My performance was yesterday and I'm generally very happy with how it went. There were some small errors in some of the tracks but nothing major, and given the overall circumstances it went just about as well as I could have hoped.

The biggest worry on the day came when I woke in the morning in a lot of pain and struggling to move. I later learned an infection had developed in my tailbone, and this made it very uncomfortable to sit down which obviously was an issue given I was playing drums. At first I thought I would be unable to play but the pain eased up over the course of the day and didn't hamper me too much come my actual performance. However it had shaken me earlier in the day, and meant I was unable to hold a last minute rehearsal which I'd been hoping to do, and this could have ironed out some of the mistakes I made and settled my nerves a bit.

Overall I feel the biggest disappointment in my set was using backing tracks for 4 out of the 6 tracks. Although I was still able to showcase my ability on those tracks, I know it would have made for a more entertaining performance had I had a full band for them, and from the feedback I got from the audience and watching back over the tracks themselves I think it's clear the songs I performed with my band were the best in the set.

However, using backing tracks was necessitated by time, financial and geographical constraints. I found it hard this year balancing out work from all my units with work and other commitments outside of my course, and it made it hard to give as much time to putting together the performance as I would have liked. Given where I stay there was also a large cost in travel to and from the college where we practiced, and that made me keen to avoid having to make trips unless I absolutely had to. It also meant it would have been hard for me to free up money to hire professional musicians to fill slots had I opted to do that. On the matter of finding musicians I again found it hard not being native to Edinburgh or the surrounding areas to find people who played the instruments I would have required for some of the tracks. Most of my contacts were based more in the Glasgow direction, and once I had David White and Dechlan Nicholson, both from Edinburgh, committed to doing bass and guitar, I was keen to avoid having musicians from the other side of the country as arranging rehearsals would have been difficult.

In hindsight I'm aware that I would have benefited from acting quicker in putting my programme together. A few of my tracks were decided later than I would have liked, although this was often due to me being forced to make changes. If I had been settled on a programme earlier I might have been able to commit to finding the required musicians and making it all work. However, I must also acknowledge that I'd had no experience in putting together a programme in this manner, so it took me time to understand exactly what was expected of me and the music I chose. My previous education in drumming had taught me to consider my instrument simply a platform for the more prominent elements of music, so I also had to move away from this perception to fulfill the aim of showcasing my abilities.

Nevertheless I'm proud of the work I did personally in playing the tracks I chose. It involved developing a lot of skills and knowledge I hadn't had before such as using a double bass drum pedal, playing in a myriad of odd time signatures which often involved me transcribing parts to understand them better, and researching cymbals and drum set-ups to replicate the sounds made on some of the tracks I chose. A lot of work into it and although in some respects it could have been a more dynamic performance, there a lot of positives I will take from it.

My performance is tomorrow and I'm feeling quite good about it. Naturally I'm nervous, but I've rehearsed well, so it's just a matter of ensuring everything goes right at the time. I'm most worried about getting everything set up right - ensuring my backing tracks play fine and at a good level, and that I'll have enough time to get all my stuff set up. My kit layout is to be quite elaborate so I must be sure to use my soundcheck time to ensure I know exactly how I'm going to set up come my performance.

Once I get to the point of performing with everything in place I feel everything should be okay. I've written up programme notes for the audience to read as I'm eager for them to understand where I'm coming from with my choice of songs. I've titled my set 'Not So Odd Time Signatures', referencing the fact that I find the songs to be very accessible in spite of their use of odd times. I'm not totally decided on whether I will keep this title, but I'd like to make it something along those lines.

My only other concern is a minor injury I seemed to have sustained. My tailbone has been hurting me for a couple of days, and I am unsure of the cause. It hasn't affected my playing so far so I am hopeful that it won't tomorrow either, but I'll be aiming not to do anything that may exacerbate the symptoms lest it affect my playing.

