Overview:
This post will be detailing my time doing two collaborative projects.
My two project ideas:
My first project will be focusing on session musician work where I will be providing drum playing services, My main services include recording or playing drum tracks live. This work can be given to me either as something i need to write for or play given drum lines to play provided by the client.
By implementing outsourcing options such as online session musician hiring which will give a larger range of opportunities to work with wider range of clients in different styles of music.
Session musician work Diary and final products:
Christmas gig preparation
My first set of work was for Rubasu and Lila which is an artist collaboration that planned on performing at different events.
Dates and rehearsals:
8th November 2021
17th November 2021
23rd and 28th November.
Most of these days were spent looking through what we needed to learn and playing the set ready for the Christmas gig at the Frog and Fiddle.
Photos and videos from Christmas gig rehearsals:
throughout my time doing this I have learnt a lot of new things about dynamics, control, technique and feel. this session work is was particularly difficult to work on because of its vast difference to my usual style of playing. However, now that i have practiced this new style i have been able to incorporate it into my heavy drumming style which should add a bit more character and feel into the rhythm.
After this gig I was invited back to play two sets for the Jazz festival and Wychwood festival which will be including new songs.
Rory Jeffers “Don’t Leave Now” 29th March 2022.
My second project consists of recording semi-improvised punk drums in a full band recording. this was also in conjunction with Joe Courtney’s session work as he played and recorded some guitar and vocals on this track. I was given a demo drum beat which was meant to be something to take inspiration from. to follow this demo i stuck with the main beat and then added my own flares, accents and styles on top of it to make it sound human and to serve the music better. Joe, Rory and I, plus the two techs that were in the studio managed to record the whole song in a couple of hours in one day.
photos and tracks from this session
This was Definitely difficult because we couldn’t all play with a click track which meant that everything goes in and out of time at parts, it was also difficult because it was mostly improvisation with zero prior preparation or listening of the track.
My last project will consist of a busking styled teaching event which will be more of a community music works based event. I will hopefully be providing a little bit of drum teaching to anyone who walks by and wants to play an instrument. This could be carried over to guitar/bass teaching etc depending on how many instruments and people I decide to implement. My idea for this came from looking at a charity called “Help Musicians” of which is a non profit organisation working towards helping musicians from many different communities from around the world whom have or are still struggling to practice music due to various reasons depending on region and social climates, so with this in mind I want to give the community in cheltenham to have the chance to do something they may not do regularly in normal everyday life. I could also partner up with this organisation in particular and give any donations received from the event to them.
Music community public social event 9th July.
When planning for this event there were a lot of factors that i would have to consider before going forward with the event. Here is a list of these factors within their certain categories which correlate with contacts, equipment, transport, staff, public and own HnS, busking\un-licensed event proposal or planning, location, etc. My plan is to run this on 9th July which is a Saturday and will be at a time where most people are done with their assignments and work. The 9th is also on a Saturday which automatically means that there will be more foot traffic heading around the cheltenham high-street area.
equipment:
Electronic drum kit.
Guitar, either electric or acoustic.
Amplifier or speaker of some sort with a jack or 3.5mm input.
tuner.
People and organisations I need to contact:
Gloucester county about Busking rules and regulations regarding my event.
Help musicians to enquire about possible partnerships with this event.
Transport:
My Car.
Costs of fuel
Parking locations near town centre.
carrying equipment to specific location.
Staff:
figure out who I am going to work with on this event if any.
Can they teach an instrument?
Health and safety:
Cables that may be tripped on.
people intending malicious acts on either staff or equipment.
Covid-19 regulations and safety measures.
Location:
preferably hold the event where there is a lot of foot traffic.
Town Centre.
on university grounds.
Advertisement of the event:
posters.
post on local cheltenham community based web pages.
word of mouth with people in the uni.
how am I going to create posters that will grab the attention of passers by.
Inspiration for this event:
With this event and its nature I aimed for it to be similar in structure to The Rock Project (https://www.therockproject.com/) which also works with Help Musicians (https://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/). these are both very wide spread organisations that aim to encourage practice in music in some form. these organisations make music far more accessible than it usually would be and allows for more musically oppressed people in different communities around the world to be supported, by doing this, these organisations are making the music industry grow and adapt faster than ever. I think with this event I want to try and be a part of promoting music as a hobby or career because of the benefits gained from it. it would also be interesting if I would be able to inspire someone into making music or playing an instrument.
Location and stage plan:
Poster:
The aim is to make sure people know what this event is about instantly, it must also be child friendly as to not deter certain groups or age ranges from joining.
Transport:
everything will be driven by me with my car which should be able to carry all of the required equipment to the location in one trip.
Contact with charities and council:
I am using this email to let these guys know that there is a small event going on. If I can get them on board then this event could become a little bit more impactful to the music community than I thought because i would be able to directly contribute to these organisations and music through any donations that we may make.
EDIT:unfortunately I still have not received anything back from this email so i may have to go forward with this event on my own.
Health and safety:
Although this is not really too much of a problem any more we still need to keep our eye out on potential covid spread. To prevent this it would be wise for us to spray down and clean the instruments after use and wear face coverings. By doing this we will be ensuring a decent amount of covid prevention strategies for the event.
wires and cables will need to be tucked neatly and out of the way of foot paths to reduce the risk of tripping, slipping and pulling power sockets out of equipment.
electronics under harsh weather will need to be tuned off and protected by tarps to ensure that there are no short circuits or damage to people/equipment.
Potential lesson ideas:
I plan on teaching some simple drum rudiments like doubles, para-diddle etc to get people started and then maybe work through building a beat by implementing new layers after every bar. This is good for starting limb independence, bar counting, hand technique and writing drum parts which i think will be well rounded enough to get someone started or in a sense introduced to some of the main points in drumming that they will start to learn.
If I teach guitar then I will have maybe go through and learn some chords myself or just show how to play power chords and extensions of those, this is where a helper with knowledge in guitar playing would be helpful for this event.
Anthony Watts Music 