Harrison Gig Evaluation

Harrison Gig Evaluation

To live engineer at the Harrison gig me and Taylor volunteered, upon arrival we were given a brief talk through of what instruments to expect and how many vocalists to expect. For Ria's group; Tega was the on the electric piano, for the electric piano we connected a jack-male xlr lead into the Loom setup which connected to the stage box, which then ran into the mixer. Furthermore there were three vocalists, Ria, Porcha and Khadesha. To cater for the three vocalists, we set up two mic stands closer together which would be for the back up singers and one separate mic stand for the lead singer. We connected all the microphones using an XLR lead into the Loom, which led into the stage box and then into the mixer. Ria wanted reverb on all of her songs except her last one, this made it quite easy to control the mixer for her performance because we just had to change one slider as she announced her last song. Whilst we were doing the soundcheck Taylor was on the mixer and I was ensuring the sound was sounding how it should. During the soundcheck we noticed that the right speaker wasn't working. We waited till the performers had finished playing, flattened the desk and investigated the issue. The speaker hadn't been switched on by the plug. We restarted the soundcheck and everything was fine. Here is a photo of the mixing desk for Ria's group.

For Grace's group, we needed one mic stand and an XLR lead for the lead vocalist Grace and a chair and jack to male XLR lead for Leonie as she was playing the guitar. There are no complications with Grace's performance, she wanted reverb on the vocals and reverb on the guitar, me and Taylor decided that the reverb we had set for Ria's lead vocals was fine for Grace, and we had the slightest bit of reverb on the guitar. The mixer was set the same for Grace's group so there was no need for a photo.

For Gloria and Carol
The set up was similar to Ria's group minus the three backup singers, they wanted less reverb on the vocals, and the piano to be louder in the mix than the previous groups. They were quite easy to cater for as they knew precisely what they wanted for their sound.

Live sound Break Down

Live Sound Definition

To start off with a Live Sound P.A system, I'll be using a mixing desk, which will be connected to the power amp using a jack-jack lead, the power amp will be connecting to the speakers using the speakon cable and since we're using 3 microphones we will plug the microphones directly into the mixing desk using XLR leads, the electric piano will be connected to a D.I box using a Jack lead and the electro-acoustic guitar will plugged into an amp by jack lead. The wedge monitor will be plugged into the mixing desk by jack lead.

Dissertation Bibliography

Dissertation Bibliography

National Park Service (1993) Jazz origins in New Orleans. Available at: https://www.nps.gov/jazz/learn/historyculture/history_early.htm(Accessed: 2 February 2017).

ROY ROSENZWEIG CENTER FOR HISTORY AND NEW MEDIA (no date) Between the wars: The swing era. Available at: http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/hist409/swing.html (Accessed: 23 February 2017a).

Tureaud (no date) New Orleans history. Available at: http://www.tureaud.com/Southern/new_orleans_history.htm (Accessed: 23 February 2017b).

A New Orleans jazz history, 1895-1927 (no date) Available at: https://www.nps.gov/jazz/learn/historyculture/jazz_history.htm (Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Between the wars: Jazz and the ‘white negro’ (no date) Available at: http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/hist409/jazz/jazz.html(Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Between the wars: The swing era (no date) Available at: http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/hist409/swing.html (Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Black history in America (no date) Available at: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/history_of_jazz.htm(Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Jazzupriver (no date) Available at: http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/upriver.html(Accessed: 23 February 2017).

OPPENHEIM, M. and Jazz (2013a) The Harlem renaissance and American music. Available at: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-harlem-renaissance-and-american-music-by-mike-oppenheim.php (Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Reonas, M. (2010) Great depression in Louisiana. Available at: https://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/great-depression-in-louisiana(Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Scaruffi, P. (2005) A history of jazz music. Available at: http://www.scaruffi.com/history/jazz1.html (Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Stewart, J., White, M., Hasse, J., Raeburn, B., Marsalis, E. and Brown, J. (no date) Jazz origins in New Orleans. Available at: https://www.nps.gov/jazz/learn/historyculture/history_early.html(Accessed: 23 February 2017).

Dissertation

How did New Orleans Jazz challenge inequalities in the south of America in the early/mid 1900’s?

