Task 1 Black History Month Concert- Online logbook with research materials, meeting notes, weekly rehearsal notes, and evaluation.
We were informed that we would be doing a concert to promote awareness and commemorate Black History Month. I immediately thought of songs sung by black singers since it felt more suitable because we are encouraging black artists and helping to bring greater recognition to their careers by singing one of their songs.
Black History Month 2021: What is it? - CBBC Newsround
The link which I attached above discusses the purpose of the event which is to honour persons of African or Caribbean descent for their contributions and accomplishments. It's also a chance for individuals to learn more about the consequences of racism and how to combat harmful perceptions. When Black History Month began in the United Kingdom, there was a strong emphasis on black American history. It is a celebration of differences. Black History Month isn't just about promoting diversity; it's also about celebrating it. It brings us together. We come together when we celebrate variety and recognise its beauty. It moves us beyond the pages of history. We study history at school in one way or another: U.S. History, World History It assists us in comprehending the significance of our stories.
We performed the concert on Tuesday 19th October 2021
Questions:
1. What is the purpose of doing the concert?
The purpose is to spread awareness and message towards the importance that these black figures created which allowed our people to live life freely and without freedom. Unity being strengthened. And the ASALH stretched the annual week-long commemoration of Black history to a month in 1976, when the United States celebrated its bicentennial, and Black History Month was formed. President Gerald Ford encouraged Americans to mark Black History Month the same year, but it was President Jimmy Carter who officially acknowledged the month in 1978.
2. How will you get the message across to the audience?
I will choose my selected songs carefully so I am to pick a song which will display a clear deliverance of expressing black history. Meaning I would look into some artists that already have made songs regarding to problems which black people face on a daily basis and expressing their thoughts and views through the lyrics which I must take into consideration so I am able to understand the context and sense of emotion shown. As the purpose of the event is to recognise the contributions and accomplishments of people of African or Caribbean descent. It's also a chance for individuals to learn more about the consequences of racism and how to combat harmful perceptions.
3. How will you organise and evidence your planning, reflections, and developments?
The way I'll organise and provide evidence for my planning for this Black History Month Concert is to keep track of the minutes I spend alone with my classmates during rehearsals so that I can write a clear reflection of each rehearsal weekly and discuss individual and group development to show evidence of growth and impact on the group work performance. Writing it up on a word document will allow me to show my notes from the minutes during the rehearsal because it provides a structure to help make the process much easier and to help with organisation skills because it provides templates or examples of how your work can be sectioned to ensure a clear presentation.
4. select and email your song choices/what songs have you selected?
Research:
Thomas DeCarlo Callaway (born May 30, 1975) is an American singer, rapper, record producer, and businessman better known by his stage name CeeLo Green (or Cee Lo Green). His popular singles "Crazy" and "Fuck You" are among his most well-known works in soul music. Green was also a founding member of Atlanta's Goodie Mob hip hop group. He is the eldest of the four children. The Goodie Mob was a member of the Dungeon Family, an Atlanta rap group that also included Outkast.
We understood as a group that this song would be ideal since certain audience members will recognise it, and because of the soul element in the song, everyone will be able to get into a good mood and dance along. Since it's a catch-all phrase for a variety of pop music styles pioneered by African-Americans beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Rhythm and blues (R&B), urban blues, Motown, smooth jazz, and gospel music are all genres that fall under the "soul" umbrella.
Forget you - Cee lo Green:
Cee-Lo Green's expletive-laden viral hit "F—k You" is now available in a radio-friendly version. Cee-Lo delivers 16 f-bombs in under 3 1/2 minutes in the original version of the song about being dumped for a Ferrari-driving slickster.
You might have assumed that a tragic lady who disturbed "The Lady Killer" was the idea for this song. Green, on the other hand, revealed that the hit was the result of creative conflicts with his label, Elektra Records. He explained, "I did 'F—- You' to be a jerk, to be nasty about the label." "Because it had taken me nearly three years to complete The Lady Killer, and I just felt like I couldn't please them after recording almost 70 songs."
Forget You by Cee Lo Green - Songfacts
5. How do they relate to black history month?
Cee Lo Green relates to Black History Month because, through his music, he stated that he was attempting to elevate music with the song, something he believes the music industry does not do enough of, which relates to how we celebrate Black History Month to keep the government and everyone informed that there are still many things to change to help make the environment a better place, allowing everyone to have equal rights and the ability to live life without fear. And Cee Lo Green is able to advocate factors that he believes deserve more attention through his music.
6. How will you interpret the material and turn it into highly creative/imaginative ideas?
Despite the fact that this song is sung by only one primary soloist, I wanted to give it a distinct vibe by expanding the song to include a bunch of soloists and introducing a range of harmonies and style deliverance on how to sing the song. Because this fits and aims towards the Black History Month concept by demonstrating togetherness through music, it allows everyone to have fun and share a shared interest in music.
