#generalblogs

We recently confirmed a place at the "Back to the Pav" gig at the Strathpeffer Pavilion on the 12th of June. This will be a huge opportunity for us as a band because we will be playing along side bands such as "Spring Break" and "Silver Coast" who are now very well known. We are all very excited about this gig and what doors it will open for us in the future as a band. Also, since confirming this gig we have been approached by North Highland Radio and asked if we would like to play some of our stuff on the air, as well as a few people offering more gig opportunities. We have a few performances coming up soon, as well as the possibility of something big within the next few months.

Saturday the 28th of March saw “AlmostFolk” perform our latest gig at “The Shed” in Evanton. The night was organised by the dance group “Plan B” who wanted to showcase local talent in the Highlands ranging from music and dance, to readings and mini plays. This was our first paid gig as a band and we were given £160 to share between us. As we are still in the process of writing new songs we played the same set list as usual; Through a window, broken, Chasing butterflies, Go far now, List of Lies, and The wonder of the years which we got a chance to quickly run through at the sound check earlier in the day. The gig started at 20:00 and just before hand we found out that our set had been split into two halves so we would play last in the first half, and last in the second half which included finishing the show. In all the night went really well and we all agreed that this was one of our most confident performances yet. Also, just as we were about to leave we were asked if we would be interested in playing there again, as well as playing at a festival which we are currently trying to sort out a place for. We are all really excited for our upcoming gigs and we know that we can push ourselves even harder to play to our absolute best.

Last Wednesday was audition day for a few of us who are interested in the Applied music (Hons) degree course through the UHI. We had been told only 4 days prior to the audition when it would be and so it was safe to say that I was very nervous. Having little time to prepare, I decided to play it safe and perform 2 contrasting pieces at grade 6/7, instead of trying a fairly new grade 8 piece and the grade 7 piece which had been the original plan. The pieces I decided to play were “Romance” by Ronald Binge (Grade 6), and “Adagio and Allegro” by Leonardo Da Vinci (Grade 7). When I first went into the room I had a chance to warm up before Peter set up an online video call with a woman who was part of the audition process so we could see and hear each other. After playing Romance, I pointed out the Da Vinci piece was very long and was asked to pick just one movement. I felt prepared enough so I picked the harder and faster movement of the two as to show my range of musicianship. Once I had played I was asked a few questions about why I thought I would be suited to the course, as well as some questions about my work as a musician. I then got a chance to speak to Peter alone about the course and he told me he thinks I should apply to get into my second year and that I am definitely qualified for it. After the chance to ask a few questions myself the audition was finished. In all I feel it went really well and was one of my best performances in a while. I definitely believe that classical music is my strongest asset as a saxophonist and feel I should make better use of this knowledge know that I have discovered it. I felt very relaxed throughout the whole audition and think I can use this experience to reflect on in future auditions/interviews. I feel confident I did the best I could and Peter was even nice enough to tell me at the end of the day that it was a very good audition. I am hoping to find out soon if I got on the course or not but will be putting up more blogs before then about what else is going on like the “Shuffle Rewind” gig we performed at last Saturday. Bye! X

Saturday the 21st of March was the day of our Tea in the Car Park gig. Luckily it was a really sunny day and so we performed outside like planned. AlmostFolk performed fourth on the main stage. The gig went really well with the only problems occurring being a slight feedback from the vocal mic and a difficulty to hear the piano in my monitor, especially in our tune “List of Lies” where I have to follow Kenna and so need to hear her. I personally think that my saxophone could have been warmed up a bit better as by the time we went outside and were on the stage waiting for our line check, it was cold and so sounded a bit off. As we have known about this gig for quite a while now, we had plenty of time to prepare our songs so we were more than ready by the time Saturday came around. It was definitely our most prepared gig yet and it went really well, however I personally played better at the MadHatters gig. Our next gig will be in Evanton on Saturday the 28th where we’re playing for a dance group. I will hopefully be posting up videos and links soon of the Tea in the Car Park gig. Bye! X

