A Year of 2016: Summary

When you ignore the mound of celebrity deaths, this year hasn't been too bad for me. It's normally something that goes unnoticed, but with all of the social media coverage the stories are everywhere. The death of celebrities doesn't tend to effect me and with what seems to be an bottomless list this year I have only really connected with a few, but that doesn't mean that the rest are unimportant. Alan Rickman, Victoria Wood, Ronnie Corbett, Gene Wilder and George Micheal are those that I will miss the most. RIP.

I feel like I have achieved most of the goals I set for myself this year, the lager goals and some unexpected. Let's start from the beginning of the year, shall we?

In January this year I had my audition for NCN Clarendon, which went really well apart from failing my music theory test and having to re-take that another day. I did pass that the second time, thankfully. In February, I had my audition of MMU. I remember the long drive wth my friend Joanne to the Crewe Campus which vaguely reminded me of Ilkeston School with it's layout. It was a very enjoyable day and I was surprised that the lecturer that interviewed me knew of Dmitry. I continued to write more songs when I found the time from the inspiration I found from a combination of visiting Clarendon and MMU and later released my first original music video on 22nd February. This was a big achievement for me, made possible from the use of my Mac and new camera at the time, my Samsung WB350F and made only within a few days once the editing process had started.

This year has been a strange one for new obsessions. I currently have a storage unit rather like a bookcase apart from it has three cupboards and three shelfs, on top of which sits the entirety of my larger figure collection. Most of them are either Nintendo or Doctor Who themed and it's just something thats continued to grow through this year. No doubt I will add more to the collection soon. I now collect Doctor Who comic books and novels and I am already up to well over fifty between them both. An even more recent obsession is my new found love for the Nintendo Gameboy Pocket. I have three of those now.

I did start to make another music video with my good friend, Kieran. It is still in the works and I think we still need to record a few extra parts, that and I still need to re-record the vocals for the song. I'm debating now whether I should do it again or ask around the college to see if anyone wants to do a better job than myself. I'm still not comfortable with my vocals. I know my confidence has improved massively over the years, but I've still never sung live on stage and I'm not sure I want to. But, I do. It's really difficult to explain. I really want to get this one finished and released early in the new year. Maybe I could use it as a part of my course? ... hmmm.

A lot of this year has been a waiting game and that is probably why I felt so let down on Enrolment. I don't really want to mention what happened all over again because I've already wrote about it back then. I think I'm over it now, but thinking about it still angers me. If I wasn't waiting I was probably working, but then theres a certain contrast where the two become the same thing.

Regardless, there's no better feeling than achieving something. Or at least, at the end of the year there isn't. I just re-read through my blog post summarising last year, "Hopefully, this time next year I will be a University student." I remember wondering if I'm going to get on with Uni and if I was even going to get in at all. I had just sent off mu UCAS application. Where would I be exactly? I suppose you can never really know what's around the corner.

For this new year, I feel like it's only a necessity to set myself goals again. Resolutions tend to be things that go amiss, so I shan't bother with those. Without goals, how will I be able to know if it has been a successful year at the end of it otherwise? My main goals are as follows:

1. To pass the first year of my course - This one is must and completely obvious, but I would be stupid not to include it as a top priority because otherwise there would be no point in myself being back in education. 
2. Not to get too distracted from work - This applies mostly to my Uni coursework, but then also to the extra work I do outside of my course such as recording. I have noticed patterns in how I distract myself from doing the work needed to be done. This needs to stop if I want to be successful and achieve a better grade.
3. Enrol for second year of my course - Another one that again shouldn't need mentioning, but I still need to turn up, right?
4. Collaborate - I want to work with those that want to work with me, this could be anything from a simple practice, sharing theory knowledge and even recording a track either with them or for them. This should be something that happens natural throughout the year, not a once only thing.
5. Enrich myself in knowledge - If I finish my first year feeling like I haven't really learnt anything, I must have done it all wrong.

I am debating finding a new job in the new year, but it's not something I want to focus on although arguably it could be something that helps improve my focus. The weekends are just something I can't look forward to at the moment. I just feel like there is no respect for me at work as there is when I'm at Uni. Is it the subject I've chosen to study? Is Music not academic enough? Is it because I work part-time now? Either way, I still pull my way and don't understand how it's fair that I should feel undervalued.

I may add more to this within the next week. I'm still currently in the state of accepting the new year and the fact that it is now nearly January 2017. I'm not happy about the January part. I don't want to experience January. I have a few deadlines coming up shortly. I do wonder if there will ever be a year when I don't ask "Where does all the time go?", but for now I'll leave it here.

Happy New Year, everyone! Hello, 2017.

Mad Day

I spent the most of the 16th Christmas shopping around Derby and Nottingham. It took me a while to get there, but I decided to go down on the bus and ditch the car for the day. My car had already cost me enough in fuel from an unusually poor performance in mpg, just from leaving that little bit later in the morning and catching all of the traffic. Something I should take note of when I go back to Uni in the new year.

I brought most of the presents whilst and Derby and a few little bits for myself, then I decided to get the Red Arrow to Derby early afternoon. The traffic seemed ok. I just caught site of a Facebook post that there had been a major accident on the M1 and was trying to find out more about it. The coach goes over the M1 using the brigde of the A52 and when I looked over, the traffic heading northbound was at a standstill and there was nothing heading southbound. I found out that they had closed a part of the motorway to carry out an investigation, but I didn't think much of it as it wasn't affecting my route. I got into Nottingham pretty quick actually. I had so many big bags to carry it was unbelievable. I ended up buying myself more things in Nottingham too, some new trainers - perfect for the new year!

I picked up a few other bits and decided it was time to start heading home not long after 4pm. I did go to Broadmarsh Bus Station first to see if the 21 was due as that takes me to my doorstep, but there was a 45 minute wait so I took the free bus to Victoria Centre instead to catch my only other option, The Two.

It was very busy when I arrived. There were queues of people waiting for different buses. I had never seen it so busy before. I decided that it wasn't even worth trying to que up because I couldn't even tell apart where one line end and another line started so I sat to the side patiently and started browsing through a Doctor Who book I picked up whilst I was in Derby earlier. Whilst reading, I was listening to the people queuing grow ever more impatient. Some people had already been waiting at least half an hour or more at this point. I distinctly remember one woman constantly going on about how this had completely ruined her day and this angered me. I remembered the duel incident of earlier that day and I knew this was the after effect of it all that yes, had inconvenienced a lot of people, ourselves included but the thing to remember is that regardless of the story two people died that day. One murder and one suicide.

When the bus finally arrived Trent Barton were fantastic. They knew there was nothing they could really do to make the bus magically fly back to Ilkeston. Our driver shrugged his shoulders and the female customer service rep that was on the bus with him announced to everyone that they don't need to worry about paying and just ordered us to get on the bus. Two buses arrived near enough together, both easily an hour or so late so the heavy que of people was divided quite well despite both buses being full.

