Posters

Posters to advertise the guitar, bass and drum apps:

Designer: Josh Bos

Writing & Recording Graded Pieces - Developing Repertoire

As well as the tuition and the exercises that develop skills, technique and understanding of the chosen instrument, it is also important to develop repertoire ie tunes. 

On our fourth day of filming, we devoted the day to recording and filming a number of tunes that have been specially written to explore the techniques and skills that feature in our lessons. These tunes will feature as play alongs... guitar players will be able to play along with bass & drums, drummers with guitar & bass etc.

All of the pieces are written with reference to a specific musical genre eg rock, metal, reggae, funk etc... the piece below is written in the style of (New Orleans) funk with particular reference to the Meters, hence the title, Meter Maid.

Above: page 1 of the 'lead' sheet' featuring the solo (guitar or keyboards), bass & drum parts.

The piece features three sections: 

Section A: a chord motif featuring 4 basic chords: D, G, C & Em. The speed of the piece is 80 bpm which is quite slow and it is important to play the chords rhythmically accurately.

Section B: features a melodic motif with a strong emphasis on 'the one' (a funk concept explained in our funk tutorial). The notes spell out the Dm7 chord with an additional 4th of the scale (G).

The majority of the piece is based around the alternation of these two sections but there is also a third section which features a modulation (key change) to the 4th degree of the scale (G) which again is a classic funk technique. This third section, section C also features an opportunity for a couple of bars of improvisation and introduces one more chord A7. 

Though there is thematic repetition throughout the piece, the bass and drum parts are constantly evolving utilising alternative performance techniques, all of which is detailed in the score and also in the tutorial that accompanies each specific piece.

Sibelius

All parts for the pieces are prepared in Sibelius

Below are two more pictures of the filming on the day:

Day 3: More Filming & Recording Drum Lessons!

By the end of day 3 we had successfully filmed and recorded twenty new drum lessons, a new drum intro as well as one new guitar lesson and three new bass lessons... productivity was certainly on the up. 

Steve & drums in the TV studio

The principle reason for this high output is preparation and experience. Because we have been refining the techniques and technology over a period of months the benefits of that experience are now really starting to pay off. 

Having a good camera monitor system makes all the difference (connected via HDMI)

And there was one new and major factor in the equation... we were using a dedicated TV studio which gave us instant access to the space and facilities that we need.

This Z5 was mounted on the lighting bars above the drum kit. It was connected to a HQ monitor via a HDMI cable and was operated using a remote control.

Recording the drums (audio)... the Glyn Johns technique:

We used just four microphones to record the drums: 

1x Sennheiser 901 for the kick drum

1x Sennheiser 421 for the snare

2x Neumann KM184's for the overheads

Our intention was to capture a natural sound that the student could relate to in the videos and using four (high quality) microphones in preference to the more familiar technique of spot mic's on every part of the kit was a simple but effective solution.

The critical aspect to the 'Glyn Johns' approach (the engineer most associated with this technique) is firstly to use good microphones(!), record good source material and also; to set up the two overheads equidistant from the snare, one approximately 1 metre above the snare, the other (at the same distance) to the right of the drummer. These two mic's must be 'in phase', achieved by placing them equidistant to the source.

When mixing the four drum tracks; the two spot mic's, (kick & snare) should be panned to the centre. The o/h mic above the snare, halfway to the right and the other o/h, hard left, thus creating a sense of space and depth.

KM 184's

Below: Sennheiser 421 on the snare

Below: Sennheiser 901 inside the drum shell

Day 2: Filming & Recording Drum Lessons

A good day!

Steve, our drum tutor very kindly provided us with a schedule of all of the additional required camera shots for the first twenty lessons... below are the shots for lessons one & two:

The key word here is additional! Using a four camera set up, we film the lessons from various angles. The above descriptions, are for the cutaway shots and one can see from the list, the amount of detail and thought that goes into each lesson.

Above & below are some shots of the very beautiful Mapex kit that we used. Thank you Duncan!

Focusing on the snare drum:

With all of the classes, guitar, bass & drums, we start with an overview of the instrument and lesson one - drums, features an in depth look at all of the various parts of the kit:

Filming one of the cutaway, additional shots:

Tony & Steve

Below: a couple of examples from the lessons. Here are some of the drum exercises written out in drum notation:

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

April - Filming a Series of Drum Lessons

We are planning to film and record twenty drum lessons over 4 days in April and my intention is to cover each day with a separate theme of the day's activity.

We spent day one setting up the lights and cameras and we filmed our drum tutor, Steve Wilson doing the voice over to all of the introductions and outro / summaries for all of the twenty lessons.

