Boot Camp 2011 Show Review:

Firstly i would like to give a shoutout to the first years for setting up the gear in the early start that they had so well done for that dudes & dudettes!!!

The show went really well. Had a few mistakes but hey thats just rock & roll!

When i got at the college i was given a friendly greeting by my group but as soon as that Pete had apprached me earliar yesterday asking me to play on both his tracks because he thought it was seriously lacking the thickness it needed so he wanted my help to play bass on his tracks so i aggreed and just asked him what key they were in because to be honest thats all i needed to know really.

We were the first group on and its rather challenging to be the first act up but to be honest i prefer it to just get it done with and enjoy the other groups afterwards is a real treat for me. As soon as we finished our track which went really well we got a good reception from the crowd...well what was of the crowd anyways..And Pete's group was the second on so i stayed on stage so we started his first track I kissed a girl by katy perry and honestly i rather enjoyed the track because i just went all out on it. No mercy!!! played a proper thick & dirty bass line underneath everything else and it sounded really good considering ive never played the track before in my life. So that went really well. When that finished i sat back and watched the other groups perform and i must say i was pretty impressed to what they had done. All of it was very tight. By the time it was our turn again it was our main track Faint and i just wanted to go all out on it i wanted to go nuts on it!!! But for some strange reason when i picked up my bass and started the track my bass was horribly out of tune every single string was almost like elastic and all the pegs were de-tuned sabotage?? I think it may have been foul play seeing as i tuned it myself with a TUNER and placed it behind everyone right before the group before us started playing i left the hall to go to the toilet i come back and it was like that i wasn't pleased at all and not only that my volume & tone nobs had fallen off my bass..im not to sure if that was because it was simply knocked it may be the case because i think someone would've noticed someone knocking the nobs off my bass but the whole de-tuning thing?? Its pretty possible that it was sabotaged. Theres no way that it was an accident. Anyway most of the song i was trying to tune my bass back up while playing & singing it was not easy at all..so i had to find a different way to play it while playing infront of a live audience. Then when the breakdown part came i screamed (as i do) and everyone stopped!!! It turns out that Davi got a little excited and flung his stick half way across the stage by complete accident i dont blame him at all for it seeing as he bounced right back within a few seconds but on stage during a song that may seem like a good while. Anyway we bounced back and finished it with a good reception. Straight after that i was playing bass for Petes group again this time it was their second track Flo Rida Travis Barker Remix and it was SICK!!! Again i'd never played it before but me & Pete just went crazy on it filling the instrumental parts with bass & drum solo's but the highlight for me was when the build up towards the end came and i did a crazy solo when it went quiet and me and pete just bounced straight back in with the progression of the track i love working with Pete its so easy to play music with him because we blend really well together. SO once that finished we got roars from the crowd i was rather proud of myself i then sat down and enjoyed the rest of the show. It ould have gone alot better i think in terms of audience because i felt it really wasn't enough seeing as the usual boot camp crowd is usually 200+ people honestly dont know what happened there but hey it was fun!! We packed up the gear and headed over to the park to celebrate and have a good time it was an excelent day!!!

WELL DONE GROUP ONE & TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bring on the new Term!!!

Day 6 of rehearsals (Thursday)

Today was pretty hectic,

We had rehearsals non stop all day and we only had a couple of breaks not like the usual days where half the time we're in the production suite doing nothing or the keyboard lab. Shadae was a no show again same as yesterday we saw her around in the morning she'd say she'd be up in a minute then we wouldn't see her until we finished for the day and she'd say those words ''Are we finished then??'' To be blunt its like a rusty nail being slowly drilled into my brain when i hear that its so retarded...Anyways The entire day we were focused on making sure that the tracks were as note perfect as we thought and they were honestly we were very bored of the tracks by today which isn't a bad thing because 9 times out of ten if your bored of a song you play it better when you actually perform it because you know the structure like the back of your hand. The show's tomorrow and im very excited about it but at the same time i want it over and done with.

Its gonna be good

Day 5 of rehearsals: (Wednesday)

Today was a pretty chilled day nothing to rushed it was all pretty laid back most of the time. We carried on rehearsing our tracks the whole day and to be honest nothing eventfull happened we've got the songs sorted now note perfect all the way through.