Following the news that my bass player is unable to play one of the tracks I had planned for my set, I've once again had to find a replacement with a backing track I can perform to, which I'm a little disappointed by as I was happy having half the set to backing tracks and half live, but sadly time constraints left me no choice. The track I've chosen is another Rush song, 'Limelight'. It suits me more in a lot of ways, as it fits in with what I want from my set - songs that demonstrate odd time signatures and time changes in what I perceive to be a particularly melodic way. On the downside it brings the technical difficulty of the set down a little, but with such short notice I couldn't commit to doing any songs that were more challenging as I've other work on my plate ahead of end of year deadlines. The final set stands:

Dance of Eternity (Dream Theater)
Limelight (Rush)
Subdivisions (Rush)
Island Magic (Dave Weckl)
Sound of Muzak (Porcupine Tree)
Schism (Tool)

I've been dealt a blow in bringing my final set together with my bass player telling me he won't be able to play 'Selkies' by Between the Buried and Me. It is a very difficult tune technically, very fast, and it doesn't surprise me he's having trouble. Having put a lot of hours into working on my double bass drum technique largely for this song, I'd like to keep it in the set, but it will now mean finding another bass player to play it or else finding a different piece to play. Either way could be hard at this notice with the performance only about 3 weeks away, and if we choose a different piece it would almost certainly be a simpler one which could take something away from the performance. I'm weighing up and will have to make a decision soon, ahead of our next rehearsal if possible.

Work on my other pieces is going well though. My bass drum technique, although still not quite at the level it would need to be for 'Selkies', has come on quite a lot, and I can play quite comfortably through the Dance of Eternity. I played each of the pieces in my final lesson with Rich, my drum teacher, and he gave me some feedback and areas that I could work on, which I've also been addressing. I've spent a fair amount of time on the fills in 'Sound of Muzak', analysing some of Gavin Harrison's live performances of the track, and developing ideas of my own. Similarly with 'Island Magic', which is really coming along, I've been considering ideas for the drum solo, which is quite lengthy and gives me plenty opportunity to showcase my abilities.

I've also spent a considerable amount of time configuring my drum kit for the performance, and working at acquiring the equipment I need. I've bought a new set of cymbals, including new hi-hats, ride and crash cymbals as many of old ones were outdated, and set them up along with some of my others to create a dynamic setup I'm happy with. I've also taken two of my old cymbals and created a stack that will work well for sections on the Dance of Eternity and Subdivisions, and for effects on the other songs. I'm pleased with the setup I have now, and have found it fits very nicely with the set. The only thing I'm missing is a way of mounting a second set of fixed hi-hats. Although I don't have this at home it will be easy to produce on the day of the performance if I bring my own hi-hat stand and use one of the college's.

I'm making good progress with the songs I'm learning, and for the first time in a while I'm feeling confident about my performance. I've learned all of 'Island Magic', but it needs work, so I'm continuing to play through it regularly to smooth over the trickier parts and get the whole song flowing.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working largely on learning 'The Dance of Eternity'. It's one of the hardest tracks I've had to learn, but I've worked through to around the 5 minute mark, so I'm nearing the end, and am more comfortable playing the track than I thought I would be. This is largely largely down to noticeable development in my foot technique. I have been working on it persistently, almost every day, doing double pedal exercises and exercises for my left foot alone which needs the most work, and I'm very pleased with my progression. It will still need some work for some of the faster parts in 'Selkies', but by working on 'The Dance of Eternity' first, which has a high volume of more moderate level double bass drum patterns, I'm developing the skills that will help greatly when I get round to learning it.

I feel even more so now that I'm on track for my performance, but there is still work needing done. As I've been doing a lot of work on the tracks I'm doing myself, it's been a while since we had a rehearsal as a band. We still have to play through the whole of 'Schism' as a band, and will need to start working on 'Selkies' once I've began learning it, but I'm staying in contact with the band and I'm hoping if we can all get the leg work done on each song individually then it will just be a matter of putting it all together, which should only take a few rehearsals.

Following my last post I have made some big decisions regarding my set. With my search for a keyboard player appearing fruitless I've decided to scrap 'Universal Mind', and have replaced it with a piece in a similar vain, 'The Dance of Eternity' by Dream Theater. I have a backing track for this piece, and also for 'Subdivisions', which takes a lot of pressure off the band. This mean I'll be performing half the set myself, and half with the band, and I'm thinking doing so in that order live would work best. The set, in the order I'm thinking, would be:


The Dance of Eternity
Subdivisions
Island Magic

Sound of Muzak
Schism
Selkies: The Endless Obsession

Although I would have liked to have most of the set performed live, I don't mind the idea of performing half of it myself, and it makes it much easier to work on tracks knowing the backing track I'm playing with will be the same as on the day. It also allows me to get on with things without having to worry about parts that may have to be changed depending on the band.