Day 1: setting up.

This is Richard, fearlessly setting up a Z5 for an overhead drum shot

Steve (drum tutor) recording (audio & video) his intros and outros. The blue screens behind him will be chroma keyed out creating a perfect black backdrop. Richie on the left is working the autocue, cameraman Alex with his back to the camera.

In the picture below you can see the Sennheiser 'shotgun' microphone used to record the audio and the monitor screen mounted on the camera stand that we use to check the shot. Richie is setting the autocue on the laptop.

We are fortunate to be working in a well equipped TV studio with our usual array of cameras, lights, diffusors, screens and a Pro Tools rig in the control room. 

The diffusors (the two white umbrellas) are used to light the subject with soft diffused light rather than having the powerful beam of the halogen spots 'bleaching out' the subject.

A good day!

Cameras - The Sony Z5

Cameras play a significant role in everything that we do. 

All of the team started their careers in a variety of roles in the music industry. Latterly we moved into teaching but as teachers or musicians we quickly realised the power of being able to capture the moment using a camera. 

In the music industry it is essential to have a showreel, a testament to what you can do and clearly, if that includes visual as well as audio information, so much the better. 

As we moved into roles in education, the opportunity to capture student work on film became a powerful means for collecting 'evidence' of achievement. 

We have two weekly performance afternoons and we video all of the performances and replay them at the end of the session for our evaluation but most importantly, for the students to evaluate themselves and each other. A significantly effective learning process.

Cameras are not cheap, so it is essential to undertake some research before making an investment.

There are many makes of camera out there, and in the past we have used Canons, in fact we still use a number of small hand held Canon HF10's for a range of smaller jobs.

These great little cameras record to flash solid state memory... no annoying tapes to buy and store and we have over three hours of HD recording available.

But for the filming that we have undertaken with this project we have used 2x Sony Z5's and 1x Sony Z1.

The latter camera, the Sony Z1 is something of a legend and for a long time it seemed ubiquitous in it's use with TV camera crews around the world. This was the first HD camera that we bought, some three years ago now and it has not faltered. A really well built, solid and reliable piece of technology with all of the features that we needed at the time.

When the Z5 came out a couple of years ago we knew we needed another camera and based on the excellent reviews and the fact that our Z1 had performed so well and so consistently we decided to go for another Sony and I am confident that it was the right decision.

Things we like about the Z5:

Its a good portable size, better weight balance than the Z1 with a great lens from the new 'G' series with ehnhanced low light sensitivity

'G' series lens with 20x zoom

Externally the camera has buttons and switches for all parameters of the camera for ease of use on the go - when you need to change settings quickly.

Audio & light filter controls... notice in particular the 3rd control ring which adds exposure to zoom and focus. A significant addition!

Very handy external audio recording selection

Full hd recording (1080i and 1080p) and native 25p, provides high quality, high definition wide screen images

XLR's provide an input for specialist microphones

The built in stereo microphone is really useful for simple audio or as a reference. There was also a small but effective shotgun mic supplied and like the Z1 it is easy to connect specialist microphones to the well placed (easy access) XLR sockets.

The Z5 has an expandable module, MRC1K, for recording to compact flash card which provides an alternative to lengthy real time tape capturing (discussed in previous blog). No more DV tape storage.

The Z5 has a view finder and a 3" lcd fold out screen for view shots but significantly it also has an 'hdmi' output allowing us to connect to an external monitor for a larger more in depth image preview. as seen in previous blog.

Friday - More iPads into Schools

An early start today, by 8:00am I was at Worle Secondary School with a gift of three iPads fully loaded with our guitar & bass lessons. Pictured below are Howard (head of department) & Gill, two of the music specialists there:

Gill McLorinan

Howard Sayer (Head of Music)

Gill McLorinan

Howard Sayer (Head of Music)

Next stop, Priory School and head of music Clive Day. I arrived at Priory at 8:30 and by that time, students were in evidence. Within 5 minutes two budding guitarists were using the lessons!

Clive Day (Head of Music @ Priory)

Rich (bass guitar)

Ryan (6 string guitar)

Wyvern Secondary School was my final visit of the day where I met with Carolyn (Head of Music) and Will

Carolyn & Will

On Wednesday evening I visited Broadoak School where Ryan Aves (pictured below) teaches music. 

Ryan Aves (Acting Head of Music Broadoak School)

He also received an iPad bundle and the following day he sent an email which ended with the following paragraph:

'I've demo'ed the iPads with some keen students that are completely amazed by them, I really wouldn't be surprised if this would generate a huge uptake of musical instruments over the next year.

Thanks,

Ryan'