FMP Evaluation

Critical Analysis;

The professional work I would compare my own work to would Jill Scott’s – Golden at the White House. I think from comparing our end result to her version, we have definitely succeeded in what we wanted to do. I feel like we went above what we originally thought we were going to perform which resulted in us being really satisfied with our work. 



Arrangement/MD fits into the music industry since this is needed when an artist may want to perform live. They would be the person to get the band together and to also change the song slightly from the original to make it sound different. For example, Beyoncé’s studio version of Upgrade U is different from some of her live versions. I struggled with being able to get enough practice time with everyone since they had their own and others projects to work on. 

Also, I struggle with creating a horn section since it was an instrument I was familiar with so this then resulted in a horn section that could have been better if I had the right knowledge. If I could do anything differently, I would go into deeper research on how to arrange music with a horn section and also, manage my time and other people’s better so we use that most of the time we have for practice. In the future, I will hopefully fully plan out exactly what I want to do and follow it so I won’t go off task.

Research;

     My key areas of research were how arrangement worked and what were the different elements of arrangement e.g. voicing chords. The methods I used when researching were watching YouTube videos and also reading articles on different websites on information that related to arranging music. I feel like have completed enough research. However, I feel like my research has been more practical based. I feel like have completed enough research. However, I feel like my research has been more practical based. The areas that I would have looked at in detail if I had time was arrange for horn sections as this would of made it easier to have more input out how and what I want the trumpet and sax to sound like. I have learnt that I need to be sure of what instrumentation I want to use so I can gain full knowledge and be able to know what I’m talking in regards to a certain instrument.

      Technical/ Practical skills;

     The research that I have done has enabled me to broaden the type of chords that I used. For example, learning Golden and how the chords are structured and why each note is played in certain place, I widened my knowledge of chords and also what different chords sound like and how to manipulate this to use it in my own work. I developed better leadership skills by having to put forward my ideas and to lead the practice and give feedback as to what can be better. I feel like my practical skills have improved for example, my technique when playing the piano. I am able to move more fluently, especially when doing my solo in Golden which required moving between two octaves over one bar of eight at 105bpm approx.

      Project Management/ Working Methods;

     The problems that I encountered were not having a clear idea of what I wanted to do which made me having to change my idea which then resulted to not spending as much time that I could have if I had started with that idea. Also, when working with other people it make you become dependent on not just yourself, and this made a slight problem as if one person doesn’t remember what we did in the previous practice, it sets the whole band back from moving on. In the beginning, I had wanted to arrange four songs and to also put a band together to perform these songs in the final performance. While doing this I was also helping other people with their project and I realised that I was spending more time on other peoples projects and not on my own which made me come to the decision to do a collaboration with Erica but to still keep my project around the same area which was arranging. I used these access times to learn more of the song or used it with Erica to compose our original song without the whole band as it was easier to give them the music when it was completed.

       

      Collaboration;
      The people I worked with were
      Erica Adriko - Singer and also co writer for our original song

      David Olasebikan- Played Drums for all 3 songs 

 Alex Whitmore - Played Trumpet for all 3 songs 
 Josh Ayensu - Played Bass for all 3 songs 
 Oliver Sellwood - Played Saxophone for Golden  
      I did a collaboration with Erica and she was the person to take care of vocals and other vocal harmonies. I really liked working with Erica for this project since we understood what each other was doing and was able to give suggestions even though singing is not one of my instruments and piano isn’t one of hers. However, when trying to tell each other our ideas it was hard to understand her sometimes because she wasn’t able to demonstrate what she meant which became frustrating at times.

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