6/10/16 - Musical ensemble - I Want It All

Thursday 6th October -

In this lesson we were focusing on our Musical Ensemble unit, for this we were split into small groups in which we had to create a performance to one of the We Will Rock You numbers of our choice and incorporate all the elements that are needed to create a successful musical ensemble.

As we would be singing within these numbers, it was essential that we did a vocal based warm up, this consisted of us singing songs in the round such as Fish and chips and Vinegar and I like the flowers. Not only were these effective as vocal warm ups but really helped us with working as a group, which will benefit our skills as a successful musical ensemble.

In our group we chose the song, I Want It All due to our bohemian characters, within my group we each had our double cast apart from Jade who plays Pop. We started just singing through the song tomato sure we were all comfortable with what we were singing, lines wise. Jade came to the conclusion that as her character technically wasn't a lead within this particular song that she would represent the chorus of the song and just a bohemian, I think this was an effective idea as it would help us illustrate more of an ensemble than just five solo singers, which was the aim of the task.

Once we decided on lines, we came up with the idea that the Brits should sing the harmony of the chorus whilst the Meats and Pop sing the tune. This was working effectively whilst learning it and sounded good until we realised that they were originally singing the lower tune at the beginning therefore didn't make sense for them to change key half way through when the meats can just come straight in with the harmony. As a Meat, learning the harmony was difficult at first but eventually through practising we got it, harmonies are something I enjoy as I like a challenge and this really got me working which I liked. Harmonies are an efficient way of generating a prosperous ensembles it makes the performance more dynamic for the audience and really using numbers to devise a powerful  and entertaining performance.

Within our group we have the characters of two couples, Emily and I decided that this song really represents the aspects of their relationship because they are both strong willed with their beliefs and confidence. Furthermore we felt that we should really work together within the number instead of just focus on our lines individually, therefore we created a few harmonies within lines to exemplify how well they work together.

After this we then started to choreograph movement to the song, I said it would be effective if we all started in different places on different levels as thats what the bohemians would be like scattered and comfortable. This worked well as it got the audience members to look around making them more involved within the performance. This song is a very audience associated song as you want them to join you and increase the size of the rebellion in which they are constructing, therefore a lot of our movement required us to get them to join in clapping and excited and for them to want to join our apostasy.

In this lesson i feel that we had good peer support between one another when helping each other with harmonies and the notes in general, I already knew the song a bit so i made sure everyone was comfortable with what the notes were as well as asking if mine sounded ok, doing this i feel made our performance more forceful as everyone was more confident with what they were singing so could concentrate more on their character and audience involvement.

Our overall performance could have been improved further through our movement and choreography as should have moved more as well as did extra audience inclusion as we did a lot of standing and clapping at the audience. However we did get good class feedback, approving of our harmonies we added but just agreed with us saying more movement throughout could have upped its overall quality.

I think that in this lesson I used good communication and focus within my group, I think that I still need to improve on time keeping and recognition of strengths and weaknesses. I think that I had a considerable impact on our group  as I knew the song the most so was able to help others if they were confused or struggling as well as knowing the story quite well so could contribute to characterisation.