I asked a questionnaire to seven students in my class, who are aged between 17 to 19 and I asked the following questions:

1.Have you ever heard of Noah and The Whale?

2.What type of music do you like to listen to?

3.Which do you like better a pop promo with a Narrative or performance?

4.Do you like music with Lyrics or without Lyrics?

5.Would you watch the pop promo of a song even if you didn’t like the song?

From the first question the results were interesting as a lot of people have heard of Noah and the Whale, out of the seven six people have heard of them. This is good in a way because it means that these students have an idea of what type of genre Noah and the whale play, but at the same time it’s bad as these students can compare our pop promo with the original pop promo’s of Noah and the Whale.

There were a various different types of genre for music, but the main types of genres were: Metal, Rock, R&B, Hip Hop, Pop, Trance, and Classical. A lot of these students prefer many different types of genres rather than sticking to one type. There is a joint top of genre of music, which is: Metal, Rock, RnB, and Hip-Hop, pop. This is bad for our group as the genre of music that Noah and the Whale like to perform is indie type music, which the students have not even included in their favorite types of music.

Our group asked this number three because for our pop promo it is just a narrative and we are interested in what people are more interested in performance or narrative. The result of this question came out equal (five each) which is interesting because a lot of the students chosen both. But this is good for our group, as we now know that it is not that important to have any performance and no one will be disappointed.

Our group asked the question four because some people in our class are actually doing a pop
promo without any lyrics and our group were wondering what these group of students actually prefer to listen to. This questions goes with what type of music people like to listen to all of those genre’s of music that they choose have lyrics in them normally apart from trance. This is good for our group as we have lyrics in ours also lyrics are good for a pop promo as it gives a narrative which we can follow rather than a pop promo without lyrics because then the pop promo has to go to the beat of the music rather than the lyrics.

The last question we asked because we want to know if any would actually be interested in looking up Noah and the Whale but the results of this showed that people prefer to watch a pop promo if they like the song, people who don’t mind watching a pop promo if they didn’t like the song only said that they would watch the pop promo for research. I think that this is a true point as if you like a song a lot most people want to see how the band have managed to create it on screen.

From our research of this questionnaire I can say that our group is on the right path of knowing how to capture this audience, but at the same time are really down side is that no one in our class enjoys indie, which might put our fellow students off our pop promo.

Bands similar to Noah and the Whale

Mumford and Sons

Mumford and Sons are a folk/blugrass band who have received positive critical acclaim from national newspapers such as the Guardian who featured them on their 'Band of the Day' online forum. They originated in London's pub folk scene (Twickenham in fact which is where Noah and the Whale originated) and have garnered a strong cult following amongst this crowd. In fact two of their band members even when to the same school as Noah and the Whale's bass player.

They released their debut album Lend Me Your Eyes in July 2008 and its lead single Roll Away Your Stone was featured as Radio 2's single of the week. They are attached to the label Chess Club which released their second album in November. In addition they made a successful appearance at the Cambridge Folk Festival where they wooed audiences with their country-tinged acoustic anthems mainly featuring banjos and double bass. The band pride themselves on their lyrical sensibilities about love, loss and despair. They also dabble in socio-political messages which is a nod to the decades of work by Bob Dylan. Finally, the band features as one of its singers, Laura Marling who has sung with Noah and the Whale.

They finished a nationwide tour in 2008 with support from Peggy Sue, Pete Roe, The Cutaway and more. They are now touring with the Maccabees and have been longlisted for the BBCs Sound of 2009. As well as that they have received airtime and support from Radio 1 DJs Zane Lowe and Greg James as well as XFMs Dave Berry. Mumford & Sons won Best Band at the 3rd Annual BalconyTV Music Video Awards in Dublin on 3 July 2009. In addition they now have a specially designated playlist folder On Virgin TV On Demand along with the likes of the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga which goes to the show that they have broken into mainstream culture.

Some of their songs include:

Little Lion Man

Winter Winds

White Blank Page

Feel The Tide

The Cave

Primary Research

After finalising our idea we were required to pitch our ideas to the rest of our A Level group by telling them a brief version of the synopsis and treatment as well as playing them our song. It seemed that most of the group were not great fans of the song as it was "too happy and upbeat" which suggests that this section of our age group prefers a darker and more sombre melody to a typical Noah and the Whale tune. They did however express positive feedback for our narrative which involves the end of a relationship possibly because of the death of the girl involved. Although some of the group did express slight concerns that the song was not appropiate for the story and that the melancholic undertones would be subdued by the 'jolly' nature of the song but we countered this by saying that we are aiming for a 'bittersweet' tone which highlights the contrast between the good times and the bad in the relationship hence showing clearly the tragedy of these snippets of a broken heart. Our tutor meanwhile indicated support for our idea and was passionate about the themes we were looking to explore. Finally one problem we may have is that as we are using an established band our audience may already have prejudices which could dissuade them from liking our pop promo which would not be a problem for other groups who are using local bands that they know personally who are unknown to the vast majority of people.