Last Tuesday we spent the day recording with Steven from the sound production course. Carmen wasn’t in this day so we spent it getting the instrumental tracks done, ready for adding the vocal part when she came back. Kenna and Gordon were recorded together in the piano room so we could use the proper piano instead of an acoustic one. There were five mics set up in the room; Three behind Kenna to get the best sounds from the piano, and two in front of Gordon. They worked hard and we had all 5 tracks recorded by the end of break. Steven then set up the microphones in the stairwell so as to record me somewhere we could get a really full sound. There were four mics used to record me; one by the bell of the saxophone, on halfway up the stairs on the landing, and two at the top of the stairs right above me. In all it took about an hour to record all of the sax parts and so we were done just before the start of break. We got a chance to listen to the instrumentals on Wednesday morning as they were before Steven touched them and they were sounding really good. Carmen also came in after break on Wednesday so we set up a mic in one of the smaller studios and got all of the vocals recorded by the end of the day on Wednesday. Everything was sounding really good and Steven is a really efficient worker so we’re hoping to hear the finished tracks within the next couple of weeks. Our next recording session is going to be after the Easter holidays where 2 of the sound producers have been assigned to our band to record us as part of their course. Our next gig is this Saturday where we play in the college car park in Alness for the Tea in the Car Park gig. I will also hopefully be uploading some of my paperwork soon that I have done on the course so far. Bye! X

Last Thursday we had our assessment gig at MadHatters in Inverness where we performed in our bands, AlmostFolk in my case. Although we have some new songs, we weren't quite ready to perform them yet and so ended up playing the same set list we did for the Greenhouse gig; "Through a window, broken", "Chasing butterflies", "Go far now", "List of lies", and "The wonder years". We were the fourth band to play with the line up being; James and Finlay, The Peach Trees, The Stilton Brothers, AlmostFolk, and Autumn Sun. As we were near the end of the night, the pressure of hearing how good the other bands was getting to me and I was really nervous by the time it was our turn. This made it very difficult to concentrate but I used my past experiences of nerves and thought how bad the previous performance had gone when I panicked and so calmed myself down. Once we were actually on stage and had done a quick sound check I was feeling a lot better and so was more confident about the performance. In all we played really well and it was definitely our best gig yet. Afterwards we got a lot good responses and everyone agreed that that was the best we had played. The night ended up being a great success and all of the other bands played really well. Our next gig will be on the 6th of March where we will be playing a gig in Inverness for a charity night in Raigmore Hospital. I am going to try and get hold of some photos of the MadHatters gig before then and hopefully will post them as soon as possible. Until next time, bye! X

Hello, me again! Forgot to do a second post last week so I though I'd tell you all about our gig in Dingwall on Saturday Night. The gig was a charitable night where there were 14 different acts divided out between 2 stages. We were on at 20:30 making us the second act to perform... Scary stuff!! We played our five best original songs, "Through a window, broken", "Chasing butterflies", "Go far now", "List of lies" (This was our first time performing this one), and "The wonder years". In all the gig went okay but pesonally I felt it was my worst performance yet! I was struggling to concentrate and felt everyone was staring right at us... Especially the guy who decided to sit right infront of me and watch me the whole performance! I definitely think I could have played a lot better and need to work on calming down before I get on stage next time so I don't get too worked up before hand. Our next gig is in MadHatters in Inverness this Thursday coming and so I think I will need to work hard these next few days in order to make sure this gig goes a lot better! Bye for now guys! X

So the last blog was getting a bit long and tedious, thought I’d spice it up and do a 2nd one! Today we started our Monday morning with some reflective exercises where we had to try to communicate with someone on the other side of the room and try to draw a picture of what they were describing without seeing it… Safe to say it got very loud very quickly! The idea of this was to think about how important communication is and how we can work on it. We then went on to do a theory test which was not a fun thing to do at 10:30 on a Monday morning! The test was on cadences, chords, and listening. The whole way through the test I was sure I had failed, however Peter, our tutor, marked it over lunch and I got 19.5/20… Can’t complain at that eh! Then finally, before coming on here and rambling away, we had another communication exercise where we drew a grid on the floor and everyone had to cross it on a certain path which only Peter knew the way to… Basically an excuse to run around the college. It was a fun exercise and showed us how communication, planning, and teamwork are very important aspects of completing tasks as a large group. Well I think thats enough from me today… Until next time! Bye! X