Getting out of the city centre was the easiest part and seemed quite promising, but when we passed the bus stop U4 on the very edge of upper parliament street we all saw more huge queues of people like I had never seen before. I had never seen that bus stop so busy, the que was starting to trail around the corner of Maid Marian Way. When we hit Canning Circus that's when things got really slow and sluggish again, from just turning off onto Ilkeston Road down to the next 50m took us about 20 minutes. Traffic was at a standstill. Gridlocked. There were cars trying to filter out of the side roads and we couldn't use the bus lane yet because there either wasn't one or there were cars parked. To get from Victoria Centre to the cross-section at Radford Boulevard took us at least 40 minutes and then some one decided to block the bus lane. This happened twice and the second time our drive lost it. He beeped him. The car driver didn't move. Our driver stopped the bus and got out, knocked on his window and told them to shift up and merge so there was enough room for the bus not to block the crossroads. Everyone cheered him, welcoming him back like a hero. It was quite an amazing moment.

Our journey started to get a little easier from this point since we could now use the bus lane. We drove past half a miles worth of traffic within minutes. The ride did still seem to last forever though, it was nice to hear people chat to each other and keep each other company. I didn't join in so much apart from laugh at the odd funny situation but, I had my iPod set up to keep me entertained. I set myself up quite tactically. I know I was going to need a lot of room and that there was no chance I was going to get two seats to myself so I hugged onto a luggage hold and dumped all my bags in there, shopping and rucksack too. The only problem I probably caused for others was my refusal to move down when our driver told us to, I just wasn't going to leave all my stuff there. I don't know how people do it.

In the end our bus ride took well over an hour and a half. I didn't time it to be honest so it could have been closer to two hours, definitely if you include the waiting times. I will certainly remember this bus ride, not because of how long or stressful it was. Or even how bad it was or the uncomfortableness. I don't understand the full story of what happened still with all of the different news reports, but I feel like I experienced a part of the pain the murderer must have felt when he felt the need to end his life by jumping off the motorway bridge with the way it it affected us all. All those people stuck on the motorway. No one should feel like they need to commit suicide, ever regardless of what they have done or even what they want to do. It was all I could think about during my journey back home, that and reminding myself of how thankful I am for where I'm at now. The guilt and the heartbreak. Two people died that day, neither of which was me. That is a reason enough to still be alive. I still made it home.


My thoughts go out to the families of those affected at this festive time of the year.

Clearer Thoughts...

So, most of the deadlines have now passed for this month with only one remaining. This one is a little less terrifying as it's a skills audit where I basically just need to write about myself and point out any areas that need improving, which for this course is probably a lot. Most people find it really difficult to talk about themselves, I think I still do but I understand the whole evaluating process a lot more and the importance of it.

My main downside is that I tend to take it right from the top, if I feel it's necessary. I've typed up quite a lot already and I feel like it is very nearly done. It is something that I knew wouldn't have much of a problem with just because of how much I blog on here. I tend to end up using this as a reference.

I also cleared the air last week and had a catch up with Dr. Nick Redfern. I brought us tea and coffee from the college canteen and we stuck it back into a classroom eventually after a short stop off at "reprographics" or rather, the room with two large printers. The canteen was just way too noisy and as Nick put it himself, "chavy". He shown me his new Facebook group, 'Mentoring for Life' that he had not long set up last month and expressed his irritation that not one of his 3rd year students had used it yet and they are predominantly who he designed it for. The idea of the group from what I understand is that every member, whether they be a current or past student helps each other learn and progress as a mentor, but the group has been active for about a month now with no active users posting and discussing other that Nick updating the description.

I personally think that the Facebook group is a great idea once it starts being used actively, but I think it is already causing a stir since I introduced our head of Music, Andrew to it and he didn't seem very keen I think mostly because of the social media platform that it's on. The thing is, is that we're all HE students that should be able to be sensible enough with this sort of thing, but I do understand the possible breaches of lectures having contact with students outside of class time other than email as it has the potential to endanger either party. Since I'm now a member of this group, I suggested to all the members in a post that Campus Society would be great site to use in conjunction with this group and to no surprise didn't get a response. Facebook groups are strange things from my experience because of the layout of the site. It is easy to see when someone is online and rather than talk within a group or even a group chat, given the option it is obviously easier for most people to just send messages via the chat feature one to one.

Nick seems to have created his own den within the college, which is completely normal. When I was last at NCN Clarendon before this course, the keyboard lab used to be in a huge, spacious room downstairs that's strikingly similar to the HE Common Room, but now this has been moved into a room about a quarter of the size with somewhere between eight to maybe ten keyboards stuffed inside. It took me until the second visit to this room to notice that Nick was also using it as a second office with it being too noisy in his actual office. I'm pretty sure the room is smaller than my bedroom, and I struggle to fit one keyboard in there along with other furnishings.

I feel a lot better nearing the end of this term. The December haze is still in place but there's really not many days left until I break up for Christmas from Uni. I will still have to traipse to work at the weekends. The subject of work is ever becoming more monotonous by the day. The more I go, the less I want to be there. It's really not healthy, but it's just how it is and I need income from somewhere. Saturday shifts tend to flow quite nicely but for some reason that I just can't place Sunday's just feel so slow. We had our Christmas meal the other day and I feel like it was an absolute sham. We went to Frankie & Bennies and I sat opposite our store manger and his wife. I spoke to my colleagues mostly before we were seated and had a couple of laughs around the table, but my manger never said a word to me. Not even, "How's Uni?" To make things even better the food was shite and they wanted well over £200 between us all (14) including an automatic service charge of £17.50 which thankfully they removed in the end after arguing). I really don't understand the hype for this food chain.

I will still have a couple of assignments to work on over the Christmas break. I want to get some research done at the library for our Music in Context essay before it closes and then while I'm away from college, I'm planning it so that the first week off I will be fairly focused on these couple of assignments. I don't want to do anything Uni-work-wise during the week of Christmas to give myself a decent break, I've been pretty flat out since the get go especially with working with the other students. Then finally the week after that I will get back into focusing on assignments. That's the plan anyway, no doubt I might stray from it a little bit with it being Christmas, but I'll be happy I could get a good chuck of the assignments out of the way.

I will probably post again before Christmas but just incase I don't, Merry Christmas everyone! :')

The December Mood

It's always around this time of the year that I become a lot more emotionally sensitive, I think it is mostly the harsh cold and the fact that Christmas is again fast approaching, but I can feel that the extra stress included this year with all of the assignments that I have been set isn't helping. I generally like Christmas, I'm not in anyway a Scrooge or cheapskate. I like to treat my friends and make them more than aware that I am thankful for them and their loyalty. I haven't sorted a lot of presents out yet though, I still have a lot of people to buy for; even family, but there really is something about December that just sets me off.

I'm not strictly religious, although I was raised Christian forcefully through singing school hymns in assemblies, that and I do follow a popular group of musical mormon dads on YouTube with an open mind, but I'm almost convinced it's like a some kind of spirit has entered me. It sounds cheesy I know, but that's the best way that I can describe it. It makes me feel so pure, kind and at times broken then whole. It makes me want to just burst out in tears and cry like a baby. I don't know if this is just an outburst of some kind or what, but I have noticed over the last couple of years that I really have warmed up to the idea of Christmas. I've always loved it, I'm just too emotional.