Introduction

During the course of this dissertation, we will be going over what aspects of jazz and the community associated with it may or may not have helped question the rights of minorities and those segregated against in the early/mid 1900’s. Furthermore the growing popularity of jazz at the time, could easily be a major contributing factor to making black people be less discriminated against and more accepted into America as a community There are ideas that due to jazz and other genres heavily influenced by black people becoming so popular throughout America, made Americans more open to black people and their culture. In addition we will also discuss what helped form jazz and make it into such a powerful genre that would help shape America into a more accepting country. Moreover we will also go over the fact that New Orleans was one of America’s slave ports, and even after slavery was abolished quite blatant discrimination was still lingering, this encouraged races of all kinds to interlink. Additionally I would also like to cover that there are ideas that black people mainly influenced the creation of jazz, for example the improvisational feel, it also has its fair share of European input, for example the composition and harmony. However there are also ideas ‘jazz does not owe its existence to any one race’. Another topic I would like to discuss is the fact that quite a few black people at the time felt Americans were gaining a lot more fame then themselves, this angered them mainly because a lot of black people felt that they were the pioneers of jazz, but were not being credited properly for there contributions to the genre.

The birth of Jazz

The birth of Jazz is quite largely believed to have started in New Orleans, there are ideas that Jazz started as far back as slaves being brought from Africa to America but there are also beliefs that it was formed from songs slaves used to sing about going back home whilst on the plantation. Furthermore we will be following the ideas of those who believe it to have started in New Orleans, from a mixture of slaves and ‘free’ people. To fully explain the birth of Jazz we will have to go back as far as the 1800’s to the parent of Jazz, which is Blues. Blues is said to have come from the south of America by African Americans expressing their pain, hardship and experiences as a slave. It’s thought to start on plantations, whilst slaves worked to keep morale high and was viewed as an escape from their harsh reality. In addition to explain the creation of Jazz we would need to talk about the French and Spanish speaking black people (creoles they were called at the time) who were under the French then Spanish rule but were then freed, and the newly freed slaves who lived on the west side of town who were less privileged than the ‘Creole’ people as the majority of the newly freed slaves had all but no education and were poor, which was a huge contrast to the Creole people, as they had been around European people for a number of years, they had worked in opera houses, lead their own bands and were able to read music. These two communities joined together musically, which was a spectacular thing as the newly freed slaves knew almost nothing about reading music and composition whereas the Creoles did, the newly freed slaves knew more about the improvisational side since they often song/played blues and gospel. So in short the west side bands (the newly freed slaves) brought the improvisational side to jazz, where as the Creole bands brought more of the composition and sight reading to jazz. To summarize the idea goes as such, in the early 1900’s African American musicians would gather in New Orleans and share their songs, experiences and ideas, which would then become to be known as jazz, this played a huge part in spreading Jazz on a national scale, yet people still only knew jazz as the “New Orleans Sound”.  After flourishing in New Orleans Jazz then moved to Chicago, It was still called New Orleans Sound, but was said to be less wild than it was originally in New Orleans. However one of the main reasons Jazz then swiftly moved to Chicago was due to the fact that discrimination against African Americans and the Creole people had re-emerged. Whilst the Chicago and New York received most of the jazz migrants from New Orleans, Jazz influenced Kansas City the most out of the three options, as after Jazz artists started moving there the genre stayed popular for the longest amount of time compared to Chicago and New York. 

Identity Politics

Once Jazz had moved to the other cities, many African Americans and Creole people were a bit disappointed and annoyed, they were disappointed and annoyed due to the fact that in places like Chicago where Jazz was deemed as more popular, it was said that the Jazz sound had changed, it had changed from a less wild, primal, sound to a more classical sound. In addition people believe this was done to change the audience from the former slaves who were now free people and were able to express their emotions and past through song, to a white audience making it more polite. This infuriated many ‘founders’ of Jazz, but others saw the plus side. With the style being changed, this meant that Americans would now come to Jazz clubs and events allowing the genre to grow. It also meant that Americans would have to go to African American neighbourhoods to listen to this genre. However with this birthed another issue, with there being two styles of Jazz, it segregated the Jazz community, there were now clubs for ‘negroes’ and clubs for ‘whites’. The New York style of Jazz was different to both the Chicago style of Jazz and the original New Orleans style of Jazz, whilst it still was similar to the New Orleans style, like the Chicago style it lost it’s primal ways, but not changing so much to attract a whole new audience. In fact this simple changed attracted and “appealed to people from every echelon of society”  (http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/upriver.html). Kansas city was where “jazz flourished for the longest” (http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/upriver.html). Unlike Chicago African American Jazz artists were wanted in both white clubs and African American clubs. Furthermore sexism was also a big issue around this time, many jazz artists and musicians were male, there were few ‘canaries’(female jazz vocalists), and even fewer female musicians. It was acceptable for canaries to be in bands but mainly on the occasion they were attractive. Females had it roughest in the jazz industry. “Not even great talent could shield female jazz musicians from sexism’ (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/771665/Jazz-helped-break-down-US-racial-barriers.html).  An interesting opinion I found was “one could argue that racism made jazz seem forbidden therefore irresistible across all ethnicities in the 1920’s in America”, (https://www.quora.com/How-did-racism-influence-jazz-music-in-the-20th-century). This opinion is interesting because it’s playing on the idea that humans want what we can’t have so for Americans making going to African American jazz clubs socially taboo across their community may want the younger generation to rebel and go to them, which would ultimately surprise them and they would enjoy it. Jazz music was completely interracial; there were African American, Creole and European bands all across the south of America. Whilst many ‘pioneers’ of Jazz felt cheated by the Chicago style of jazz it was still a hub for Jazz musicians nationally.

