My Chosen Pieces:
- Under Cover of Darkness by the Strokes
- If You Were There Beware by the Arctic Monkeys
- You've Got a Friend In Me by Randy Newman
- Stray Cat Strut by the Stray Cats
- Big Big Big by Simon Troup
Track 1: Under Cover Of Darkness - The Strokes
I have chosen this piece to perform because it challenges both my playing technique and style. This song contains fast complex riffs and a wide range of notes throughout the neck of the guitar which makes the piece a lot more demanding to play. I have also chosen to play this piece because it helps demonstrate my main focus style in playing the electric guitar.
Track 2: If You Were There Beware - Arctic Monkeys
I chose this piece because for me it is one of the most fun songs to play. Its not as challenging as the others but I decided to include it because it helps the audience understand what style of playing I usually do.
Track 3: You've Got A Friend In Me - Randy Newman
I have chosen to play this piece because it is a completely different genre of guitar to what i usually play. This particular version I will be playing is a lot harder than most and requires me to play the bass, chords and melody of the song all at once on the guitar. This is a particularly difficult piece to play and should show off my ability to play the guitar.
Track 4: The Stray Cat Strut - The Stray Cats
This song helps add a varied variety of genres to my repertoire. it also helps challenge my standard of playing due to it being a fairly hard piece to play.
Track 4: Big Big Big - Simon Troup
I have selected this song out of the Rockschool Grade 6 song book. I performed this song to an examiner for my A level music performance. This song shows off various different playing techniques and is a different genre to what I usually play, so it helps challenge and improve my playing ability.
Here is a link to my completed audition CD uploaded to 'www.soundcloud.com'. All of the songs on the CD are played in order of appearance on this blog.
https://soundcloud.com/spencer-farrance/subsidary-diploma-audtion-cd
Why These Pieces are Appropriate
I believe that I have selected a well varied programme of music to perform because all of the songs are so different from each other and challenge my ability as a performer appropriately. All of the various pieces that I am going to perform each appeal to the audience in their own way. I will playing some rag time acoustic guitar, Latin guitar, rockabilly, indie rock and alternative rock, I believe that each one of these genres could be suited for a very broad audience so that my programme is not too recent or too dated that nobody knows and of the pieces.
The majority of the pieces I have chosen to perform in my programme all require backing tracks which I believe is also a very good choice because the venue isn't that big and if I played the songs with a full scale band it would be too much and too loud for the audience. It would also be unnecessary due to the fact that the main focus is supposed to be on my performing anyway. The only song that I am playing without a backing track is the acoustic rag time version of You've Got A Friend In Me by Randy Newman.
The Venue
The venue I am going to be performing these songs is a record shop called in Henley-On-Thames, owned by Graham Sands who was kind enough to agree to hosting various different open mic nights to give a chance for the people in my course to perform to members of the public.
The record shop was a good choice of venue because it was small and you didn't need a huge set up and a PA system to make yourself heard. The only equipment you needed was a guitar, lead and an amplifier and the audience could hear you without any trouble.
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