Students returned for Day 2 of Sussex Rocks and the group split into their instrumental classes for the daily technique expander sessions.
The guitarists resumed their caterpillar exercises; working with patterns in 4-note groupings per string along with a click track (quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes at 60bpm).
The guitarists then learned to play all the guitar parts for ‘Wishing Well’ (Free) to perform later in the afternoon band performance session.
Song structure: “Wishing Well” by Free
Intro (Main riff)
Verse 1
Pre-chorus
Chorus 1
Interlude (Main riff)
Verse 2
Pre-chorus
Chorus 2
Interlude (Main riff)
Middle-8
Solo
Bridge
Outro (Main riff)
After lunch students were put into new bands; Sussex Rocks encourages its participants to work with as many musicians as possible to expose students to the widest possible range of musical styles and genres. The bands then descended to the practice rooms to begin rehearsing songs for the performance session.
The performance session is designed to give students a chance to showcase their songs, be it work-in-progress or completed song. Each band has approx. 5-mins to perform their chosen song and the class and instructors give critical feedback on their performance.
Songs performed in today’s session included:
‘Wishing Well‘ by Free
‘Smoke on the Water‘ by Deep Purple
‘Paranoid‘ by Black Sabbath
‘Billie Jean’ by Michael Jackson
Intro Riff: “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson
Billie Jean featured as a single on Michael Jackson’s mega-selling 1982 album ‘Thriller’. The song was written by Jackson about a real-life encounter with a groupie. I have arranged the string and bass parts for electric guitar – have fun!
Side Note
I have been trialling Riffstation (http://www.riffstation.com) during Sussex Rocks 2013 and would encourage anyone to download the generous 30-day free trial from the website. The software allows you to change pitch, tempo, add click track, beat match, analyses and identifies chords and has a great sweeping EQ so you can remove guitar and vocal parts to create your very own backing tracks.
Sussex Rocks | Monsters of Rock 2013 