Westy’s Blog

22Aug2016Blog

Guitar Repairs

It was rather evident during my sessions with Andrew that my old EKO E20 had seen better days. The lower frets have been worn for some time and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold down any kind of chord without buzzing or ripping my fingers apart. I’d got to the point of putting it aside and even considered replacing it, despite it still being my favourite acoustic guitar for it’s warm, almost bass-y sound.

I’d been asking musician friends about any luthiers they might know. The good ones all seemed too far away. Andrew finally put me in touch with Ben ‘Beej’ Shand, a guy that he uses for all of his guitars, and, though I made a few attempts to call him (he tours as a guitar tech with a few well-known bands), he has a workshop quite close to the centre of Leeds.

Anyway, when I rang and told him I had an EKO, he said: “Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you what the problems are…” anyway, he rattled off the symptoms, and was right on the nose with most of it. Anyway, he offered to re-fret the guitar, re-set the action and clean up the machine heads. Turn around time – a week. Actually, as I was on holiday for two weeks after that, he had three weeks to do this.

Now I have it back it is, once again, a pleasure to play, and my guitar of preference. Great job, Beej!

Ben’s website is here: http://www.beejguitars.co.uk

I’ll be in touch soon, as I’ve got one or two guitars that could use a little improvement…

27Jul2016Blog

Studio Session 2

Westy

I have to say how much I am beginning to enjoy these sessions in the studio with Matthew. It’s great to be able to bounce ideas off him and get feedback when I ask the odd technical question. Last week was the guitar session. This went very well indeed, and we had good time for Matthew to demonstrate some of the layered vocal work he was doing on another couple of tracks.

Today’s hour-long session was to add my vocal track to Watching the Rain, and we did several ‘takes’ to allow Matthew to choose the best bits. Once little thing that wasn’t comfortable was Matthew’s insistence on me pronouncing all the words with what, by the end of the session, I was calling my “best BBC” accent. To me it felt a bit forced, and didn’t come natural to me at all. I’m the product of my upbringing, and my accent is somewhat a ‘hybrid’ of Midlands, Sussex and Yorkshire, and though I’ve never had to analyse it before, I tailor the sounds of my voice – including the accent – to fit the song. However, again, as it’s the first song I’ve done with 360, I’m letting Matthew run with this and wait to hear the result. It’s a strange feeling though, not being in control of the arrangement.

We used up the entire hour today, and so I need to be called back to do the backing vocal, so there’s at least one more session to do on this song. So far I haven’t heard any strings on the backing track, so this is either something Matthew is dropping, or is yet to introduce.

19Jul2016Blog

Open Mic at ‘The Hop’

Westy

I’m so pleased to say that despite the initial nerves, my section went very well, I think. I fluffed my words a couple of times and my mic usage was a bit erratic, but I don’t think it mattered too much. The Hop was quite empty (I guess Monday night isn’t going to be as packed out as a Friday or Saturday), so really I was just singing to my guests, Claire, Ken and Pat, plus the other artists that 360 manage and their guests. So – it was a lovely informal evening, not too much pressure, and chance to build up my confidence and improve technique on a live rig.

It’s nice also to see how well the others are doing: Zoe, Carla and Harry were also singing last night, and they clearly seemed more confident than I was. I elected to go first as I thought that it would be better to do my little set, and not prolong the nerves any longer than necessary. It’s nice that we all perform in very different genres and therefore don’t have to be competitive in any way. We are all there to develop our skills, build stage confidence and build our repertoire.

TheHop_16-07-16_02 With the first one behind me, I think I’ve finally laid the ghosts of past stage disasters to rest. I’m very grateful to Ken and Pat (and Claire of course) for coming to support me, and of course to Andrew for being my backing and lead guitarist. Ken has video-ed the set, (pics are taken from the video) which I may or may not put up at some point. I’m very highly critical watching stuff back like this, and there’s certainly room for improvement. To me, the sound at a live gig is never as good as when you were there – even for the pro performers, and you watch it back and you think: “Blimey, I didn’t realise he was singing flat there on the night…” But that’s the downside of recording with a phone, and not directly from the stage mixer. Perhaps next time we can do this, and see what we really sound like…

15Jul2016Blog

Last rehearsal

Westy

Last rehearsal with Andrew was on Wednesday before my first open mic at The Hop next Monday. This went pretty well I thought, only a couple of slips. One particularly with the mid-section of (Don’t Hurry) Slow Down, where I simply can’t see the fret board while singing, to get the upper bar chords right. I guess I’ll have to modify my singing over that part for now, until it becomes more “muscle-memory”.

Anyway, the nerves, I admit, are setting in a bit now. I’ve been rehearsing at home and do about an hour each day since Wednesday, but the rehearsals have not been going so well. That is, until I decided to raise the guitar up slightly, so it’s sitting higher and more comfortably placed, especially for those bar chords on Slow Down.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some research on stage nerves online, and found a brilliant set of quick tips from singer and voice coach, Adrienne Osborn. These have helped me put a few of the old gremlins aside. Let’s see if they will do the trick on Monday.

29Jun2016Blog

Performance session

Westy

Andrew had me going through my set, firstly making sure my mic positioning was correct. As I’m suffering from a bit of back trouble (the benefits of getting on a bit….!) I’ve had to modify my footing, so I needed a bit of instruction before this came right.

I don’t know why, but I’m having a touch of block somewhere during the opening song. I don’t know if this is just nerves, or lack of concentration or something, but it’s always somewhere during Chasing it Down that I am forgetting a word or a phrase somewhere, and it’s not that I don’t know the song, far from it… Anyway, second time around it came out good.

Then we started to work out Andrew’s parts fully. Watching the Rain is sounding very nice, and Chasing it Down is coming together too. Anyway, a little work is still needed on (Don’t Hurry) Slow Down, but the other two are coming together nicely. As I know Andrew’s style is a little different to mine, I’m asking him to fill in a second part where it feels comfortable. I’ve also given him some recordings of the live songs that I did over last weekend, these were just miked-up practices, so he gets an idea of what I’m going to play and can get familiar with them.

Last practice run through in two weeks time, and then we’re performing it…