week 31

Freddy banging out beats

hi there to all blog readers this week we've taken another look at the evidence checklist to make sure that every things been covered a majority of the project is finished and the leadership report has been wrote up and is now on the blog to read the project is nearly done all that is left to do is to finnish off the maggie may piece. today i have also looked at my rough draft piece of music and tried to come up with a way to carry on and create the piece even more which is driving me mad. Sometimes it can be difficult to create stuff but we have to carry on working on it to achieve.

Simon - making stuff work

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Lovely interview with Freddy showing us a rough sketch of his new peice of music he's written and talking about the impact his time with Noise Solution has had

Silver Arts Award leadership delivery report

Silver Arts Award leadership report

During my second stage of my silver arts award I had to teach somebody everything that I had learnt during the first part of my award which was to learn and cover all my targets and aims in music production, this covered studio set up to music editing and performance however to complete my silver arts award I had to pass the leadership stage of the course. Doing so I had to plan, choose and teach what I had learnt to someone who had not been educated in my profession.

My goal

My goal was to teach everything I knew about chord structure and learning a song and to get a mix down within four weeks and my view was that we managed to achieve most of that goal.

What I had to do for the leadership part of the course

My task for the leadership part of the course was to choose my student, which so happened to be my mother due to the fact that she had already undergone teaching from a previous piano teacher. she was keen to try a different way of learning which gave me the idea to show her what I know and that maybe it might help her understand music a lot more.

So i planned the weeks out for her by typing up a tuition plan and trying to cover the targets and goals following my custom made plan week by week setting time limits for each part of the sessions. The second part to the planning stage was to decide how long I would think I would need not to mention the student would need to educate and get everything across. I had decided to take the time for how long I could teach my topics which included introduction to chords and performing techniques so I thought four weeks would be an acceptable time phase to complete all the sessions in.

What went well with the sessions

Overall I thought that my teaching did get across and that we had managed to cover almost all of the set targets by arriving to the studio and cracking on with the teaching each week. Each week I would ask if there was anything my pupil struggled to understand or feel uncomfortable with which was good to know because if any problems had occurred in session they would have been solved with a solution of some kind. All in all I have enjoyed teaching my mother all of my set targets which included the basics of chord structure as this was a personal favourite of mine and still is. I like this because it  enables me to put together some awesome tunes and being able to just to get that across and understood and to see the progress my mother made is a memory i'll never forget.

What didn’t go well with the sessions

All in all there weren’t really any major problems but sometimes I felt that in some of the sessions I was beginning to worry that we wouldn’t cover most of the criteria’s in time and that occasionally time would over take us. Sometimes how I explained some of the easy topics would take awhile for my pupil to understand, which frustrated me from time to time but apart from that she did very well and everything was a success.

What would I do differently in the future

I think I would try and see if I could get more time than I had because I didn’t feel that I had enough time to teach in and it have would been nice to have recorded down the result as a record of achievement.

week 30 Interview with Simon

Interview with Simon my Tutor - As part of my Arts Award
the purpose of this interview was to find out more about musicians and discuss how they've succeeded in there music career as well as finding out whats available in the world we live in today i have also done another interview with another tutor who covered for my existing tutor while he was away.  I found out that to learn to begin a career in media and the musical arts is to start off in collage and work your way up and thats what i am going to do.

Here's a link to his bands website

http://www.tunng.co.uk/

And a video of his band

my interview with simon my tutor

my questions and reminders 

mums certificate 

week 29

hi there to all mad blog readers who also have a taste for music im here yet again to tell you what amazing stuff ive been getting up to this week.Well, firstly it was the last session of teaching my mother the piano today and shes come a long way since she first started going from only knowing piano notes to learning and understanding chords from majors to minors plus sharps over the course of 4 weeks my mother has undergone teaching from me learning chords and being able to perform her first song which was californiacation by the red hot chille peppers which after an hour of going over she nailed it. im so proud of of her for getting this far and that she achieved tremendously which made me feel great about the whole process of teaching her its been fun, educational and productive so a very good week indeed

Here's video of what Freddy managed to teach his mum in 4 hour long sessions over five weeks

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here's an interview about what  my mother thought about what sh had learnt

week 28

Hello there to all who like reading my blogs and this week i have carried on from teaching my mum and so far this has been her third week in the studio.

 Today I've continued teaching her the red hot chille peppers song californiacation so far my mother has improved yet again and  this week she's come to grips with the first verse of the song which I'm very happy with. To see that my mothers understood everything so quickly means that everything I've taught has been understood which means we have made progress.