I manage to stay positive usually by being surrounded by family and friends, although that has become more difficult with the amount of time I'm at Uni. I've spent a fair amount of time with my cousins recently. We had a gaming tournament which we decided to name, 'Super Smash Birthday Bash'. The game Super Smash Bros. Melee had not long hit its 15th birthday, this is just how we celebrated it. We used to play it a lot when we were all younger and the game had not long been released. It was a fun night! Plus, I won.

RS1 - My First Pro Tools Experience

This week, a new lesson was added to my timetable. This has replaced our other recording session that is now our Live Sound session with Andy Oakley, but all that starts next week with a slightly earlier time of 9am. It's been a bit confusing because even I thought we should have started it this week, but we had one last session with Rob to mix our little project and then physically submit it.

I had a short practice with the level 3 students that I'm working with briefly before this new lesson today, only for half an hour because then I needed to be upstairs. RS1 is an amazing studio, I knew that before I entered the room. There are three studios at Clarendon and this one is by far the best, especially now I know how to use it and patch up all of the microphones into the preamps and then the preamps into Pro Tools. This is a big step up from RS3, which is a Logic studio. A lot of it is still the same and most of the skills I've learnt from there are transferable, but the console in RS1 that controls the Pro Tools software is just incredible, even if slightly broken. When a new track is created, one of the faders will automatically go up. It's incredible to watch, technology at it's absolute finest.

Our tutor Matt lectures for this session, but then just lets us get on with it after a while. He ended up giving us a bit of a history lesson because of some of the technology they still have racked up for use are now a bit predated. There was an AKIA S2800 3 1/2 inch floppy disk sampler and another tape something or other. One of the first things he shown us was how to import audio because of the task he was going to give us. He then went on to show us all of the different preamps we could work with, and their qualities before showing us the patch bay, which I surprisingly picked up rather fast. I had done some patch work before during my level 3 course, but I didn't understand what I was doing because it was never explained to me properly. Matt explained it clearly and I actually feel like I fully understand, and this is just the first session. I was naturally quite worried about this session, just because of the new things, but really with the experience I already have its just feels like a little extra on top which relaxes me a little.

After Matt had helped import/technically convert the track, 'Just Be Good To Me' originally by Deborah Cox into Pro Tools, shown us the desk and helped us set up a bus channel so we could hear the track in the other room, sending it though an output routed to the live room through patching he pretty much left us to it to. Oh, and after showing us all of the different microphones that we get to play with. We were left to set up 12 microphones, all plugged into one of two stage boxes in the live room and then patch them all up to specific preamps that Matt had listed for us. It took us a about half an hour or so to set up all of the microphones on stands and have them all connected to the right input, then it was time to route everything using the patch bay.

Setting up all the microphones: We didn't record them all
like this, but it looked pretty cool.

I thought we did really well. We worked really we together as a team, even if I sort of dominated the leader position, but it's good to have someone coordinate things so work gets done. We took it in turns to work on the patch bay so that we could all get used to it and start to feel comfortable using it, after all it does look ridiculously confusing the more barton cables we added, but we started to notice a pattern which made things much easier. The ins and outs were usually either directly above or below. Matt came back to check on us when we got halfway through patching everything, which was perfect actually because we just hit a problem. One of the preamps didn't seem to be giving out much of a level even with the gain on full. We couldn't work out if it was a problem with preamp or just that the microphone wasn't very sensitive and neither could Matt. It was quite funny actually. He was sat by the patch bay trying to work out if we had done anything wrong or missed anything, (which we hadn't) there's a possibility that is could have been a loose connection within the patch bay, but we ended up just re-routing it into the AMAZING Focusrite 428 MkI. I love it. It's by far my favourite preamp to work with in that studio. It's reliable and it sounds great, it's just a shame they are so damn expensive.

Our session was meant to finish at 2pm, but we ended up running over. The session starts at 11am and we didn't finish until about 3:30pm. So, we had 5 and a half hours studio time. Mental. I loved every minute of it though, especially once Matt left us too it. I feel like if he had watched over us the whole time I might not have learnt as much, but yeah I'm quite impressed with both myself and Pro Tools after today! Can't wait for the next session!

Assignments, Assignments, Assignments...

I'm sure that we are all feeling the same at the moment, by we I mean the general demographic of students that read some of my posts lately. I'm currently sat in the HE Common room working on my Sequencing plan that's due in tomorrow whilst simultaneously writing this blog entry and panicking about all of my other work that is also due in the next week and even further after Christmas! I mean, really, I probably shouldn't be writing this and I should probably just be focusing on my work, but as a student, generally it is just some kind of inability that one should to do as one should. It just doesn't happen.

I personally tend to focus for about and hour or two within the right environment, but it really does have to be the right environment. I struggle to work at home because doing assignments at home mean I have to do them in my bedroom and there are just way too many distractions in there. If it's not my Mac, it's either going to be my PS3, GameCube, N64, SNES. That's not the end of it. Then there's the handhelds, though I think you can start to understand why I fail to concentrate at home from that shortlist above, alone.

I'm feeling quite content that I've nearly finished this small piece of work (In context to some of my essays that are due in after Christmas with 2000 plus word counts). I've mostly been writing about the structure of a Dream Theater song namely, 'Take The Time". The structure of the song is all over the place in an organised manner, but probably only to someone who understands music theory to a knowledgeable level or is at least aware of the concept of ridiculous time signatures. If you're not familiar with their style of music, it is very complex, but I'd much rather focus on something like this than some shitty house track. Electronic music really doesn't phase me if you haven't guessed already. I can't wait to show Mark tomorrow and use the ol' phrase of "Matt said it was ok, so yeah." heh.

The Importance of Self Motivation

This is something that I often forget about myself, mostly because I tell myself most of the time that I am lazy. Which arguably I am to an extent, although recently have become more of a morning person, I think it is the winter season that does this to me and not necessarily just Uni. The darker mornings are more welcoming for eyes.

Back to the point. I've been looking back and re-reading through some of my old blog posts, some from over four years ago now and its actually pretty easy to find a excerpt where I call myself lazy, but then I also stumbled across one particular post from March 2013 where I was clearly the complete opposite. I had completely forgot about this up until now too! There was a time when myself and another musician, Lucy Mearns were arranging practice sessions and then we eventually arranged our own recording session where I brought my Soundcraft Compact4 mixer into college, and an old laptop to use with it to record an original song that we had been rehearsing. 

It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's fair to say that we were both self motivated to do this and this was all extra curricular. I personally think it is important that I continue to do things link this. This was my way of forcing my self into music technology. I was still learning how to use my mixer at that point because I had only owned it for about a month and had briefly looked into methods of recording audio. It all feels so long ago now. The knowledge I have now regarding music technology is much more refined although, I am still learning some elements like synthesis.

