I met with Annette yesterday to discuss putting together a band for my performance. I'm keen to have all the personnel be within easy travelling distance of a rehearsal location, with the college being the ideal place. However most of my previous contacts come from the Glasgow area, and it is unlikely I would be able to get a full band from them which could potentially leave me with my personnel divided between those contacts and people within the college which could make things awkward. I felt the best solution therefore would be to have the band comprise solely students or teachers within the college, a solution Annette agreed would be best. Being new to the college I'm not altogether too familiar with the students from other courses so Annette did me the favour of sending out an email message to all students explaining the nature of my set and asking anyone interested to get in touch.

I have had two replies thus far; one was from a bass player named David who I met with today and seems very willing to take part in the project. We discussed the set which he is happy with and some of the aspects of learning our parts. I am pleased with this as I'd expected finding a bass player to be the toughest part. The other was from a guitarist named Becky who inquired as to what songs would be played. I've given a list of the songs I've chosen so far to both and asked them to let me know what they think. We have plenty time before the first performance so there's no rush.

This leaves me now needing possibly another guitarist and a keyboardist. Annette mentioned that one of the tutors may be prepared to play keys, and it's only a couple of songs they will be featured on so this could be a viable option. It would mean me finding sheet music for the parts for them which could be tough but I will start looking into it.

I have continued with work on my performance set over the past week, seeking out pieces that fit my programme and working on those that I've chosen. I've now picked a total of 5 different pieces with a rough total time of 30 mins, so I'm looking for just one or maybe two more pieces to complete my set. The pieces I have chosen so far, and their rough times, are:

Subdivisions by Rush (5mins)
Sound of Muzak by Porcupine Tree (5 mins)
Universal Mind by Liquid Tension Experiment (8 mins)
Schism by Tool (7 mins)
That Golden Rule by Biffy Clyro (4 mins)

I am happy with the pieces I've chosen so far as I feel they reflect my style of playing as well as demonstrating the use of odd time signatures. As well the difficulty of the time changes they also represent a high level of technical difficulty and are giving me much to work on. I have spent some time, particularly on the more structurally complex pieces Universal Mind and Schism, mapping out the time changes, of which there are many. Also with Sound of Muzak, where there is a little more room for improvisation with fills etc, I've spent some time looking at different ways to divide and count the bars of 7/4, with the aim of being more comfortable playing in the time and playing fills to mark out sections.

Richard's given me some more pieces to look at with a view to finalising my set, and I'm hoping to meet with Annette soon to get approval of the work I've done so far and for some advice in putting a band together. I'm hoping also that she'll be able to recommend players to me from within the College as I'm not altogether that familiar with the other courses or the tutors' areas of expertise.

I presented my current ideas at our next performance class on Monday but was told my premise was still too vague, and if I were to do a series of pieces from over time they would need to be linked by a common musical feature. There are a number of options here as there are several interesting musical features that have linked progressive music over the years. The themes I am strongly considering at the moment are concept albums and odd time signatures, both of which would offer a wide range of options in terms of pieces to play. I will forward these and other ideas for discussion with my tutors and hopefully have a final decision made soon so I can crack on with putting the pieces together.

Having spoken with various people, it's become clear to me that my programme ought to be one I personally am happy with, and the pieces I play should reflect me as a musician. I'm quite set on doing pieces which demonstrate the use of odd time signatures and time changes, as this is something that's always fascinated me as a drummer. Being a pop musician, and having grown up with pop music being my background, I've always found myself most at home with common time and popular melodies, but as I developed as a drummer I found myself branching out to learn about music. While enjoying investigating avant-garde tracks and pushing my technical abilities, my favourite tracks were always those that could demonstrate more advanced techniques whilst also appealing to a pop audience.

I want my set to reflect the enjoyment I get from music that is both intellectually and musically stimulating, and so I will aim to choose pieces that I feel demonstrate this best.

I have spent a lot of time doing some research over the past couple of weeks, using my love of Rush and Neil Peart's drumming as a starting point, looking at bands and drummers that influence them and who were influenced later. The genre of Progressive Rock is one that's always been a point of interest for me. From it's beginnings in the late 60s and early 70s it has continued to function and develop, with the influence of it's ideas and themes influencing both the most avant garde of groups as well as many more mainstream acts.

I am keen in my performance to demonstrate the development of progressive music through the years, and also to showcase both the more specialised side of the genre and more popular modern acts who have exhibited typical features of the genre. I have a number of pieces already that I would like to play and I will forward these and my general ideas to both my drum teacher and my course tutors for approval.

This post for me marks the start of the Solo Performance of my degree, which will see me arrange and perform a 40 minute set of music at professional standard. Where to start has been the problem for me so far, as I'm not entirely sure what qualifies as 'professional standard', what would be appropriate repertoire, or what sort of musical theme would suit me. I'm hoping that starting instrumental lessons with my drum tutor, Richard Kass, will help shed some light on these elements but in the meantime I've spoken with Annette who gave me some advice.

I've been advised to start with a particular piece or artist I find particularly inspiring, or whose work I enjoy playing.This has led me to a think about many of the progressive rock acts I've long revered from a drumming point of view, in particular Rush. Their drummer Neil Peart is one of my favourites, and one of the most well respected in rock history and I am already familiar with a number of their songs. Annette told me told me have a listen to them and consider their influences, as this could help take me in a direction that will help shape my set, and also to look out for any particular technical elements of the drums that I find interesting that I could use as a running theme. This will be my starting point.