The Harlem Renaissance

From the south of America a lot of jazz artists and fans would venture to Harlem where they would hear African American jazz artists play in segregated clubs. The Harlem Renaissance also played a huge part in combatting racism in America. With the Jim Crow Laws and numerous amounts of hate groups in the south of America, many African Americans ended up in Harlem. The African Americans brought jazz with them; this is what formed Harlem’s cotton club. The Harlem Renaissance allowed African Americans to portray their memories and experiences as raw as they could. Due to the Harlem Renaissance Harlem was then viewed as a hub for African Americans, their culture, music and their art. It was portrayed as a celebration or an acknowledgement of the hardship African Americans had been through. The Harlem Renaissance was a result of world war 1, many of Americans had gone off to war so there were quite a few vacancies in the factories in the north of America. African Americans saw this as an opportunity to better their lives as many of them were uneducated, poor and had no real sight of what to do next. With Harlem becoming a hot spot of culture for African Americans, which was originally quite a white area, it’s thought that this made it easier for white people to be more accepting of African Americans, this is thought due to the increase of white people attending African American jazz clubs and also less clubs being only for white people. Furthermore The Harlem Renaissance did not last for long, it ended in the 1930’s once the aftermath of the Great Depression, caused the Harlem Race Riot.

Swing

In the 1930’s a variation of Jazz was created, Swing. The common components to Swing, was quite a large band, written music and solos from individual musicians rather than the whole band playing an improvisational part. This became to be the forefront of the Jazz genre. However it only remained one of the more popular forms of Jazz for around 10 years, in the 1940’s its popularity fell and the genre gave way to bebop. 

Conclusion

I believe that Jazz helped challenge racism in the early/mid 1900’s for the better. I believe this because, Jazz is almost like the retaliation to the years of oppression the African American and Creole people served as slaves and the discrimination they deal with to this day, this brings me to believe that without the African Americans and Creole people expressing their culture and emotions, through Jazz which, even though was watered down at one point, appealed to Americans, they might still be alienated and not viewed as human. Jazz did not eradicate segregation in a flash but I do believe it was a starting point and allowed Americans to be more understanding and question the past choices they made to enslave people of colour. Furthermore it didn’t only allow Americans to understand Jazz culture it also allowed them to enjoy it, this would make both people of colour and Americans to be more welcoming to each other’s society. In addition, the fact that Americans were able to adopt Jazz into their own style means they at least acknowledged the genre and although not every American jazz artist did this at the time, many American artists worked with jazz musicians and artists who were of colour. However I don’t believe Jazz helped challenge sexism in the mid/early 1900’s, this is because, within the jazz community women were sexually harassed, quickly fired, taken advantage of and were not given the same opportunities as the men. Being a female African American or Creole artist or singer, would have been more challenging at this time, than being a male. As stated earlier there was a criteria you had to fit to be accepted into a jazz band and even then you were mistreated. Whilst people were making strides in earning rights around this time, I don’t believe Jazz had a part to play, that’s not to say that there weren’t many popular female jazz artists around this time, but if they were men with the talent they had then their careers may had risen higher. Furthermore I don’t think it helped that sex and drugs surrounded the Jazz scene, this would have made it more difficult for women involved to try and escape the stereotype that they would be easy to manipulate.

Midi To Maxi

Recording Session Plan

Week One

For recording piano on my track influenced by Persian Rugs, I'm thinking of using a D.I box which will be connected to a synth/electric piano thats available in the recording studio. Ill create a score for a session player (most likely Tega) as I'm confident in her ability to play chords and melodies. Ill set up a headset for her so she can hear the rest of the track and the midi version of the chords, just for reassurance. I'm choosing to use  a D.I box so the sounds feeds straight into logic with no background noise or ambient sounds. The score I'll give her will be fairly short as the chords repeat it's self throughout the track. For the recording all I will need is a D.I box, (not specifying whether its stereo or not) a Male XLR to Jack lead, an Electric piano and a score. We will record in 141.

Week Two
For recording Bass on my track influenced by Persian Rugs, my idea at the moment is to give Jack a Liverpool bass then get him to play the bass that plays the melody. The set up will be a SM57 by the amp for the bass, which will be fed into the audio interface by using a jack to female XLR lead, I'm doing this because for this type of bass I would like their to be some type of ambience. I won't be giving Jack a score as he's practiced this piece before and is competent to play it. I'll set the track up on logic so he's able to listen to the midi version of the bass.


