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.