Moulin Rouge Rehearsal

Today, I've been with the guys rehearsing the scores for the next college musical 'Moulin Rouge'. I'm finding it okay, because I've had a lot of experience sight readying for shows before.

I'm going to be on the floor with the cast. This has brought up the challenge of not being able to have the music in front of me. I'm going to have to memorize all the parts I play, which may be quite difficult. Nevertheless, I'm working hard on it and I'm about 75% of the way there.

It's rather a weird feeling playing the guitar I am for this show. I'm used to playing a strat or some other electric, but for this I'm using a nylon string classical guitar. I chose this so that it would give more of a twangy, Spanish/French kind of sound. It's working well! And it's a really nice sound!

Being a classical guitar, it's meant for finger picking and playing through classical pieces. It's still hard for me to finge rpick, but it's coming along nicely. I've found a lot of things online that help and talk you through the process of different pattern to play.

A bit of subject, but my favourite PlayStation game is called The Last Of Us. The game is about being one of a few survivors left in a world overrun with zombies. The music matches this exactly, as it has such a spacey, desolate feel to it. The composer was Gustavo Santaolalla, who composes for a lot of games. Here's a link to the soundtrack, I think it's beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97u-U0nvJM

Writing in the sun!

Seeing as it is lovely out, I thought I'd grab my guitar and transcribe some new Fenton tracks.

Good plan!

Band Transcription

This is one of the tracks from our EP. We have recently gained a brass player, so I have the task of writing and notating brass parts. I thought it would be best to have it as a lead sheet, and will do the rest in the format too.

Although it's a sax, she asked me to write in treble clef.

Practice Exercise

This is an exercise I've been using to get my alternate picking up to speed. Using a metronome is extremely useful, and it helps get your ears used to the difference of sextuplets and sixteenths.

You can also vary it, by maybe going up the A major scale in sixteenths, then down the B Dorian in sextuplets. You could also string skip to add even more saucy flavour.

The fun part is whacking on a metronome and seeing how fast you can get it!

Lazarus Video

I was given this piece to learn for a college assessment. It's originally meant for clarinet, but Phi arranged it for guitar.

I really struggled learning this piece, as the sheet music looked really intimidating. But I eventually learned it and got it up to a performable standard, and here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akrP-Gjgt68&feature=youtu.be

Lazarus Sheet Music

This is the sheet music for Lazarus. As you can see, I've had to annotate this as it's insane to sight read.

Tears In The Rain Sheet Music

This is what I've been working on for a while. I've been asked to record a video of me playing it, so that will follow shortly.

Tears In The Rain Video

This is me playing Tears In The Rain by Joe Satriani. I was given the sheet music and given some time to play it, and here it is.

I enjoyed playing this piece, as it's not really in my style. It's quite slow and soft. I also added some chorus to it to give it a spacey feel, as playing it with no effects left it quite plain.

I made a few mistakes in this, but I'm hoping to record a better take later this week. I'm going to write a post after I've uploaded some more videos about me being a musical perfectionist.

Here's the link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT9YxB82xA0&feature=youtu.be