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 I've bought a new set of cymbals, including new hi-hats, ride and crash cymbals as many of old ones were outdated, and set them up along with some of my others to create a dynamic setup I'm happy with.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.