My most recent acts encouraged by my self motivation would be the cleaning of the college piano that I mentioned in my last post, coming into college for practice sessions with the FE Students and most importantly coming into college to do work on my essays and sequencing work and then also working on those at home. I know there are other areas currently where I could do with a bit more self motivation to dive more into the subject, but it proves to be difficult when its not something I'm 100% interested in. At the moment for example, I have a short assignment that is due in on Wednesday to do with writing about the structure of a specific song relevant to the genre that I have decided to replicate with sequencing and then create a plan... I still haven't properly started it. I have work at 2pm today so I don't really have much time to work on it now, all I have done so far is chosen a song. I think this will end up being something I do on Monday. There really isn't a lot to it and that probably doesn't help my interest levels.

Once I have food, I might have a quick go at it today before work. One thing I have noticed with my self motivation is that most is for extra curricular activities, but that doesn't mean its not relevant to my field of study. I'm keen to build up my musicianship and be versatile with what I can do and what I want to do. Basically, I like to keep my options open. 

A Tale of an Old Piano

I originally posted this exclusivly to The Piano Guy's Fan Group on Facebook but I thought it would be a great idea to share it on here to. This version is slightly edited to suit the stlye of my blog.

This is a photo of the piano we have at my college. It's old. I'm not sure exactly how old, but it was here when I first started in 2010 (not long then before I personally discovered the piano guys) and I'm guessing it is much older than that.


I didn't play it very much in my first year, in fact I'm not even sure I knew of it's existence back then. My main instrument is guitar and I didn't put much time aside for piano back then as I was trying to master my guitar playing instead, well at least improve it.



My second year was a little different. I started learning bass guitar too and slowly started to rekindle my piano playing. In my first year, we didn't have any pianists on the course, but that year we did and it allowed me to see how the two of them played differently and what stylistic I liked either performer.

Both were classically taught and I remember watch them both play amazing piecing of music on either this very piano during a break or another keyboard during a practice session. This motivated me to want to practice more.

Another thing happening around the same time was a lesson called Keyboard skills, which effectively basic piano lessons but lead and taught by our college professor. The only one with a doctorate/Phd in music.

He slowly became my biggest motivator. Not only did I recognise his intelligence, but in a way I befriended him and we started to arrange private tuition sessions within college when we were both free. At times teaching each other. We started with modal scales and eventually contrasted into general theory and then figured bass.
t was also around this time, that I generated A LOT of interest in The Piano Guys from first discovering them on YouTube (Late 2011/early 2012). I was so blown away with the quality of their work, their ideology and passion that I felt like I needed to be able to do the same and be on the same level as their talent. From that point I was hooked on them and I've not missed a video since, music or behind the scenes.

This became common and most of the time, you guessed it, we practiced at this piano. Because of his influence I started practicing regularly at this piano. At almost every opportunity (Unless someone else was using it). I still practice at this piano, but now just solo when I have the time. The professor is still in my college, I just don't think he would appreciate me chasing him about anymore now I'm studying for my HND.

When I first started back here again in October, one of the first things I remembered was this piano and it's location. I had to check it was still there. It was, but it was in a mess. Some novices had stuck note names everywhere on paper with sellotape. I would understand if this was a primary school for young children to learn, but this must have been carried out by 16+ YO's. So today, I finally decided to take action.

This morning I was that magic fairy that made the old Knight piano's keyboard clean again. I piggled off all of the stickers and brushed off some of the sticky residue with my Christmas jumper. There are still thicker bits remaining, but I didn't want to ruin my clothes too much. It already looks a lot better. Tomorrow, I may just bring in some trusty Mr. Muscle's furniture polish and a cloth and finish the job.

I love this piano. So many memories from last time around mostly from my second and third years and no doubt there will be some new ones for this year. Some of my class have already had a short jam with me. I feel like it's only my duty as a repayment for all good times sake.

I've sat at this particular piano many times through my college years whilst either being schooled or just practicing and now I'm back here again studying my HND cleaning the same piano.


I guess the moral of this tale are:

Always practice
Remember your roots
Find people that inspire and motivate you


If anyone can think of any more from morals from this I would love to hear them and update this post to include them.

Beaten & Bruised

I have been learning to play drums now for about a month an a half and with my last few practice sessions I have noticed a few bruises starting to appear. I have a set at the very top of my leg where I have been accidentally hitting myself with my sticks when I have the snare drum set up too low. I have a large bruise on the outside of my right leg from where it has been rubbing against the the floor top and then to top it off, another bruise on the top of my right foot from when the beater of the bass drums hits me back. That was just from using one specific kit, the one that sounds the best in The Venue, but also kills you slowly.

The snare of the kit in The Venue is very well tuned and easily makes it one of the best sounding kits in the college, bar maybe the one in Recording Studio 3 that my lecturer Rob tuned the other week. That one sounded pretty nice too. All of the snares in the other practice rooms desperately need tuning. I would do it, but I don't have a drum key and I'm not 100% how to do it either even though Rob shown us. Most of them have tape over them to either dampen them or try to make them sound like they're tuned, which also stops the rattling sound, but just doesn't match the sound of a properly tuned snare. I can really hear the difference now. It's something that I struggled with when Rob first shown us.

I'd say that my drumming is coming along nicely. I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable with the kit as a whole now and understand more quickly what sort of sound (or noise if you like) that I want to make. This is going to help me with my sequencing too because I will need to be able to map out drum tracks and knowing me, it's not going to be a simple "four to the floor beat" with the progressive rock track that I will be working on. I'm still undecided whether or not to revisit an old piece or start a fresh. I guess I have today to decided. I will have to pick out a sound to to then pick apart and talk about it's structure.

Another Day, Another Lesson...

I've rather liked this weeks Wednesday if I'm honest. I don't have many lessons on Wednesdays so they are fairly short and sweet. My Uni day starts at a quarter to one in the afternoon and usually passes by rather quickly starting with Music in Context. Todays Music in Context lesson did seem to drag a little bit as today was the Deadline for the Bibliography for the next two essays due in. I, being a good student had already handed it in to my tutor the day before so I wasn't one of the ones rushing to finish the work. It was a fairly simple task. I understand that some people had been on holiday or away, I just don't get how people can leave it until last minute. Admittedly, I forgot that I had to hand it in as a pdf file, but that was easy to sort out.

With everyone else finishing their work, I was left to make a start on my essay. I managed just over one hundred words today. It doesn't sound like a lot but it has been checked over and I seem to be on the right track with it by not referencing too much and paraphrasing.

Again, if I'm honest our next and last lesson was a little boring today. I don't know if I'm just being mean because we had a teacher in training, but I feel like he may have just confused me. He focused the lesson on electronic music and made it seem like thats all we could produce in sequencing. I find it difficult expressing any kind of excitement for electronic music other than the really cheesy stuff, my best example being: Soul Control - 'Chocolate Choco Choco'. Even that is arguable whether it is even strictly electronic music. He went on to show us some basic electronic drum patterns and I sort of just looked up in shame. When you know your music theory up to grade five standard and you are being shown how to create a rather basic "four to the floor" drum beat using only semi-quavers in a 4/4 time signature and how you should learn to recognise the drum theory, you start to question a few loopholes. What about the triplets? Which, I may add, he did not cover. I'm not even gonna start on the powerpoint.