By doing so, we transform this into a highly innovative performance solely because we shift the focus from one vocalist to a group, symbolically demonstrating that everyone can shine no matter what. And the use of add libs in this song allows for a humorous effect especially this verse:
'Now baby, baby, baby, why'd you wanna wanna hurt me so bad?
(so bad, so bad, so bad)
I tired to tell my mama but she told me,
This is one for your dad,
(Your dad, your dad, your dad, yes she did)
Why? Why? Why?, lady?
CeeLo Green - Fuck You! Lyrics | AZLyrics.com
This stanza in particular is one of my favourites since I can exaggerate the add-libs, making the listener feel even more entertained.
Summary of Rehearsals:
Our group decided to schedule rehearsals and what each rehearsal will entail during our weekly music sessions, as well as what strategies we will need to bring our attention to detail, and how we can enhance it successfully as a group and assure no weak places during our practise performances. Entering or forming groups, and then working with them such that members can be around each other, accept responsibility, and collaborate on shared activities, requires practitioners to have some extremely advanced talents. These qualities are sometimes underappreciated because, when done correctly, groupwork can appear natural. So, in a work group, decisions are normally made from the top down; duties and responsibilities are clearly defined, and each worker understands their job.#
Even though some of us were previously familiar with the song's lyrics, we spent the first few sessions learning them. After spending a few hours learning and practising different vocal techniques and stylistic delivery, we decided to move on to slowly blending each vocalist's voice into the performance while still giving each vocalist their own flare because we didn't want to lose the factor or message we were trying to deliver since Black History Month was created to help bring awareness and commemorate black history, and every single black person has had their own journey to developing and growing. By helping our initiative to raise awareness and commemorate Black History Month. We chose to support our student union, which I am a member of; my role is communication and social media, and I used this performance as an opportunity to help promote this important month through social media and during the concert, mentioning the charity we were raising money for to help reduce the number of racist and hate crimes against black people.
Returning to rehearsals, we spent time trialling and erroring different backing tracks for our performance to see what would suit the adaptations we made as a group and ensuring that it sounded perfect, especially during the verses, where there is call and response due to the different pitch ranges we had within the group. We also missed the fact that we needed to assign who would do the call and respond to create smooth transitions between each verse and chorus, as this represents unity and equality metaphorically. This is in line with the fact that working in groups provides a number of advantages. Because groups are made up of many people, collective performance is usually always superior to an individual acting alone. In terms of knowledge, collective memory, physical strength, and other abilities, many brains are better than one. When it comes to group work, everyone is helpful and attentive, which allows us to go along smoothly and efficiently, which is something we all agreed on because we wanted to make sure we had enough time for rehearsals.
Evaluation:
This is a self-evaluation that includes a few pieces of feedback from the audience. I'll begin by evaluating myself as a performer; overall, the entire performance production ran successfully, and everyone clearly demonstrated the talent of organisation and preparation, allowing everyone to have a timely start and conclusion. We successfully delivered the lyrics with the correct emotion and body language for our group performance that I was involved in, as one audience member who I spoke with said that the eye connection was spot on as it allowed them to feel as though they were acknowledged and felt that we were delivering the performance to them, and we maintained our focus of a powerful production. to keep the self-evaluation going I was able to ensure a clear smooth transition between the call and responses parts that were embedded in our performance, as well as to maintain a similar flow of rhythm throughout the song, which meant I was able to deliver the lyrics on time and present the stylistic delivery I desired, which would intrigue the audience and allow them to keep their focus on the performance rather than what was happening in the atrium area where we held this performance, a performance that was held in the atrium area where we held this performance.
Learning to control the use of dynamics and understanding the microphone's ability to pick up how much sound it can pick up or rearranging the form to allow those who aren't able to sing louder to use the microphone to help support them are the factors I would focus on for future reference of any performance we do. One audience member told me that I didn't need to use a microphone because I naturally provide a healthy clear projection. Researching guidance or attending any practical seminars that I am unable to attend can help me practise on controlling dynamics and perfecting this so that when I sing future songs, I can match the same wavelength or tone utilised during the song. By doing so, I'm preparing myself to grow and develop my singing voice techniques, which is something I'd like to keep focusing on in order to get a professional impression throughout my performances.
Task 2 Time Travel- Online logbook with research materials, meeting notes, weekly rehearsal notes and evaluation:
Another aspect of our unit 15 was that as a class, we had to come up with a topic that we could all agree on and sing a song that related to the theme. After spending many hours researching and brainstorming ideas, we all decided on Time Travel as the theme because it can be interpreted in a variety of ways and allows for a much easier selection of songs to be used in this performance because it broadens the ability to have any song suit the theme. As a class, we all assume that it is a period of travel through different periodic times but musically.
