This month’s NUMU students’ reviews

Every month TG rates the latest recordings by NUMU students. So here goes…

TRACK OF THE MONTH

'I Need You' - Bujj

It´s not as impressive technically as the rest of this month´s choices, but this cover of one of The Beatles´ lesser-known songs fizzes with naïve charm and deserves the Track of The Month accolade. In comparison to Nath and Preocide´s efforts, Bujj´s guitar playing is fairly rudimentary, but then The Beatles´ volume swells on the original could hardly be described as virtuosic. And respect is due to Bujj for adapting the original guitar parts, hinting at creativity with potential to go beyond cover versions. Fair play to you, sir!

‘Entrance Of The Conflagration´ - Preocide

Any musician with aspirations to make recordings and release them to the public should be familiar with the term ‘quality control´. The beauty of digital recording is the capability to go back and edit any mistakes or badly recorded takes. Perhaps Preocide didn´t have the necessary editing facilities, but as the drums are distorted and the vocal pitched too low for clarity, we reckon it would be worth having another go at this otherwise sterling effort. Make sure none of the instruments are going into the red when you set your levels and consider singing an octave higher next time. Nice work, though. Those guitars sound pretty awesome when they kick in at the start!

‘Always With Me, Always With You´ - Nath

Tackling a Joe Satriani tune is a brave task, but Nath comes through almost unscathed here. The guitar tone sounds about right and we´re impressed at some of the technical aspects of Nath´s playing. Just watch out for timing and also your intonation when bending strings. These issues are often what separate great players from merely decent ones. Try practicing your string bends by first fretting the note you´re bending to on the next string up (ie, the higher pitched string). This gives your ear a target pitch to aim for. Again, it´s always worth going back and scrutinising your playing, and considering running another take if you feel you didn´t nail your best performance.

NUMU is a site for young people to showcase their music, meet others and learn new skills and was designed to support the Music Curriculum across primary and secondary schools.