I feel like I'm being a bit brutal so I'm going touch on the brakes and stop it now. Apologies in advance if he somehow ends up reading this, but maybe take it as advice.

Today was also the day that I had my first proper tutorial with Matt, my tutor. He's ace, really couldn't have asked for anyone better. Originally, I was going to go first into the music office but I told the other two guys that they may as well go first because I know I'm going to go on. I had a lot to talk about and I was right. It's good to be considerate sometimes. I do feel like Matt might have seen me as a problem child at first, but I hope our chat cleared a few thing up for him too. I'm really not just doing this course because I had no other option and my mindset is now completely fixed. We talked first about the things he needed to talk to me about, general things like asking me how I'm getting on with each individual lesson to work out my weak points more than anything and then eventually I got to talk to him about all the other bits that had been ticking over for the last week or so. I had them all written down, almost too organised but I spoke about almost everything that I felt I needed to. He also cleared up a few misunderstandings regarding the Sequencing lesson earlier and told me that I could do literally what ever genre I wanted as long as it meant I could replicate it in Logic and meet all of the criteria. I'm now thinking of doing a progressive rock track for that, even though the guitars might end up sounding a bit pants but I would much rather create something well within a genre that I am interested in. There is literally no point otherwise because I'm just not going to have the same level of motivation. My talk with Matt did end up being about half an hour long and I knew it would be. I think it could have gone on much longer if we had time because I still missed some little things I wanted to mention because I didn't write them down! Silly me. I guess I will know for the next time...

The Last Few Weeks...

I've been quite busy these last few weeks regarding Uni. The first practices with the FE Students took place last week and I'm quite happy with how they went, both for different reasons. The band that I am playing drums for is a level 1 band and the standard is very high. I was glad that I put so many hours into practicing on a kit beforehand as it really has paid off.

I was quite happy that we managed to somewhat get all the way through our first chosen song: Evanescence - Bring Me To Life, in our first practice session. I still need to work on nailing my part even after our second session today, but it's starting to sound better now we have the layout down. We have decided on our other songs too! Heart - Barracuda and Muse - Psycho. Next practice we will be choosing another song that will almost definitly be a Green Day track from the 90's.

Their assignment is to pick, practice and perform four or five songs (maybe more, I can't remember. It's not my assignment!) from different decades. We have quite a while to practice everything as the big gig isn't until sometime next year in February.

These guys aren't the only set of students I'll be working with this year, I will also be working with the level 3 year 1 students. On the first assignment that I'll be joining them on I will be playing bass. This gives the guitarist in the band a chance to shine a little brighter, it's not my course so I don't mind playing bass for them. To me, it's all about the experience this year. I've been out of practice for a while and it's about getting back into it whilst contending with my own course learning new skills. It's interesting to see that the students I'm working with seem to be on a level playing field in terms of preparation as both groups have at least three songs to focus on for now, the only difference is that the level 3 group that I'm working with already knows exactly which six songs they will be doing.

I bumped into Dr. Nick Redfern the other day, a lecturer who used to help me out loads with my music theory work last time around. It was nice to have a bit of a catch up and I reminded him that I had completed a quick arrangement of one of his old keyboard assignment pieces. He has since commented back my work and seems to really like it. I replied joking that maybe I should work on the full orchestral score next, maybe that will become reality. He eventually let me into the band practice room I had booked for my solo practice on the drums. I very nearly convinced him to give me all of the codes for the rooms too, but for now I've just got the one that my tutor gave me today.

We have been given a couple of new assignments today for different lessons. One for recording and another from our Music Industry class. The second being the more interesting of them both. The recording assignment is fairly simple and basically to create a recording journal complete with photos and reasoning whilst the Music Industry assignment is focusing on the internet and how it has effected the music business. We've had a fair amount of lectures around the subject and I've been finding the figures of popular digital sales both encouraging and interesting.

Tomorrow is the day I have to do my presentation on the Roland GR-55 guitar synthesiser. I've watched a few of the other students work and that has relaxed me, but that doesn't mean that I won't get nervous. Nerves always seem to be a good thing though, a good reminder of being human. In a sense I am worried that I may have done too much work. I've certainly had a lot of areas to cover and research about in a fairly short amount of time. I do feel extremely prepared with my prompt cards at the ready, but at the same time now I just can't wait to get it over and done with and just generally out of the way!

Drum & Uni Life Photo Album

I thought that I should make a quick post about two of my new public photo albums on Facebook. One to keep a record of my progress on learning to play the drums and another generally anything else to do with Uni.

Please click the two links below to view each one:

Drum Practice Album

Uni Life Album

Week Two, Day One.

First day of the second week and I'm still feeling quite comfortable. This was also the first day that I drove to college just like on the day of enrolment, with Goose Fair still being taken down over the last week I had to get the bus before. I parked at the park n'ride on Forest Recreation ground, it's completely free to park there and quite well protected. I left my house at about ten to eight this morning and got to the car park for about half past eight. I thought that I didn't do too bad for time although I was an hour and a half early. I decided to wait about for a couple of minuets in my cars while the rain stopped, also giving myself to eat my breakfast and then had a steady walk up to college. It was still raining walking up, but a lot finer and a lot more manageable. My coat is waterproof anyway, but that's not the point. Nobody likes getting wet.

I sat in the HE Common Room. It wasn't quite. There were already what sounded like dancers and actors warming up for their rehearsals. I tried to read my book, but because of their noise I just couldn't focus. I aimed to finish my chapter, but I just couldn't do it. They were reading through a script, very loudly indeed. I didn't last very long in there. After about twenty minuets (I really don't know how I lasted that long) I decided it was time to go to Lidl which was only a short walk away and I had plenty of time to kill. 

Lidl is where I buy my cheap, large bars of milk chocolate. 30p for 100g. Bargain. I also found something else rather tasty this morning, I discovered that they sell blueberry muffins for 49p so naturally I brought one of those too. It was worth every penny.

When I got back into college I decided to sit in the music corridor, where I would have normally sat all of those years ago. I just couldn't face going back into that room, not at this time in the morning. I even had to take some Nurofen to make me feel better after my earlier experience. On of my fellow students, Barry spotted me and waved. He was heading for the HE Common Room, coffee in hand. There was no point in following him, I knew he would be back out of there soon. I was right. He didn't even last five minuets. He came rushing back out towards the music area and complained about what he had just experienced and all I could really do was agree with him because I did. We need another common room, thinking about it. Fast.

We actually had Rob this morning and I discovered the the likes of his teaching style. I was very impressed. Again, I'm not sure what I was expecting. Maybe I thought because he was younger that he wouldn't be as great, but no I really feel like I learnt as much as as if Andy Oakley was teaching us just like the previous week. This comforted me. We learnt about setting Levels, Compression and Reverb. I was quite ok with the levels that was quite simple, it was just remembering to listen to the difference it makes to the track as a whole when you turn something up or down too much. It can work both ways. Compression is something I've heard of, but never really knew what it was. After today, I feel like I know how to apply basic compression at least with a good benefit to the track, but I definitely don't understand it fully yet. There are a lot of controls to take into consideration. Reverb felt quite easy although we did it in a different way to the other effects (EQ/Compressor) because we sent all the channels (apart from bass) to a bus channel so we could work with the same reverb sound across all of the tracks with more ease, it was just a matter of how much to add because too much reverb is always obvious to me.

