Over the course of several weeks many of our drum students at The Musiclab worked on this project. We took a cover version of the Richie Havens song “Going Back to My Roots”, recorded and adapted by Homegrown (a popular local covers band) and removed the drum parts.
The students were initially asked to listen to the song and create a “lead sheet” (working out the layout and arrangement of the song), then start developing their own drum parts to play with the song. This involved paying close attention to the bass line along with the general feel of the music, the dynamics and paying attention to the genre of the song and making sure that they adjusted their parts stylistically to match the style of the song.
The students developed their performances over several weeks and performed their versions in class in front of their peers. The students were encouraged to take feedback and constructive criticism from their peers and their tutor in order to further refine their performances.
All participating students were then given the opportunity to record their versions and experience a professional recording session at our sister school in Welwyn Garden City, based at Farm Factory Studios, a professional recording and rehearsal facility.
Here’s a mixed edit of some of the results!