevoireyes), Instagram (@AuRevoirEyesBand), Twitter (@AuRevoirEyes) and Soundcloud (Au Revoir Eyes). All of which I will keep up to date as the band develops.

As a band the songs we worked on this week were ‘Girl From The North Country’ by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash + ‘I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Everyday’ by The Pogues. This week we were only able to meet within lessons as we have not yet arrange a schedule outside of lessons. We discussed possible venues. This included exploring what type of atmosphere, audience and location would be most preferable. We’ll look further into this next week and begin contacting places of interest.

In our version of ‘Girl From The North Country’ Bluboy sings the first verse, I sing the second verse and Ruby sings the third. We all sing the chorus, then Blu and I sing the fourth verse. We finish with a call and response to end the song. Blu plays guitar and Ruby plays Ukulele throughout the song. After this week’s rehearsals we were able to get ‘Girl From The North Country’ to a standard that we felt comfortable uploading to Soundcloud.

In the original recording of this song, the structure is different and it’s just Bob Dylan singing. We’ve chosen to cover the Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash version of this song and have stuck with the structure used in the following video. 

https://youtu.be/g77wH68dFC8

But added the use of a ukulele and more vocalists. We achieved this after one and a half rehearsals, which I believe was very efficient use of our time. It also means that we are on track for the coming weeks and will hopefully have five performable songs by the time of the gig.

We also started work on ‘I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Everyday’ which is going very well. I’m the vocalist for this song with Ruby playing the tin whistle and Blu playing guitar. I think that after one more run through we should be able to upload a demo version of it onto Soundcloud. The original song was a traditional Scottish or Irish music hall song but we chose The Pogues version because of it’s already formulated structure and because it’s the more familiar version of the song making it more appealing for audiences.