Performance Evaluation

Under Cover Of Darkness - The Strokes

In my opinion the cover of Under Cover Of Darkness that I performed in the record shop could have gone better. The playing was slightly sloppy and at one point I did go out of time with the backing track for a bit. I think that the timing issue could have been easily solved if I had the backing track a bit louder, the only reason I didn't have it so loud was because I wanted to be heard clearly, overall it is me doing the performing! I think the playing being sloppy is down to nerves really. I'm not much of a solo performer and I tend to get quite nervous when playing on my own because I like to have a band supporting me.

If I were to do this performance again I would rather do the song with a band but the main be on me so then it still counts as a solo performance. The issue with using a full scale band is the volume and the use space. The venue we were performing in would be too small for a band to play, therefore we would need to find somewhere else to play.

All in all, I believe that my performance of this song was mediocre and I would probably do it better with a little more practice and more time setting up backing tracks and amp levels.

If You Were There Beware - The Arctic Monkeys

I believe that my performance of this song was actually quite good. The audience enjoyed it and I don't I made any noticeable mistakes other than a timing issue when the time signature changes towards the end of the song. In this section the time signature changes to 3/2, the tempo also speeds up to 180 bpm which also threw me off a little. Due to the increase of tempo and change of timing I ended up playing one of the leading licks a bit earlier than intended.

If I were to do this performance again I would find a backing track without the lead guitar part that I am playing on it. This proved to be a problem because when made the timing mistake it was more noticeable.

Overall I think that my performance of this song was the best performance in my repertoire that night.

You've Got A Friend In Me - Randy Newman

This performance was the more versatile from my music programme, being the only acoustic song in my set. This song was very enjoyable to play but would have been better if I had used my own guitar and got the tempo at the correct pace. throughout the whole song I think that I was moving in and out of tempo which really effected my performance, it would have been better if I had kept timing by tapping my foot. Towards the end the camera also cut out which really didn't help so unfortunately the ending of the piece was caught on camera.

If I were to do the performance of this song again I would definitely change a few things. First of all I would without a doubt bring my own acoustic guitar because it was a lot harder to play on a guitar that I was not used to playing at all. I would also work a lot more on my timing because I did tend to drift in and out a lot of the time. Another thing I would do is check the camera's battery life before taking it to the performance evening so that I know if it needs to be charged or not.

The overall performance of this song in my opinion was quite good, other than the camera cutting out and the timing issue it  all sounded how I wanted it to.

Big Big Big - Simon Troup

Because the performance of this song was not recorded I have decided to assess the home recorded performance I did to prove that I could perform the song to a good standard.

I was very proud with the performance of this song. I managed to play it accurately without any mistakes. This performance also shows off my ability to improvise when I improvised a guitar solo towards end. It was also the perfect opportunity to use different effects such as the Wah-Wah pedal I use in the guitar solo. Not only did this song show off my ability improvise but it also managed to demonstrate my ability to adapt my playing style to suit different genres of music, for example this song was more Latin based.

If I were to perform this song again I would make sure that I caught the performance on film because unfortunately the camera ran out of battery before I played the song.