Matthew Clough

At the beginning of the six week holidays I went to Sweden. Whilst I was there I took part in a non-formal talent competition with some friends. I sung Hallelluah (as it was the only song we knew as a group) and I think it went very well. We had only practised once, but we were all in tune and mostly in time, and I think our group communication was excellent, as we added another chorus and told each other what to do next without speaking to each other (as we nodded or gave certain looks to each other, which seemed to work!) We had gotten the beginnning wrong, as one of us came in before the other and I missed coming into a verse but mostly it went well, with some of my friends watching beginnning to slow dance! I think if we had practised more we would have known exactly what to do and our timing would have been very slick and smooth, and I think we could have set up quicker, because we took very long to get the microphone to work. We didn't win but I think we did very well.

Matthew Clough

Last week I managed to teach myself how to play chasing cars by coldplay on guitar. I do not know any notes on the guitar or any chords but I taught myself the two notes played at the beginning and from there I used trial and error to work out the chords. It is very important to know the notes, chords and theory of an instrument because it makes learning new songs a lot easier and quicker to learn. Being able to read music means that you have the correct notes in front of you and you can learn to play it a lot quicker. I am beginning to learn some notes and chords, so I can learn new songs on the guitar, and soon I will learn how to read tabs, so that I can play songs and learn chords a lot easier.

Andrew Flint

Over the holidays I've managed to get myself an electric drum kit (my birthday and christmas present) it's great because I can practice in near silence and a lot more often than I could, because now I'm not annoying the neighbours. I've already managed to break one pad, so we were given another. I'm being a lot more careful with it now though!

I've also been taking a few steps at learning bass guitar, a friend is going to lend me his old one and let me start properly learning it.

Eleanor Haley

Over the holidays I have been practising many different songs that I may use in my vocal exam in November, a few of these are 'On my own - Les Miserables', 'Defying Gravity - Wicked' and 'I'd give my life for you - Miss Saigon'. Just before the holidays I auditioned for a main role in a show to be put on around Christmas and got the part, the first rehearsal's tonight so I'll have to see how that goes!
Last Friday I went to Bingley Festival and watched a variety of different bands, that were all actually very good :) Still practising different guitar chords, hope to improve asap :)

Charlotte Nisbet

Over the holidays i have been attempting to learn some guitar chords and piano chords. I think learning these will come in helpfull because it will expand my knowledge of chords and it will be good to know basic chords. I have been learning through the internet and a few friends have shown me some

Alice Fletcher

This holiday I have really been getting back into playing the piano. I hadn't really been playing since we broke up from school but after my holiday (30th July-6th August) I started playing again. I have been playing mostly Disney but Twilight as well. I also found my music for Fur Elise and I have tried really hard to play both hands together and have managed quite well. Over all I am pretty proud of my progress with my piano recently. I am now just waiting for my exam books to arrive so I can start  working on them and hopefully do my grade 5 some time next year.

JAKE JAGGER

Successfully managed to play along to all the opening of eastenders, all acapella :) !! dont really do much music but oh well.

Alice Fletcher

Last week my sister was down visiting and played on the piano. She was struggling a bit so I helped her out,. also I have started to listen to musicals such as; Phantom of the Opera and Grease. I have still been listening to my usual styles such as dance and rock. I have started to listen to Nickelback which I haven't listened to in a while. I also ordered my piano grade 5 book the other day and should be getting it sometime next week.