Week 7: 21 - 25 May 2012

Topic (Theory): Jazz Ensemble Performance & Music Jingle
Reflection Question: What do you think of your music jingle?

I am satisfied with my music jingle. It was my first time combining 3 instruments in composing the song. It was a challenge for me to do so, thus I made some mistakes on the first draft of my music jingle. However, by the help of my instrument teacher I was able to fix the mistakes. When listening to my music jingle, I felt Indonesian traditional atmosphere. I believe that my jingle can persuade tourists to come to Indonesia if the jingle is used for Indonesian tourism advertisement.

Instrument class
I gathered up with my jazz ensemble group mates and supervisor to practice for the performance. After observing my performance to the song, I felt that it would be better if I did not just play the melody, but also helped the guitar and piano to accompany the melody. After decided to do so, the performance turned to be better. However, I still have not memorized the melody notes and it would make it difficult for me to performance the song well. I need more practices out of music class in order to perform the song better.

Practice videos
Playing "Don't Know Why"

 

 Since this week is a week before the assessment, I must already have improved a lot. It is true that I have some improvements. Usually on the instrument class when I gathered up with my jazz ensemble group I did many mistakes in playing the melody. However, on this video it seems that I only made few mistakes. However, I still had problems in my blowing technique especially when I had to play notes with longer tempo. Nonetheless, I observed that my blowing technique improves day by day. On the next practice, perhaps I have to play the song with faster tempo since on the practices during the instrument class I played the song with faster tempo than the one used on this practice. 

Playing "Don't Know Why" (2nd practice)

 

 On this practice, I played the melody with faster tempo as how I played it during instrument class. In the beginning of the practice, I observed a mistake in the playing. There was a note that I played an octave higher than it supposed to be. Although I did not press the wrong notes, playing the melody in incorrect octave would make the performance sounds bad as well. Thus, I have to provide more time to practice so that I can play the melody with correct octave. Nonetheless, I did not observe errors in my blowing skill as many as the previous practice.