Tag: Artistry Breakthrough

Young Producers Blog: Young Producers and ITT present “Artistry Breakthrough”

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Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people and will be blogging about the process.

Johnny’s Blog #4:

On the day of the event spirits were high. The performers met with Jake from The Irene Taylor Trust and Alex (owner of the venue ‘Haunt London’ on Stoke Newington road and sound technician for the night) for a sound check and run through of the songs. It’s always good to get a rehearsal on the same day as the event and make sure the mics and instruments are at the right levels. Hearing all the tracks from the superband at the final venue was great. It was nice to hear all the solo artists that we called in from previous projects (Paradox, Nirobi and Pedro) that I had seen perform before. I was looking forward to seeing them share their new material.

We went through the hosting speeches to be prepared for what we were going to say to introduce the event. After a break, we came back to the room transformed into the final ‘Artistry Breakthrough’ look, which was amazing. There was a banner to represent the Irene Taylor Trust and a projection of the the front cover of the event’s flyer. This made a great background for pictures of the performers, to show what event they were performing at.

Once all the guests had arrived, it was noticeable that we had accomplished a full house, so we were off to a flying start. Helen and I delivered an introduction to the night with some background information of the Young Producers project, the event’s name and our experience with The Irene Taylor Trust. We gave a special thanks to everyone who helped make it happen.

We then jumped straight into performances with 3 tracks from the superband followed by 3 solo artists. We decided to split the running order to 1 superband song followed by a solo artist. This felt like the best option to space out the entertainment and keep things interesting. The music was so inspiring, to see everyone expressing themselves like true professional artists, it was a real encouragement and the atmosphere was electric. The audience was really supportive and evidently loved the show as they cheered on all the artists and contributed with crowd participation.

We had a surprise speech from Lauren to congratulate us as Young Producers with a card on stage, it was a really thoughtful gesture and pleasant surprise. After the event, the ITT team packed the equipment away in the van and we had some of the audience give their opinions of the night, as part of our “voice of the people” vox pops. We had some insightful feedback from guests of the evening, that meant us to hear what people thought of the event.

Overall the night was a huge success and I would do it all again if I had the chance to. I’m looking forward to supporting and being involved in future projects with the Irene Taylor Trust. Sending all the love, respect and appreciation to the charity, Arts Patrons, Alex, musicians and audience for a life changing experience. It has helped me grow as an individual artist and professional person. I really feel as though anything is possible and I have a real positive outlook on life and future prospects, both musically and career wise.

Young Producers Blog: “We all Experience ‘Breakthrough’ Moments”

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Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people and will be blogging about the process.

Helen’s Blog #5:

The day of the gig has arrived!

It was a later start than the previous two days, but everyone still came with the same mindset to put their all in to everything they did.

We got cracking with ‘Everybody Needs Music’, because I expressed my concerns about harmonising.

After some more thought on it, I decided to go on to the keyboard instead. The part was trickier than I had expected, and the tempo to which I was playing changed during the song. I felt like between harmonising and playing the keyboard, I didn’t give my best performance to the song; which was a real pity, as it was my favourite one.

It was really frustrating that I was unable to play the keyboard part perfectly on the night, but I had to remind myself that I am human, and humans make mistakes; and I’d only played my part twice before the live performance.

We then rehearsed ‘Phoenix’, and ‘Strive’; which both went well, before the soloists rehearsed their tracks.

By this point, I was feeling really stressed out, and wish I had been able to enjoy the rehearsals more.

It was time for the performance, and I felt a little calmer. Johnny and I went up to introduce the event, and it went well, even though we had never rehearsed what we were going to say. We then started the gig with ‘Phoenix’.

In the rehearsals, this hadn’t gone very well, but the performance sounded fine.

Paradox then went on to perform his two tracks, which were brilliant. His second track; ‘work like that’ was especially good, as he got the audience involved by getting them to join in on parts of the chorus.

We then moved on to ‘Strive’; which again, went really well. I hope Louisa was pleased with it, because she did amazingly.

Next, it was Nirobi, who performed 3 tracks. As always, she was wonderful. My favourite track of hers was ‘Parallel Universe’; it’s still stuck in my head!

Then, we performed ‘Everybody Needs Music’ which went really well; even though I felt like I’d messed up on the keyboard.

I was feeling flustered again after messing up, and then said the ‘thank you’s to everyone, totally having missed out Pedro’s solo tracks.

Despite my mess up, Pedro went on stage and performed three amazing tracks, as if nothing had happened. I found I really related to some of his lyrics, and really enjoyed hearing his tracks. I guess that’s just part of performing; but it was so nice to see how everyone had grown and progressed during their time with the Irene Taylor Trust, and how, ironically, I was one of the first making tracks participants performing that night, but people who’d started their journey later than me seemed less nervous and more professional.

However, I wasn’t ashamed, or embarrassed, I was just really happy for everyone else, and felt so privileged to have seen parts of their journeys.

This is what the Irene Taylor Trust is all about; not numbers and statistics, but being a platform for music lovers to develop both their musical ability, and their ability to make themselves a better future.

We all experience ‘Breakthrough’ moments, but the Irene Taylor Trust have provided me with some of my favourite ones. I couldn’t be more proud, and happy for all the performers, for breaking through all the obstacles.

