Strand: Creativity

I have been learning piano since I was 4 years old. I am proud about the fact that I still enjoy playing piano, whenever I get time to do it. For a school event, my friends and I decided to play as a band. We all chose the instruments we were good at. Playing piano in a band was different than what I was used to. It took us a lot of time and effort to get synchronised with the vocals and the instrument. Our tempo wouldn’t easily match, and choosing a song which we all were convenient with, was also a challenging task. This was because of the fact that we all were accustomed to playing various sorts of music.

L1: After this experience, I realized that I still had a lot to improve, when it came to playing the piano, especially while playing in a band. I understood that I have to transpose the chords, which suited with the vocals and also manage to play in the correct tempo. I worked upon this by understanding the style of every band member and practicing as much as I could with my band. We had to compromise on our free slots and lunch breaks so that we could play in front of a crowd. I tried overcoming my fear of facing and performing in front of an audience through this experience. I also understood that my strengths were being able to shift to different chords quickly, due to the reason that I had a practice of doing that. I also was able to memorize the chords of the songs that we chose as a band, quite quickly, which benefited my band. This is because, we just had 5-6 days to prepare 2 songs, which was a demanding and tough job for me.

L2: It was quite a challenge for every member of our band to play together, since it was new for all of us. We had no one to guide us, and requesting teachers for giving us permission to use school’s instrument was also a difficult task. Choosing 2 songs that suited everyone took 2 days, which left us with 3-4 days for practicing. After deciding the songs, we really had to work upon matching our pace with each other. We used metronome that guided us to understand which pace and tempo we need to follow. Even after a lot of practice, we still ended up making some mistakes while playing, such as playing the wrong key, or not being able to keep up with the tempo.

L4: Our band showed commitment towards this task by giving our entire efforts towards this task. For a week we practiced for 3-4 hours. We met at a member’s house to practice and become perfect at playing the songs. We sometimes had to skip our lunch break just to ensure that we try to be flawless while performing. On the day of the event, we came early to school for a final practice.

L5: Playing in a band enabled us to support and help each other whenever anyone of us needed any help. We were able to learn to play 2 songs due to working collectively. Due to everyone motivating each other and pushing ourselves to our full extent, we were able to accomplish this task within this short time period. We wouldn’t be able to do this if we weren’t working together.