I have already recorded bass on my remix of Tupac do for love, but I would like to record another type of bass as the the first bass i recorded was a fretless bass, which I'm unsure if it suits the track, so my plan is to record it with a Liverpool bass, or another sub type bass, and feed it directly through a D.I box. As Jack has already played this bass-line I won't be supplying him with a score, but will let him listen to the midi version and the previously recorded audio version so he can listen back.

Week 4
I also plan to record the trumpet for my saxophone section on Tupac Do For Love. To record this I will set up Alex with a  E606 microphone and connect using a female XLR to male XLR lead, I'm choosing a E606 as its a dynamic microphone meaning it can pick up sound in a specific direction which would be best for recording one instrument.

Week 5
For my remix of tupac do for love, I had Alex play the trumpet to cover the saxophone the end result is as follows below and the recording went as I planned. Although we didn't use a score, we were able to read the notes to Alex and he was able to play them to the metronome.


Week 6
For my Persian rugs remix I recorded the chords on the juno synth connecting it to a D.I box and straight into the DAW. I had Josh play the chords and told him the individual notes to play, we placed him right next to the floor box and set him up with some headphones so he would easily be able to hear himself.

Funding Application

Open Music Funding

We wish to apply to the open music funding by PRS For Music Foundation to further our journey with our Sound 'Bashment's Backbone' over the years of performing in small venues, we've accumulated quite a loyal following base and the four of us (Jax, Tempo, Mod and myself) think it's about time we toured around the UK. Our fans are often mailing and emailing us that they would love to see us perform but since so far we've only been limited to London due to not having the funds to transport all our equipment with us to the other side of the country or even to Northern Ireland. We use drum pads, looping, vocals, synths, a range of instrumentd and pre-recorded tracks in our performances, which i believe makes us unique and has allowed us to grow as big as we have. All of us know how to use the equipment but we tend to have our separate favourites which encourages to work in sync better. Jax mainly acts as the producer for the pre-recorded tracks and for the sounds we use from the production softwares. Tempo is usually on the drum pads but surprise surprise can also play the drums, hence his name Tempo. Mod is usually in charge of looping and playing melodies whether thats on guitar, piano or a synth and i'll be on vocals and have my own synth. As i mentioned earlier my aim is to tour the UK, for this we would need roadies, vans to transport the equipment in, promotion (through social media and flyers etc..) and to have venues at the ready. We have our own pages on social media so promotion via social media shouldn't be an issue, the main issue is transporting our equipment, and having the venue prepared for us. This is what the funding would go towards we have already got quotes from roadies to achieve this and spoke to many venues across the country who would be willing to cater for us. We're also thinking of adding merchandise to our personal website and putting up a stand at the venues we'll perform at.

We're hoping for a funding of £10,000 we have planned budgets for each step of the way and think this plan will succeed.

4 Track Review

Persian Pugs

"Persian Pugs" was inspired from the chords from Persian Rugs by Party Next Door. I played the chords in and decided it was a unique sound that I liked. I wanted to remake the sound of the chords into my own sound, I used the EX 24 synth to conjure a sound that I liked. This version of Persian Pugs is missing some content as its an older version, I used this bounce so the development can be heard and my ideas for this track are clear. Throughout the development I plan to use panning techniques on only one bar of the synths, which will be when the synth is split into thirds. I plan to have Erykah sing on this track to finish it off.

https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/miles-persian-pugs

Tupac Do For Love Remix

Using the bass line from Tupac Do for love, I wanted to make a remix mainly formed of audio, we recorded. In the studio we recorded a fretless bass guitar and drums, I plan to add trumpets and synths to the track from recording, I already have midi versions of them both. But using the D.I box will make the track more interesting and completely recorded by me and peers. I added the synth to keep interest there rather than just the drum and bass line. The same with the trumpet.
https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/tupac-do-for-love-remix

What Do You Want

Starting off this track I wanted to start it with a kind of dark ambient feeling, with the drums changing after each bar, my plans for this track are to have a almost RnB/ drum & bass, bass line, to keep the ambient feeling, and add more interest to the song. With this track I was thinking of mainly keeping it midi and using most of my midi skills. The synth was made using alchemy, but the drums was just one of logics instruments.
https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/what-do-you-want

Crazy Tazy

Using the track from last year, I added a subby synth intro that fades and in and increases tempo as it goes along, and kept the vocals, with this song I planned to have Erykah sing on it to add to the vocals. Furthermore I would like to possibly replace the drum beats with a beat from ultra beat and improve the synth using an ESP or EX 24. I could possibly add chords to help develop the song.
https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/crazy-tazy

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