I think personally the whole process has gone well because my mum has rapidly undersdtood and gotten to grips with the song in a three week period but the ammount of time this has taken means we may not have time to record the song - but this was always an extra option in our plan

Freddy and Jo (mum) reflecting on third weeks teaching.




 

Californication chords and Lyrics

Below are the chords for the Song Freddy's mum is learning on the piano - having not played the piano before.

Intro: Am F 4x

 Verse 1:

Am

Psychic spies from China

       F 

Try to steal your mind's elation

Am

Little girls from Sweden

         F   

Dream of silver screen quotations

    C                 G

And if you want these kind of dreams

     F        D

It's Californication

        

Am F x2

 Verse 2:

         Am

It's the edge of the world

           F

And all of western civilization

    Am

The sun may rise in the East

            F

At least it settles in the final location

     C               G

It's understood that Hollywood

      F        D

sells Californication

Am F x2

 Pre Chorus:

Am

Pay your surgeon very well

   F

To break the spell of aging

Am   

Celebrity skin is this your chin

    F

Or is that war your waging

Am            F

First born unicorn

Am             F

Hardcore soft porn

 Chorus:

C            G     D      Am

Dream of Californication

C            G     D

Dream of Californication

Am F x2

 Verse 3:

Am       

Marry me girl be my fairy to the world

      F

Be my very own constellation

  Am

A teenage bride with a baby inside

        F

Getting high on information

    C                   G 

And buy me a star on the boulevard

     F        D

It's Californication

Am F x2

 Verse 4:

        

Am

Space may be the final frontier

         F

But it's made in a Hollywood basement

Am       

Cobain can you hear the spheres

        F

Singing songs off station to station

     C            G

And Alderon's not far away

     F        D

It's Californication

Am F x2

Pre Chorus 2:

Am

Born and raised by those who praise       

      F               

Control of population 

 Am

Everybody's been there and

  F

I don't mean on vacation

Am            F

First born unicorn

Am            F

Hardcore soft porn

 Chorus:

C            G    D       Am

Dream of Californication

C            G    D

Dream of Californication

C            G    D       Am

Dream of Californication

C            G    D

Dream of Californication

F#m D F#m D

Bm D A E

F#m D F#m D

Bm D A E x3

Am F x2

 Verse 5:

Am   

Destruction leads to a very rough road

       F

But it also breeds creation

    Am

And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar

        F

They're just another good vibration

    C                    G

And tidal waves couldn't save the world

     F        D

From Californication

Am F x2 

 Pre Chorus 3:

Am

Pay your surgeon very well

   F

To break the spell of aging

Am

Sicker than the rest there is no test

    F     

But this is what you're craving

Am            F

First born unicorn

Am            F

Hardcore soft porn

 Chorus:

C            G    D      Am

Dream of Californication

C            G    D

Dream of Californication

C            G    D      Am

Dream of Californication

C            G    D

Dream of Californication

Review of Freddy's Silver Arts Award by Vicky

Review of Freddy’s Blog

By Vicky Roberts, Teacher.

Reading Freddy’s blog has been great fun. His relaxed style of writing makes you feel he is talking to you and explaining things as if you were there in front of him. The photos and use of sound bites enhanced the quality of the blog, really allowing the reader to gain a more rounded picture of what Freddy has achieved than words alone.

Freddy has included a high level of detail both about the technical aspects of what he has been learning in the studio and about how the songs he chose to perform took shape. These details could be useful to other students contemplating a similar project.

Freddy has also shown that he has completed a degree of research on the music of the different decades he has covered, which really pays dividends in the versions of the songs he has recorded as they have a very period authentic feel. My only criticism of this aspect of the project is that he has not included references of where he obtained his research. This is a huge research ‘no no’ as it amounts to plagiarism.
I found this format of reading a project slightly difficult in that I think some of the information Freddy has given would have been better placed in a different section of the blog. For instance, it was jarring for me to find the section on Gary Numan as a musical hero amongst Freddy’s 60s work. As a musical icon of the late 70s /early 80s I would have thought he would have been better placed in the blog after the Maggie May work. In the same vein I also found the gig review slightly odd in the middle of the 60s work as Motorhead are not a band of the 60s. I would also like to have seen Freddy’s project completed with his 80s song and a conclusion of what he feels he has achieved with this project.

Overall though I think Freddy has done a magnificent job with the blog and with enhancing his performance skills and studio skills. Knowing where he started from I am most impressed with how much he has achieved in a relatively short time frame and how he has matured during the process. His sense of enjoyment shines throughout the blog and I am so pleased that he has decided to continue his studies at Suffolk New College. He should be very proud of the work he has done with Noise Solution (and vice versa). Best of luck Freddy!