Fourth Group Rehearsal

In today's rehearsal we came to the decision that we had not left ourselves with enough time to do what we had originally planned for our second song. This was to turn a ballad into a pop song. We found this as more of a challenge and sadly we didn't have enough time to do this to the best of our ability. We decided that the best thing to do at this stage would be to do what we had done for the first song, pick a pop song and turn it into a ballad. We wasted no time at all and David suggested that we could do "Don't Stop Me Now" by the band Queen. We all agreed that this song had lots of potential for us to make it an interesting arrangement and we began rehearsing. 

To begin with i found out what the chords would be for piano and i tried playing it through a few times to make sure that i was able to play it and that the chords fit properly. We then started to discuss what could happen where and we put together a rough arrangement of who would sing what and where we could potentially have harmonies. We decided that the first verse would be sang by me and that it should be very soft and slow. I would play singular chords ,with just my right hand, an octave above  middle C to make it sound delicate and pretty. I would sing the melody softly to match what i would be playing on piano. David would sing a harmony with me on the word "Don't" to add some bass and texture to the verse to stop it from getting boring. 

In the second verse we decided that David should take the tune. I would start playing with both my left and right hand and i would play the chords in a variation to give the song more depth here. Underneath David singing the melody, me, Amy and Louise would sing "mm da da" following the chords. This helped distance the song from the original and made it sound more like a ballad. Amy would then sing the pre-chorus as a solo with me, David and Louise singing "aah" underneath. Similar to davids verse this would help communicate the genre to the audience clearer. Also by singing our notes on a more open vowel sound like "aah" it helps build the song up, giving it more depth and texture. It also makes it sound different to the previous verse. 

Finally, Louise would sing the chorus as a solo. I decided not to sing anything in this verse because i wanted to concentrate more on playing the piano correctly because our arrangement became more complicated here. Amy and David would be singing an array of "don't stop me's" and "aahs" in the background, once again to add texture and to make the song sound more interesting for an audience. At the end of the song Louise sings the line "I don't want to stop at all" here Amy and David would sing the same line with her but adding in a harmony to help bring it to a big climax. Underneath on the piano i would be playing E flat, transitioning then to F. When i begin playing F David would drop out and start singing "Don't stop me" over and over on an F, after four i would begin singing the same but on an A, then Louise would do the same but on a C and finally Amy would do the same but on an F. This we would crescendo through this eventually creating a final harmony which would be loud. We would then all drop out and Louise would sing " I don't want to stop at all" a cappella. 

I believe that we made the right choice by changing our song because now we have a strong arrangement of something similar to our first song and we are able to show our audience how we can be consistent across one genre. It also shows our ability to do two arrangements in the same genre of music but make them different enough so that they don't sound too similar and so that they are fun to listen too.