I’d just like to say a few ‘thank you’s

Firstly, to the Arts Patron’s Trust, for funding and supporting the Young Producers project, and to all the performers and project team. But also, to the people working really hard behind the scenes, like everyone at the Irene Taylor Trust, in particular; Jake, Lauren and Luke. Also, thank you to everyone who came, and does/ has supported the Irene Taylor Trust; you have helped change, in my case even save, lives.

Young Producers Blog: Everybody Needs Music

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Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people and will be blogging about the process.

Helen’s Blog #4:

The ‘Super Band’ was reunited today.

We started off knowing that Johnny wanted to move away from the guitar and  bass, and be up front, doing vocals, but didn’t have the baseline for the song.

Johnny wanted us all to be involved in the process of writing the song, so we started off by Gary playing some different genres of music, and us all voting on which one we felt was best suited to ourselves, Johnny, and to the event.

Eventually, we decided on a blues genre song, and then had to decide whether to have it in a major key, or a minor key; of which Gary played both, and we decided on the Minor key one.

Whilst the rest of the band were working out the musical accompaniment; Fudge, Johnny and I worked on the lyrics.

The beauty of a blues song, is that you can sing about almost anything, and it will still sound amazing, but we decided to keep on the theme of music, and wrote a chorus.

We then wrote a verse for Fudge, in which we added some elements of the chorus.

I was trying to harmonise, but was finding it really difficult, as I’ve never harmonised before, and it was a bit daunting because Fudge has such an amazing voice, and totally kept to the melody, whilst I went off track a bit.

It was challenging, but I persevered.

Young Producers Blog: Holy Rehearsal days at Saint Mark’s Church in Kennington

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Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people and will be blogging about the process.

Johnny’s Blog #3

We spent the two rehearsal days in the same building that I first met members of the Irene Taylor Trust, for a making tracks project where we produced, recorded and performed an album in a week. It was nice to be back in a familiar venue with friendly faces, that I have worked with previously. I also grew up in Kennington so it always brings back childhood memories when I’m there.

Making music in such a big room is so refreshing; the sound really echoes through the space around you. There’s something really humbling about making music in a church and it felt like it contributed to us producing soulful sounds and righteous lyrics.

Helen and I were accompanied by a crew of talented musicians that work with the Trust on various projects: Emma (Producer, instrumentalist), Gary (Guitarist), Adrian (singer songwriter) as well as Tegan (Percussionist) from the  Royal Academy of Music and Rachel (saxophonist) from Guildhall. We also called in Louisa (singer songwriter) and Pedro (Lyricist) who had both been on a previous “Making Tracks” project with the Trust. It was a really strong team and a pleasure to work with a full band and other vocalists. Lauren, Jake and Celia from the Trust were also there to support us as an audience and document the experience with film, photography and recordings.

We spent the next two days producing 3 tracks: Helen’s poetic song “Phoenix”, Louisa and Adrian’s insightful song “Strive” and Adrian, Pedro and myself wrote to a groovy blues song called “Everybody loves music”. We got some recordings of each of the tracks so people could hear them back, outside of the sessions in preparation for the gig. It was really helpful to have other songwriters there to assist with lyrics and encourage us to contribute to the messages of the songs.

It’s quite exceptional how a roomful of musicians can work so well together, to construct such quality music in such a short space of time. I always find it really inspiring when working with the ITT and it just goes to show what you can achieve with like-minded creatives, to express yourself and have some strong material to perform for an event.

Young Producers Blog: Forming the ‘Super Band’

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Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people and will be blogging about the process.

Helen’s Blog #3:

We met for the first day today, to form a ‘super band’ consisting of previous making tracks participants, ‘sounding out’ mentors, a student from Guild Hall, a student from the Royal Academy of Music and Johnny and I.

Between us, we were able to form a band, with everything from a drummer to singers/ rappers.

I am always nervous to form a band with a new set of people, but everyone was really nice, and I felt like we were all included and equals.

We started off with ‘Phoenix’; which was a song I had written whilst in hospital. When it was written, I only had access to a 5 string guitar, so, as you can imagine, it had to be totally reworked musically. I was also unhappy with some of the lyrics, so with Fudge and Louisa’s help, we rewrote some of the lyrics.

It was a difficult process for me; firstly, writing about anything positive, and secondly sharing something I hadn’t shared with anyone before, so I felt quite hesitant, but everyone was really supportive, and after a good couple of hours; the song was finished.

We then started on a previous Making Tracks project song, ‘strive’, as Louisa wanted to revisit it.

The recording sounded amazing, but it was difficult to pick out the chords and replicate what happened in the recording, but we all put our heads together and persevered, and got a brilliant end result.

The chords and the pattern they were in felt quite unique, which was really special for us all. Louisa then put her verses over it, and Fudge wrote two rap verses. I was on the keyboard, and Emma helped me come up with a melodic harmony to the part she was playing on the synth.

At this point in the day, we were all starting to feel pretty tired, and I was really struggling to keep to the correct rhythm during the song.

Young Producer Johnny Interviewed by Sara

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Young Producers is a new project for young people who have taken part in Making Tracks, supported by the Arts Patron Trust. Our first 2 Young Producers Helen and Johnny are collaborating to put on a gig involving other young people.

The Irene Taylor Trust’s Artistic Director Sara Lee interviewed Young Producer Johnny about his experience taking part in the project, the challenges along the way and his favourite part of the project, the tour of the Roundhouse- “It was really inspiring on a personal level and a good day to be honest – a great day”.

Listen to the whole interview below: