So…
You have now seen the culmination of weeks work in the form of a video marred by poor singing. But what has been learnt so far?
It is a very different experience playing with a drummer. Before, when I played solo, or with another guitarist, variation to the beats, or timing or strums didn’t matter as much, as they were either drowned out or just added an accent to the tune. When it’s just guitarist and drummer though, any deviation stands out horribly, so the self restraint must be developed to stick to the beat.
On top of this, I have learnt (or re-affirmed) that I can’t sing. Backing vocals is ok, as I am able to match the pitch of the main singer, but on my own, I am essentially tone deaf.
The performance on the whole was ok though – Liz is not a confident drummer, and a drum heavy song really requires a proper drum kit, not the electric one we had to deal with. The sound was also lost through a less than impressive camera. Slightly annoying also was my inability to record the bass prior to performing so that the performance was accompanied by the proper instruments. Again, it goes back to my lack of discipline in keeping time – being a guitarist over a bass player, I found it hard to hit the notes dead on time, and it ultimately ruined the performance, so we left it out.
On the whole though, I think for a first effort, it went well, and although we spent a lot more time on it than we perhaps wanted to (in excess of 12 hours including solo practice time) it turned out ok.