Break time. Not much happened if I'm honest. I sat and ate a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of crisps, mini roll and a bit of the chocolate I brought earlier, but then went off to wait for the next lesson with the others upstairs. One of my lot was offering iced fingers to everyone. My understanding was that he had just brought them and no longer wanted them, but neither did anyone else. It became quite comical. I think eventually he palmed them off on our tutor Matt who didn't seem to have much choice in the matter.

Matt's lecture in our Music Industry lesson was themed around music business, a very in depth session. I quite like his pacing though, he doesn't go racing a head. He doesn't really wait either unless you tell him, but I was just scribbling stuff down that might be useful anyway. All of it is useful in a sense, I just aim for the key facts. Sometimes these things save research time even though I'm guessing most of that is inevitable.

Our last lesson, Creative Music Technology was a little different. We had to decide which piece of kit we wanted to work with for now to draw up a presentation about how to use it and a hand out with the basics of how to use it as a quick reference for anyone else on the course or just really anyone in the college that wants to use it. The task seems quite simple and easily achievable, but its not going to be possible without research. 

I didn't really know what to choose so for the sake of my own comfort I went for the Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth. I might end up changing this choice if possible (I'm sure it will be possible). I remember when the college first got these in when the were first endorsed by Roland, but I never had a chance to play them back then, only to watch the demonstrators. I had a rough idea of what it did already, using the thing seemed to be quite a pain as a beginner. It seems to work at its best when it has been programmed more desirably. I've ben watching a few videos on YouTube to give more ideas. I only really had a play through some of the different sounds. I know that there are hundreds of sounds on there, but I only had about an hour. I was using a midi guitar too and had to get familiar with that too. It's very sensitive so if you even touch the wrong string you're almost guaranteed to hear it. I didn't like that fact. I didn't have a guitar pick on me, the one I had with me was in my bag and that was too far away in the other room. It probably would have worked at least a little better with a pick I imagine just so then I could be more accurate rather than just using my fingers. I did feel a little more outside my comfort zone in this last lesson, having to actually use the gear and in a sense almost just sit down and teach myself how it works.

I brought myself my first Build a Bear today, it's an Eevee. She's rather large and is currently sat on my desk. She's my new mascot. No regrets.

It's Good To Be Back (My First Day Back @ NCN Clarendon)

So, today was my very first day of Uni and I'm proud to say that I'm so glad to be back at my old college studying again. It was very clear to me last year that I missed the whole studying environment  and I'm so happy to be back with one that I am comfortable with. My first lecture today was in Recording Studio 3 (RS3). To start off with, none of us knew where we were actually meant to be because the name of the room was different to what it was actually named on the door but, we all got there somehow. I asked Any Peet which one it was as he was in the Technicians Office at the time. I did originally think it was the one upstairs but, it turns out it was the one down the hallway which I was familiar with because I had perviously had lessons with Selwyn Chambers in there before, at least three years ago.

There were only half of the people on my course present for the first lesson as the lesson was divided into two groups. One for one day, one for another. We were meant to have Rob teaching us (who I know, but I've not properly met yet) but, he was off sick. Apparently there's a bug going around the college so, Andy Oakley filled in for him which I personally think was a bonus. Even though he says he's more familiar with ProTools, he's being doing this for around 20 years so he was definitely the best to have to give us all an introduction to Recording and Logic. I'm quite at ease now when it comes to using Mac systems since I've owned one myself for about two years now. I did feel like I had an advantage with using GarageBand as I noticed a lot of similarities between what I'm used to and Logic, which is why I probably got on with it so well. The main difference is that Logic allows you to do so much more with the arranging of the mix, it is unbelievable. Andy shown us all from the basics to help us import some stems that Rob had prepared for us and then went on to show us how to use corrective EQ starting with the drums and the bass and then allowed us to play around with those at our own Mac workstation. He then went on to show us the most desirable way to use corrective EQ on the guitar, mixing that with the bass and then went on to the vocals. When he was showing us how to do it his talks were very in depth and lasted around half an hour each. I decided to record all of the lectures today so I can just listen back to them as a reference or reminder when ever I like. Once he had finished talking he let us have a go at correcting the EQ for the other tracks he had just shown us and then after a while started to go around everyone individually to see how they was getting on. I feel like I may have impressed him a little. I'm not sure what he was expecting from me either though as I'm a bit of a newbie techie in his mind still. I didn't think I did too bad anyways. I tried to stick with what he was guiding us through but, also played about with it too. I think his ears are too good to not notice though but, he did say I was on the right path with it all.

The first lesson ran over by a couple of minutes just so that Andy could get around everyone and just a last minute general chat where nobody seemed to want to leave even though there was another class due in the room soon and we had to get on with our lunch break.

After Lunch, it was time for a couple of sessions with Matt Horobin.  Our first session was of the music industry where Matt mostly spoke about his experience to give us an insight of his experience and how he landed a lecturing job. His talk went on for most of the session and then he decided that we should do a bit of an ice breaker activity. He handed out to everyone a single sheet of paper with three divisions and room to write your preferred name. The task was to draw objects that reflect the answer to the task on each division. The tasks were only simple such as, "An artist/band that has inspired you.", "Draw your main creative skill." and "draw another hobby/interest that's not music related."

We was given about ten minuets to draw our responses and then we had to go around swapping chairs in a cyclic manner to get around half of the group. Obviously, there were some that I didn't get to talk with because they were also circling around, but I got to chat with everyone that remained seated. The idea was that you were meant to guess what each others images represented. Two of mine were easier than my first. For the artist that inspired me I drew a grenade shaped like a heart to represent Green Day's American Idiot. Not many people got the reference straight away but everyone knew what it was once I told them when they had given up.

Our last lesson ended up sort of split into two. Creative music technology. Matt was our lecturer again and he was basically giving us a visual tour through a powerpoint presentation of all the cool gear we get to work with during the course. I did try to note down all of the different pieces of equipment just so that I could research them at the later date. We had problems finding a room to use at the start as the room that we were timetabled to be in, the same room as before had been double booked so we ended up in the big mac suite that used to be the pc suite. A more familiar place for me. We were in there for about half an hour before we got interrupted by Kirsty's class that was scheduled for that room. It was actually quite funny, but, then we had to find another room.

We ended up in "The Venue", formerly the Recital Room. Edgy. Matt continued his lecture about the equipment and then after he had finished Andy Oakley took over for a health and safety talk. I did feel a bit much, but then it was still quite an insightful reminder to protect our hearing. I remember having a similar talk when I first started 6 years ago, but with lesser content just because some of it wasn't really relevant I guess. Things were more emphasised this time around and there were a lot more cheesy jokes. An example would be when Andy was talking about people coiling away the multicore cable (big massive chunky cable with a stage box attached, usually called "the snake" in America) that when they learn to do it perfectly they tend to get the nick name of "the snake charmer" and he wants to get an oboe out and play while they do it.