I'm already just about there with much of the set - Subdivisions, Island Magic, Sound of Muzak and Schism I know all the way through, and just need tightened up for the performance. The other two however are undoubtedly the toughest of the bunch and will require a fair bit of dedication from me to get down. As I mentioned before Selkies also requires my feet to be trained to play at the necessary speed which is something I'm also still working on, but am noticing steady improvement with. I have just under a couple of months so with the changes I've made everything should be fine.

Preparations for my songs are ranging from going very well to not at all. I've spent quite a lot of time with the backing track for Island Magic, and am pleased with my progress. I have it to a point where I can just about play through the track, so it's just a matter of tightening parts up and working on the sections that allow improvisation. I've also been doing exercises almost every day to develop my left foot and double bass drum technique and I'm feeling a difference. However, whether or not I'll quite get up to the standard required for 'Selkies: The Endless Obsession' remains to be seen. It may still require me to simplify parts of it, but I'm still in the process of learning the track and I'll decide nearer the time how I will fare with it.

We have only had one rehearsal since our sample performance due to me having family issues and having to be out of town, but we have our next scheduled for two days time. I am hoping to be able to play the full track of Schism all together - we only did half of it for our sample, and although Dechlan, my guitarist, and myself have played through it all, Dave still has some issues with parts of the second half of it. I'm hoping he'll have these ironed out so we can play through the whole song and go on to work on other things.

On the down side I've had serious problems with finding a keyboard player. I've asked everyone I know who might know someone, and the general consensus is I might be able to find someone to play 'Subdivisions', but 'Universal Mind' may be beyond hope. Even the guitarist I have lined up to play the latter with is having troubles with it, leading me to think I may have to drop the track in favour of something else. It's very disappointing for me as I saw it as being one of the main focal points of my set, and I've already taken the time to learn it and was looking forward to playing it. To make things easier on myself at this stage I may consider again finding a song with a backing track I can play to as I'm struggling to coordinate rehearsals and find people in time. My family issues came at a bad time and have set me back a bit, and generally living as far away and not being familiar with a people round the college has made it very hard for me. I also have a backing track for Subdivisions I may consider using as it is the only other songs that I require a keyboard player for, and so would eliminate the need for a keyboard player altogether. Of course playing with backing tracks takes a lot of the live music out of the performance which may marr it for some of the audience, but if it makes it possible for me to play a set I'm happy with that is what I'll go with.

Last Wednesday, the 6th March, we performed a small snippet of my set to a panel as an indicator of our progress and to give an idea of what the set will be like. We played 'Sound of Muzak' and half of 'Schism' and I felt it all went quite well. We were admittedly not as prepared as I would have liked to be, but other than a couple of small issues with the bass, it all went quite smoothly. I was generally happy with my playing, although I do much to make an impression on the track's, something Rich noticed and commented on, saying he would've liked to see more of my personality come through in my playing. This is something I was vaguely aware of - as we weren't totally prepared I didn't want to do too much with the tracks - and now I see it as an important step I must take with these tracks and, indeed, the others in my set. Nevertheless I'm happy for now with what we did, and the rest is all stuff I can work on.

Following lessons with Richard last week I've finally made a choice on the final piece for my set. He gave me a couple of books to look at and I've settled on a Dave Weckl piece called 'Island Magic' which I'm quite fond of. It's technically challenging in a different way to the others, as it is more Jazz/Latin influenced, and includes several different rhythms, hits and a lengthy drum solo as well odd time bars. This will allow me to showcase another side to my playing as all my other pieces are largely Rock influenced, and don't leave as much room for improvisation. There is the matter of how well it will fit into the set given this, but it is still a very active, up-tempo piece, and I think if I place it after 'Subdivisions' somewhere in the middle of the set it will flow nicely. I had wanted a piece that was a departure from the rest of what I did but felt that arranging instrumentation would hold me back, but as this track comes with a backing track it means I don't have to worry about this, which is good given I'm having enough of a challenge arranging rehearsals for my other pieces. The set list, in no order, stands thus:

Subdivisions - Rush
Selkies: The Endless Obsession - Between The Buried and Me
Universal Mind - Liquid Tension Experiment
Schism - Tool
The Sound of Muzak - Porcupine Tree
Island Magic - Dave Weckl

