Live Music Society: House Band Director

Hey everyone, I’m Alistair – a 4th year Engineering student and the current interim House Band Director, and I would love for you to vote for me and make my position in the committee official! I’ve been working alongside Sam to run the auditions for the band and organise the rehearsals for the incredibly successful Halloween gig, and with a number of opportunities for the house band on the horizon, I’ll make sure that we are sounding as good as ever. Alongside this, I will provide opportunities for the house band to play in more external events, because as fun as Mully’s is, it would be good to add some variety lol.

Anyway, I would love to get your vote as I have put a lot of hard work into this role already, but at the same time I have enjoyed every minute of it. Meeting and rehearsing with the talented people in house band is never a chore and I hope that I can keep doing so for the rest of this year!

Directing or performing in a band has always been one of my biggest interests as a huge music lover. Here are a few reasons why I am standing to the house band director.

First of all, being the director offers me more band experiences. My first band was in high school grade 9. That was my first time trying to play as a band-ist. Although the performance isn’t necessarily good, it deeply intrigues me and makes me want to perform or direct a band. In my previous university, I was also in one of the largest music societies as main keyboardist, band leader and sound engineer. Thus, I just want to pursue a continuation of rich experiences in sound-checking and directing band.

Secondly, I believe I am fully capable of directing, but at the same time, I seek for more opportunities to improve my ability. I started producing music since the age of 14, and till now, I have produced over 20 songs. I think the self-producing experience enables me with better understanding of how a song can sound better. In specific, I have a very good sense of keys and pitches so that I can identify mistakes or tiny flaws in band songs (e.g. vocal off-pitch, guitarists/bassists off-tempo). Moreover, I will try to ‘dissect’ each layer of instruments in the rehearsal and how they should sound like (i.e. the voicing of keyboards or guitars with effect pedal). For the instruments playing in different octaves, I will make sure they don’t mix in a gloomy of unclear manner and harmonize with each other.