When the talk was over, Andy was giving us a bit of a tour. I knew my way around mostly and all I wanted to know was where the HE Common Room was which I later found out was literally just behind the music corridor where the old keyboard practice room was. I do wonder where they put all of those keyboards, if they decide to sell them I do want one for sure. They seem to be selling a lot of things at the moment. Andy took the rest of the new students on a more in depth tour around the music department, Matt had already given a tour of the library upstairs in the break between the last two lessons. I needed to wait for Andy to come back to ask him about booking practice rooms for drumming so I waited it the circle area. I didn't need to wait two long until he came back out of the music area with a few other students, when they dispersed I decided to ask him. I managed to get a room booked for the Thursday the same week, I wanted the very same night too but the other younger technician Andy hadn't received my email so that was a no go. I was a good job I double checked or I probably wouldn't have been able to practice on the Thursday either.

Overall, my first day went a lot better than expected. I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting at the same time but, it definitely surpassed it. I felt like I had learnt something by the end of the day, especially with Andy leading our first recording session, I felt a lot more comfortable that I feel I would have with Rob as I don't know him yet and I'm just awkward most of the time. There wasn't a lot of work to do on the first day just sort of introductions to the kit we will be using and it all made me rather excited about everything now that everything looked a lot more promising and I had realised that I was quite comfortable with the course content. I think I'm only really worried about working with more of the hardware, synths should be ok, but I'm not too sure about everything else yet. If this is my only worry though, I think I'm in narrowly in the green. I'm sure not everyone on my course has used all of this technology I just imagine that some may have more experience than others and hopefully I can learn from them and vice versa for other things. My group are rather nice, I don't think there are any issues so far with just simply getting along with people and working with others. I'm glad we don't seem to have anyone that just messes about either, that was one of my worries, but everyone seems quite focused and that relaxes me. Everyone is there to learn. I love it.

Enrolment

Enrolment was an interesting day and most certainly a lot more stressful than I anticipated. At the start of enrolment, all of the HE Students met up at The Broadway Cinema and I was directed into the cafe area to wait for everything to start. It was already rather busy when I arrived at about a quarter past nine and it was nice to see that I wasn't the only one that was early although because I wasn't exactly first, this meant that I had to join with a table of other student which admittedly put me straight out of my comfort zone.

I tried to remain confident as I could see clearly that we all had our differences, eventually the guy sat opposite me started to generate conversation after most of us had a brief look at the handouts that had been given to us. His name was Matt and he made himself clear that he was the party type and that had already dived head first into the freshers experience the night before. We went around the table introducing ourselves. There was only one name that I struggled to remember and that belonged to girl that sat just two chairs to the left of me. It began with 'V', maybe it was just too early for long names. In our talks I discovered that she had originally studied Law but, dropped out of the course to now study something else (I can't remember what exactly, possibly Business). Going around our table there was a skinny tanned guy with dark hair who I assumed was Korean, his name was Dennis and that amused me too much because I really wasn't expecting that at all but, I managed to contain myself. I can't remember what he was there to study. Next to Dennis there was an Indian chap named Mohammed who was rather quiet compared to the other three and seemed quite shy. More students kept appearing as the starting time approached. Mid conversation, a guy asked to join our table. We could exactly say no so of course he joined. I didn't catch his name but, Matt had worked out that they were both on the same course so he had found himself a friend already.

At about 9:45 a member of NCN's staff invited us up the the cinema area that had been booked for us all. This was where I broke off from my table group, not intentionally but I couldn't help it with the flood of students trying to escape the cafe and climb up the stairs. I was surprised by how large the theatre was, I had never been to The Broadway Cinema before and I can now say that it is very impressive and unsuspectedly large. I sort of ended up sitting on my own. I wasn't really sat with anyone that I knew, as I still didn't know anyone at all apart from the small mixed group I had just briefly met downstairs but I had no idea where they had got to. I knew they were in the room somewhere, I just didn't know where. We had to wait until just past 10 o'clock to allow room for people that might be running late, which I found amusing. The talk, not so much. Once started, there were various "guest" speakers, most of which belonged to the college if not directly, in some way or another. There were representatives from the council talking about how great the city is and how it really is the place to be. It was all very inspiring to be reminded about it all but at the same time when you're familiar with the city, like myself it just seems like a waste of time. Then there was the talk about finance. Anyone that needs a talk about student finance on the day of enrolment must need shooting, I mean if you haven't  got it ready by now what are you playing at.

Eventually after a painful hour, the talk ended and we were all split off into groups divided by what we had chosen to study. There was only one music group so naturally I followed with them. With there being only one music group I was certain that this was my group but, I started to get confused with how few people there were. There was no more that 13 students including myself. It took us a while to figure out where we were meant to be going with Matt Horobin but, after about fifteen minuets of trying to navigate the in's and out's of the NCN Adams building, we got there. We ended up in a small classroom on D Floor, not far from the library, where Matt sat us all down to talk us all through the course. Matt handed out a copy of the course hand book to everyone. This was the point where alarm bells started ringing, in my head obviously. The title of the hand book was "Course Handbook 2016-17 HND Creative Music Technology YEAR 1" which coincidently was not what I was expecting to read. Matt started to explain the content and read though the handbook with us. I think we got over half way through, just after the module overview and the course calendar when Matt asked, "Any questions?". Although it wasn't exactly a question this is when I raised my hand rather awkwardly and said as a reply, "I think I'm in the wrong group." Matt seemed to understand instantly what had happened but just said to me for the time, "I'll have to have a talk with you after."

At this point I was confused and I was also preparing myself for the worst. I was almost in tears in the classroom, I was trying so hard to keep myself together. I pulled out a bottle of water from my bag and used that to try and cool off the stress that was building. What the hell was happening? I mean, I had already worked it out in my head. Why wouldn't he just send me elsewhere to my correct group? Why? My course had been canceled. I didn't find out officially until after Matt had finished his talk with us and instructed us to go down for enrolment in the University Centre. When the others from my group where being told about the process, Matt took my to one side to talk about what had happened. I couldn't hold the tears any longer and ended up crying in front of him, but what I liked about this situation is that Matt didn't just say, "Sorry, that was it." He supported me through working out with me whether or not his course would still be suitable for myself which I really appreciated. We talked about it together for a good ten minutes or so, I don't know I wasn't really counting but it felt like a while, mostly going over the modules and seeing if there was a way to include what I really wanted to do which was performance. His course has some performance elements, not very many but he said there may be ways around some of the work as long as I'm still meeting the criteria. I didn't stop crying, I started to settle but the rest of my group had now moved over to sit just behind us and the slightest wrong thought about the situation was making me upset still.

I did chose to still do Matt's course. I think it will be one hell of a learning curve but, it might also be the push that I needed. I did think about studying music tech but, now maybe I have the best of both worlds to some extent. I have since put a complaint in about the lack of communication about my course being canceled but I've still not heard anything back but I know that I did get the message through to the head of Media, Philip Coates. It is less than a week now till I start my course and I'm becoming more and more excited now I've worked off this fear a little. The fear being, not being on the right course for myself. I do feel like I'm going to learn a lot more on this course than the one I originally applied for. It is going to be difficult, but who said University was easy?