I have to demonstrate a sample of my set on Wednesday 6th March, and have arranged rehearsals to hopefully get the pieces we are playing up to scratch. I'll be the first to admit that we are behind with rehearsals at this stage, largely due to scheduling conflicts and failure of some of the band to turn up, so I'm a little apprehensive about it. The pieces we are aiming to do for this are Schism and The Sound of Muzak. I'm quite comfortable with my parts for these, and have continued working on my double bass drum pedal technique so I can incorporate it into Schism where I'd originally planned to re-orchestrate the parts. It will just be a matter of getting the tracks together with the rest of the band. I've also started working intensely on learning 'Island Magic' in the hope that if I couldn't get the other pieces together I'd be able to substitute that in but although I'm making good progress, it's not looking like I'll get there in time. I'll continue working on it in my spare time just in case, and even if I can't perform all of it, part of it would be better than nothing should the other tracks not come together.

We weren't able to finalise my set in our last rehearsal which is disappointing, but I know where I stand. After speaking to Annette, it became apparent that a grade 8 level piece would not be suitable for the programme, so that leaves me still with one piece to choose. I was hoping to use a piece that is a different style - more a jazz/funk fusion, and the piece I had in mind was a Rockschool piece meaning  it could easily be performed by just drums, bass and guitar. This is my biggest worry in this area as pieces in this style typically use quite varied instrumentation which could be hard to put together. Annette suggested using a piece with a track, if I can make it work in my programme. This opens me up to some new possibilities, as I know there are advanced fusion drummers such as Dave Weckl who have made backing tracks available for some of their pieces so this is something I will research.

In order to perform the pieces I have chosen effectively, it has been necessary for me to purchase a double bass drum pedal. It has been a while since I used one, and my experience then was quite limited so I have begun an intense course of practice to try and bring myself up to standard. The passages I require it for on the tracks are quite fast and requires some stamina so it's going to be tough to raise my level enough. I have started out with some basic exercises I have adapted from those I would use for my hand technique, including basic rudiments and endurance exercises. I aim to do some work with these every day in order to bring above the improvement necessary. I also intend to speak to my drum teacher and see if he has any advice he can give me on the matter.

I have another rehearsal today in which I'm hoping to finalise my programme. We agreed in our last rehearsal that the difficulty level of the tracks needs to be higher, and chose to cut 'That Golden Rule' while discussing some tracks that would fit the programme better. I've ordered a double bass drum pedal which opens up possibilities, and allows me to do a track my guitarist Dechlan suggested - 'Selkies: The Endless Obsession' by Between the Buried and Me. I've started learning the track which is definitely close to being as hard a track as I've worked on. We have a couple of other tracks to choose from for the last slot. We will weigh up track times and feasibility and decide which will work best.

Aside from this we've had a couple of rehearsals now and are preparing for our first showcase next month. We've been working on Schism, and just about have all the parts arranged so we can start running it to bring it up to standard, and had also started working on Golden Rule before decidingto cut it as it. The other track we'll be looking to perform at the showcase will be 'Sound of Muzak' which I am confident we should be able to put together by then.

I have just become aware that it has been some time since I last updated this blog, but rest assured things are still on track. I have David Wight recruited on bass as I mentioned before and he has put me in contact with a number of people including a couple of vocalists who can cover all the songs, and guitarist, Dechlan, who is happy to do at least half of them. I have rehearsed once with David and Dechlan and we have in place the songs we will be doing for our initial showcase next month. If we continue to rehearse regularly we should be well on track to have those ready.

David has also put me in contact with a guitarist who has experience' in playing material by Liquid Tension Experiment, and has said he is up for playing 'Universal Mind' which I was worried about finding people for. I am looking forward to arranging a rehearsal with him, but we still need to complete the final piece of the puzzle - a keyboard player required for that tune and 2 others. Again David has a few names in mind but we are yet to confirm anyone so that will be a priority as one of the songs they are needed for is 'Golden Rule' which I am hoping to play at the showcase.

As is evident by my lack of posting I have had a lot of other work going on that I've struggled to keep on top of. This led me to missing what should have been a progress report with Annette last Monday the 4th Feb. We are on holiday this week but I have apologised to Annette and am hoping I will be able to reschedule the report for after we are back. I've still one more song to confirm for my set list but I have narrowed it down to a couple of options and am hoping to make a decision tomorrow during our next rehearsal.