Tomorrow is the final day of rehearsals. Then the show on Friday

Day 4 of rehearsals:

Today was a fairly average day for me and the group. We were in the Live Room first thing so it was an awesome feeling to get stuck into rehearsals straight away. Something amazing happened at around 10:20 Shadae turned up relitavly on time...I was really suprised because after yesterday where she assured me that she was going to step up and work harder she was actually here kind of on time and ready to work. It was good until we actually started rehearsing she realized that because she spends so much time away from our rehearsal time she didn't actually know how to play the songs..None of the group was pleased by this especially Rebecca seeing as she's had to take over all keyboard duties on her own and has wasted hours trying to teach Shadae the songs. So of course natual Shadae behavior the phone came out and she didn't do anything apart from that until rehearsal finished. The songs are so tight right now i counted 1 mistake they are so solid everyone knows what they are doing apart from the one exeption but hey i've talked about that alot over the past few days. Once rehearsal time finished we were in the Drum Room straight away so we basically just carried on we managed to get the stops and starts in Gary's track perfect this time around. Shadae left the rehearsal room after 5 minutes and we never saw her for the rest of the day. We finished really early today because we all had other stuff to do for example i had keyboard stuff to do and the first years which are Hana, Gary & Becca had to do their target skills gold so we had 2 rehearsal slots today but to be honest we don't need to many as we are getting bored of playing the two songs already.

In terms of progress it was a good day.

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Day 3 of rehearsals:

Today was a productive one conidering we had alot less time there as a whole. We started off the day again as usual in the production suite..we were fine with this because our tracks were coming along to the point where we can play them at will with minor mistakes. When we actually started rehearsing an hour or so later we were making great progress working as a musical ensoumble its getting to the point where we understand eachother as musicians and work buddy's really we were always talking about our blogs and what we have individually written in them about our time there as an ensoumble, We're always comparing and sharing ideas Me & Davi especially as we've done this before. Once again today Shadae was nowhere to be seen by anyone during the day. Me and Gary saw her cross the road at about 11:00 in the morning just before we started rehearsals but not to the college rather in the oppisite direction but to be honest we were not suprised by this because her attendance & punctuality has been disgusting since last week. When we finished for the day she came over and said ''are we rehearising or what? are we finished?'' I got extremely frusterated at the amount of stupidity that i saw and heard at that moment...The thing is aswell she seemeed to be completely oblivious to the fact that we start at 10:00..Its really frusterating for the group because on the day of the show she'll mime play and take credit then get her grades..Where as in reality she does absolutly nothing to contribute in rehearsal time even in non-rehearsal time the only things she does do is reccomend playing songs that are not our tracks and just ''piss about'' as it were..im actually sick of it and whoever reads this must think ''man your bullying her'' Where really im not the entire group doesn't like what shes doing im sure all their blogs have mentioned it. Anyway i confronted her about why she did not turn up on time and her excuse was ''I had things to do'' I wouldn't mind but this what has been happening since we started last week..she either walks in the room and sits on her phone for the duration we rehearse or she doesnt turn up i am sick of it.

Anyways rehearsals were good we're on the right track for friday
hope tomorrow will be as productive or even more so.

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Day 2 of rehearsals:

All in all today was a very productive day.

We started the day in the Keyboard Lab but to be honest the group was not to bothered about this. We then moved to the Production Suite we could do absolutly nothing in there because there aren't any AMPS In the room and all the ones that you could take in there were already being used by a other groups, This made it very hard to make any real musical progress seeing as 2 hours we made none but, We did make the most of it.

Shadae was nowhere to be seen it was already 12:00 and no one had seen her and we were then due in the live room to rehearse for the first time today. This rehearsal slot was a very productive one by the time we ran through it a couple of times we had finally mastered playing ''Faint'' as a group. I started singing the chorus of the song and i was occasionally joining in with Gary's rap vocals and it made it very fun for me and everyone else. Although, I found it very hard to scream the breakdown and play the breakdown riff simmutaniously. I eventually found a way around it by letting Hana play the riff and i just play one note while the breaking is occuring. Rebecca also played along during the breakdown to put more into it so it'd sound heavier to the audiences ear. It was fine by the time we were comfortable enough to play it without the backing track although, We found it a whole lot easier to play it without the backing track funny enough. So when ''Faint'' was done we decided to move onto our second track ''Lyrical Tantrum'' By Gary we found this one alot easier than faint but the only problem we had was the timing/correctness with the Drums & Keyboards. After much time and effort it finally came to them, Me and Hana were pretty set because we had already sat down and worked it out together during the time we were in the Keyboard Lab. Shadae finally turned up at 2:30 and honestly neither me or the rest of the group were pleased in the slightest i mean, 10-20 minutes for traffic sure thats not a problem but four and a half hours is absolutly disgusting. She came in and sat on her phone barely did a thing and then she asked me to play my bass and due to past experiences i politley said no and she got very offended and walked out the room. She then came back when we were packing up to leave 30 minutes later. I don't even know why shes here to be honest. But anyway rants aside both the tracks are ready to perform next week we as a group will be perfecting the tracks for the audience nest week Friday. I can't wait.