Firstly, what is time travel? Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time by an object or a person, similar to moving between different points in space by an object or a person, usually via a hypothetical equipment called a time machine.
Summary of Rehearsals:
Following our teacher's introduction of the second part of the objective in this unit 15, we immediately began deciding who would be working with whom and what songs we would choose. It was difficult for me during this period of preparation because I was suffering from an awful sore throat that limited my ability to sing high pitch notes, and as a performer and vocalist, it immediately shattered my confidence because I wasn't used to singing in my lower pitch voice, and even low notes were difficult for me to produce any sound. However, this didn't stop me from researching and listening to potential songs to sing once I had fully recovered from this. While I was sick, I began to brainstorm and search for music that would suit the present vocal range I had access to. When looking for songs that match my voice, I began by selecting songs that already fit my vocal style. Songs are significantly more difficult to sing than single notes or vocal exercises. The goal of my vocal warm-ups and workouts is to assist my voice achieve something it couldn't previously, but songs are the actual test of a singer. So for the first few sessions, I concentrated on picking a song and figuring out how to work around it in order to avoid causing further damage to my voice chords.
"Read All About It," a song by English rapper Professor Green featuring vocals from British singer Emeli Sandé, was the tune I chose. Because the song initially promotes speaking out for oneself, I chose it because the way I viewed it as an artist was that I could visually image conflict or some form of history through the use of the words. This relates to the theme of time travel because the title of the song is self explanatory because in order for us to have that sense of time travel, we must read textbooks or any factual object to read the information provided about previous history in order to gain knowledge and discover more, as well as conduct independent research, which results in us getting a taste of what time travel will be like as we begin to gradually disconnect from the reality world and transit. Another way I connect this song to the chosen theme is through the lyrics' language, such as 'I want to sing, I want to shout, I want to scream 'til the words dry out, So put it in all of the papers, I'm not frightened, They can read all about it, Read all about it'. Personally, I believe that words are eternal but not visual, whereas the physicality of paper is both eternal and visual, allowing us to document any historical event, music scores, and other career industries. As the paper ages, it adds to the theme of time travel because books are passed down through generations.
The capacity to regulate the stylistic delivery as well as the variances in the transition between head and chest voice were the vocal techniques used during this performance. Because the song gradually increases in pitch, and as a singer, I must be aware of being able to work on controlling the dynamics of singing softly and loudly so that the tone of the chosen song is not ruined, and it was also a challenge for myself to help develop further my vocal skills as a singer to ensure that my chosen song has relevance to the audience and is entertaining. Another technique is to use legato influence to add a more solemn tone to the song and to achieve the emotion that I am trying to portray through my performance, as the song is very solemn and moving, and working and practising the legato notes will help me in the future because singing in staccato would ruin the song's mood or solemn feeling. So I worked on improving my breathing technique to aid me with long-held notes, balancing high and low notes, and switching between chest and head voice.
Feedback/Evaluation:
The comment I received from my audience, which included my music teacher Simon and a classmate Meghan, was that I delivered a smooth performance, despite the fact that I had previously recorded this performance for them twice and the third take was excellent. And the confidence shown through my facial expressions helped convey the emotions trying to be expressed through the song. What also made your performance effective was how you spent a few moments performing this song towards the camera to make it inclusive and entertaining, as well as showing that you were considerate of your audience members. Another thing they said about my performance, particularly Meghan, was how powerful and moving it was to switch from chest to head voice because it completely changed the mood or tone of the song and allowed the audience to pay attention, and that the contrast between the different uses of voice made it seem so beautifully displayed, and that I should have more support and confidence when switching into head voice because it can allow me as a singer to open more doors.
The next steps or constructive criticism I received from my audience members were that I needed to focus on spending some extra time working on my breathing techniques because this would lead to creating or building that confidence about singing with my head voice, which would allow me to move onto the next level of my singing abilities, so after receiving this feedback, I spent days after my performance on how to support your head voice and chest voice because I want to move onto the next level of my singing abilities, so I spent days after my performance on how to support your head voice and chest voice. Personally, I wish I had more time to continue perfecting my vocal abilities because during the song, I found myself struggling to switch between the chest and head voice, as well as struggling to breathe for air, which weakened the song's powerful periods, particularly the chorus parts, which are the main part that displays the vocal techniques I use as a singer, and by not delivering this, it prevents me from displaying the true abilities I have. This leads to the most important factor, nerve control, because it affected my performance because I had previously recovered from a sore throat and lost my voice, so I was already pressured and worried about sounding terrible or not being successful on singing the current note during the song, particularly the higher pitch notes, as I struggled to reach the notes due to the burden of losing my voice. And it unfortunately reflected on my performance, though thankfully it was interpreted differently by my audience members. However, I did not want to risk my performance due to the cost of my nerves, so I spent hours reading or researching methods or encouraging words from other singers who faced similar challenges as myself.
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