My performance was yesterday and I'm generally very happy with how it went. There were some small errors in some of the tracks but nothing major, and given the overall circumstances it went just about as well as I could have hoped.
The biggest worry on the day came when I woke in the morning in a lot of pain and struggling to move. I later learned an infection had developed in my tailbone, and this made it very uncomfortable to sit down which obviously was an issue given I was playing drums. At first I thought I would be unable to play but the pain eased up over the course of the day and didn't hamper me too much come my actual performance. However it had shaken me earlier in the day, and meant I was unable to hold a last minute rehearsal which I'd been hoping to do, and this could have ironed out some of the mistakes I made and settled my nerves a bit.
Overall I feel the biggest disappointment in my set was using backing tracks for 4 out of the 6 tracks. Although I was still able to showcase my ability on those tracks, I know it would have made for a more entertaining performance had I had a full band for them, and from the feedback I got from the audience and watching back over the tracks themselves I think it's clear the songs I performed with my band were the best in the set.
However, using backing tracks was necessitated by time, financial and geographical constraints. I found it hard this year balancing out work from all my units with work and other commitments outside of my course, and it made it hard to give as much time to putting together the performance as I would have liked. Given where I stay there was also a large cost in travel to and from the college where we practiced, and that made me keen to avoid having to make trips unless I absolutely had to. It also meant it would have been hard for me to free up money to hire professional musicians to fill slots had I opted to do that. On the matter of finding musicians I again found it hard not being native to Edinburgh or the surrounding areas to find people who played the instruments I would have required for some of the tracks. Most of my contacts were based more in the Glasgow direction, and once I had David White and Dechlan Nicholson, both from Edinburgh, committed to doing bass and guitar, I was keen to avoid having musicians from the other side of the country as arranging rehearsals would have been difficult.
In hindsight I'm aware that I could have acted quicker in putting my set together. A few of my tracks were decided later than I would have liked, although this was often due to me being forced to make changes. If I had been settled on a programme earlier I might have been able to commit to finding the required musicians and making it all work.
Nevertheless I'm proud of the work I did personally in playing the tracks I chose. It involved developing a lot of skills and knowledge I hadn't had before such as using a double bass drum pedal, playing in a myriad of odd time signatures which often involved me transcribing parts to understand them better, and researching cymbals and drum set-ups to replicate the sounds made on some of the tracks I chose. A lot of work into it and although in some respects it could have been a more dynamic performance, there a lot of positives I will take from it.