So happy with my group with the one exeption. We're all getting on really well musically & socially (:
Love you guys <3

Bring on Monday i say!!!

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Day 1 of rehearsals:

Today was officially the first day of rehearsals for the upcoming boot camp show. The first room we were put in for the day was the Production Suite. Before we got in there we thought it'd be an ideal time to disscuss in depth about the song choices but when we got in there we soon realized that there was no internet, It was really needed because Gary's Original was on youtube and we couldn't listen to it so, There was really nothing we could do for the first hour of the day apart from talk about the tracks/show we made some progress verbaly but we were ambitious to start practicing. We changed rooms and we were then in the Keyboard Lab being in here made it a little more entertaining for example we had the internet so we could listen to Gary's track and get a rough idea of the track itself. Me and Hana the groups guitarist were playing along to the youtube track when i found a simple yet effective chord progression that would blend with the track. Rebecca the group's Keyboard player gave us the notes and we pretty much just followed with the tempo after we knew the notes and it sounds pretty good for a rough guess to be honest. Shadae the groups....Not quite sure what she does really she said she sings & plays keyboards but she ''Doesn't sing infront of people'' And decides to go on her phone when she needs to play keyboards so not much has changed since last year when i was placed in her group so somehow im in this again. She made a decent effort during the course of the day when we were finally put into the Live Rooom (The first time we had actual rehearsing time together seeing as we were put in the keyboard lab & the production suite twice) She was following Rebecca with the keyboard playing side of things but of course she would be on her phone most of the time. Anyway Once we actually started rehearsing together it was pretty much a breeze for me & Hana we work pretty well together i taught her the progression of ''Faint'' & she picked it up relitivaly quickly so i was pleased about that. The only thing that took quite a long time was Rebecca working out the right notes for the synth into in ''Faint'' And Davi trying to figure out the correct drum pattern for the track, Its quite a fast paced track so i can completely understand why he was struggling keeping in time. The final rehearsal time for the day we decided to carry on working on ''Faint'' with the rapped vocals and Gary had it from the start he struggled alot on the second verse its pretty tongue twisting to be fair and we were more than willing to give him the time he needed to be able to rap it at will with the rest of the group. I pushed the group pretty hard to get it right for example as soon as the backing track finished i re-played it almost straight away just to make sure we could get it to the point where we knew it well enough to play without the track. I'm hoping it will be as fresh in their minds as it is in mine when it comes to playing it tomorrow but other than that Well done Group 1!!!! <3

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Boot Camp Show: Group meeting and organizing

At 2:00 we were put into groups and i think everyone was as curious as i when we were finally put into the selected groups for the upcoming 2011 Boot Camp show. I had my doubts at first but once i was put into my group (Group 1) I was very pleased with the results seeing as within the first ten minutes or so we already decided on the two tracks we are going to do for the show. Me and Davi suggested to the first years the easiest way to decide on potential material was to choose one cover and an original track, Either we write one together as a group or an induvidual of the group reccomends a track of their own that they think will be suitable for the show. We had quite a breif disscussion about what we were going to choose. It was breif mainly because the members of the group were into similar music, Although Gary is into Hip-Hop but he also likes rock music so we decided as a group to pick a track from a band that used the best of both worlds Hip Hop & Hard Rock Linkin Park's Faint was the first choice reccomended by me & Davi. Everyone really liked the idea of playing it live especially seeing as everyone will be able to take part by incouperating what they do best to make the track a good'n to play live. We then decided who will be playing what on the track:

Me - Bass Guitar & lead vocals
Davi - Drums
Hana - Lead Guitar
Gary - MC Vocals
Rebecca - Keyboards/Synths

Once we finished deciding the cover Gary then reccomended one of his own original Hip-Hop tracks so we listened to a few of his originals and picked out the one we liked most and more importantly picked the one that would give everyone in the group an oppertunity to take part in the track. We then made our way to the Live Room to start rehearsing the tracks although, We decided that we should give ''Faint'' The most amount of attention first seeing as its a little more complex than Gary's original. [ ] Fount it quite hard to get the right notes for the Synth intro on the track so we all chipped in and helped her until it was completely right and honestly no one had to reccomend ''We should help her'' It was all very natural. Me and Hannah took some time to get the our Rythum synchronised but once we got it it was fine. Davi had a little trouble keeping the beat right but it is quite a complex beat and he assured us he will get he just needs more practice time.

So at the moment so far so good. I hope tomorrow will be as progressive as this afternoon was.

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