It was our fourth session this week and a bit of a mile-stone as we split into two groups for the evening. Four of the participants went straight to the Crown Lane Recording studios whilst the remaining eight were based, as usual, at the High Path day centre.
I started out with the latter group and again we were concentrating on trying to play various rhythms. Elisabeth was laying down number cards showing which beat we were to hit our drums on (2 and 4 in our case) and it's surprisingly tricky and takes a fair bit of concentration.
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Ben, what on earth are you wearing?
I'm detecting Andy's influence here... |
As well as the djembe drums the electronic drum pad and , of course, the community drum-kit were also popular. Marie had been itching to get on the drums and had been a bit piqued not to get a chance the previous week. Now she could let rip!
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| Marie doing her best Gene Krupa impression |
It's definitely starting to hang together a bit more every week but meanwhile, over at Crown Lane Studios, an even bigger step was taking place!
John had spent the first half of the session giving a guided tour of his lively recording studios. They saw bands actually recording in the studio (keeping very quiet) and then all four of them had a go on the instruments in the session room - keyboards, drums, bass guitar and percussion. I only caught the end of this, just after the recording had been completed and when everyone was finishing up their session. What struck me was Danny's abilities on the drums and Robert on the bass guitar. Both very impressive!
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| Robert gets to slap some bass! |
After finishing up on the instruments we moved next door and John took us through what we would need to do in order to record our own version of "We Are Wimbledon". We had a discussion about who might take responsibility for which part and which instruments
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| "I'm thinking of getting the band back together...!" |
John was already breaking the song down into its constituent parts and using his dry-wipe wall for his sketch. My job for next Monday was to find out what the lyrics are!
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| "So if we can get the diamond working we can get the ball round here and back to Seb..." |
If Ben is going to take lead vocals ("Rock'n'Roll - Oh yeah!!") then he's going to have to loose the Chelsea t-shirt! Rob is giving up the bass and going onto drums, supported by Danny on percussion. Others are going to provide backing vocals and we'are all going to be contributing to the crowd vocals. I think there might well also be a competition to design the cd cover as well!
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| Here it is - our cunning plan for chart domination! |
Here's a short clip of the practice room at Crown lane studios
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