I currently have a practice room booked for tomorrow to get me some practice time on the drums. I do feel like this course had opened up new opportunities for me despite what was bad news because I'm going to be working with both of Andy Scoffin's level 3 students rather soon (and I'm going to be paid in chocolate for playing drums!). Drumming is almost completely new to me so I'm hoping that I can pick it up rather quick. I told Andy I should be alright after a month, lets just hope so!

To finish this blog post I will leave some links to my recent vlogs. I'm very certain that I'm going to continue doing them and I have uploaded four so far. They are intended to be more like bookmarks for me so I can see far how I've come so I'm not always going to share them but they will remain public. I might disable comments eventually though if I have any problems.

26/09/16

01/10/16

03/10/16

Just click on the date to view the video on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe to my channel!

A Series of Vlogs

Tomorrow is the big day when I finally enrol for my course so I have decided that I'm going to start making Vlogs because University is certainly a one of thing for a couple of years and its going to take a big chunk up of my lifetime. I started recording some yesterday and I hope to continue to do at least a couple of times a week but, I feel like that might not always be possible when my workload increases with all of the coursework and practice.

This is just a short update about that plan really, I will insert a link to my first Vlog once it is uploaded to YouTube. All of my Vlogs will be on my second channel which only exists because I have a google account.

First Vlog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7thClW3zxzU

Vlog Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC391tScGRQc7HKYFRAZ9pVQ

Beer and the South Coast

This time last week was holiday week. Time for a nice break before starting a new chapter, quite skilfully placed a couple of weeks before starting University. This could take a while to get through as it was literally a week and I do want to write about as much as I can remember for each day because this was my first experience down the south coast of the UK. Normally, when I holiday with my family we tend to go to places such as Skegness for the day, Mabletherpe or Bridlington but not this time and I think that was a good choice.

We arrived at Beer Head Caravan Park on Saturday 3rd September around 12 midday. We knew that they we're running a little late with sorting out the static we would be staying in due to a cleaner being off so we had to wait a while to collect the keys. We parked up on site and walked down towards the village of Beer. The route down was a rather steep hill, thankfully we were walking down it to get there. The village isn't very big but, was very cute and tidy. Most of the buildings were beautifully old and very quite impressive. There is a steam that runs through the main street leading onto the road to the beach and the whole place was just very pretty. We wandered around the few shops for a couple of hours and onto the beach and then around half past two we were heading back up to the caravan park. The climb back up the hill felt a lot steeper going back up and took a lot more effort. I managed it but, I think my mum, dad and auntie were all struggling, all with their own reasons. We were in the van before 3pm and as we go settled it started to rain. Harder and harder. I think we got back just in time.

On the Sunday we were all up and about for about 9am (which is the norm on a family holiday) and the plan was to go into Seaton for the day. When we got their not much was open with it being Sunday but we saw the old trams about to start service. The four of us went on Seaton Tramway, boarding the old pink tram, travelling through Colyford to Colyton. It was quite a long ride, very slow and very wobbly but we had the best driver, Dave to keep us company. He was very comical and talkative, the kind of guy that is easy to get along with. We stopped at Colyford where the road crosses over the tram way and he was telling us that his best record of how many cars stopped at the crossing was 26. There wasn't many of us on the tram on the first run up as it was only 10am. It took about 20 minutes for us to reach Colyton and when we got there my dad decided we were going to explore. We walked out of the tram station and around towards a junction which turning right lead into the town. When we got there, there wasn't much open but it was again a very pretty town, very small and tucked in. We walked around for a while, acknowledging the closed shops and then eventually travelling in a circle leading our way back to the tramway. When we got back there we had a nosey around the gift shop. We knew that we would be coming back on the tram again later because we could go back and forth all day, so none of us brought anything and we Caught the Tram back to Seaton. When we got there we found that a few shops had opened up. Not that many of interest, The Original Factory shop was one we noticed, The Wishing Well and a shop called Allsorts where I found a Tardis puzzle in a tobacco tin. I had to buy it. We had dinner in a well recommended chippy called Frydays, a clever play on words. It was lush, very tender fish. The type I struggle to keep on my fork but it really was lovely. After food we went back on the tram again just for the fun of it. When we got to Colyton, this time we crossed over the tramway to go to the vintage shed. Coming back we did but a few items from the gift shop, I brought myself a bookmark and a fridge magnet. Before we went back to the van we nipped to Tesco's to get some essentials.

Monday was a little different, putting the trams aside. My dad drove us all to Lyme Regis where we parked near the pier. An unusual wonky pier that had a strange slope to it. We walked into the town across the beach and mostly just wandered around the shops. There was a lot more open as it was a usual business day and my dad had set himself a mission to come back with a fossil. Nothing to specific, just something to say that he's been to the Jurassic coast. We ended up touring all of the local shops that sold fossils, some were really impressive and quite surprising that it had also been found locally. I do think that it was this day that I enjoyed the most just because I felt a lot of disappointment after the next day or so, which I will tell on later. We had lunch at a small pub this time that was very cosy and I had my usual of Hunters Chicken. The lady that served us thought that I was still in school and couldn't apologise enough for the assumption but, it lead to a nice conversation about what I'll be dipping my toes in soon, the whole going to Uni experience. We brought a lot of fudge from Lyme Regis. I say we, I mean my dad. All of it was homemade. I distinctly remember one shop, Roly's making the fudge in the side of the shop, it was fascinating to watch. We did walk along that wonky pier by the way and it was a little scary. There was no guard rails to hold onto, if you fell.... basically you fell. Thankfully none of us did and all of us made it back to car at the end of the day. Going back to the car I was scrolling through Facebook and more recently I've been seeing posts from either David Tennant fan pages or Doctor Who. Literally everyday, I can't get away from it now though I'm not complaining but, scrolling through I noticed a post from David Tennant's fan page stating that he had been filming Broad Church this morning in West Bay which at that point after working it out on Google maps was about 24mins away. I was so excited and I just had to tell everyone in the car and drop hints that we should go. I don't think they were anywhere near as bothered as I was and they seemed to just shrug it off but, it was a very exciting feeling to know that I wasn't really very far from him and would have just loved to meet him.

Tuesday soon came around and was a lot more touristy. The main thing we had planned was to visit the Beer Caves which no, isn't a cave full of beer but a very large, vast cave that was used to quarry stone. It was quite an interesting tour, lead by a man named Oliver who seemed to have all of these stories and facts packed inside his head, very intelligent. He guided us through 2000 years worth of history and I was quite surprised just how large these caves were. Very impressive. The tour lasted about an hour and it was very could down there, that cold that they do actually offer fleece ponchos to go down with. I decided not to take one but, then again I would, wouldn't I. I was quite cold when I came out but, I didn't take long to warm up. The sun was shining and the weather was still holding out for us. From there, we went to a place called Pecorama which essentially was some fancy gardens with a miniature railway running through it also with a cafe and a exhibit. Once we had our tickets we went through the exhibit first, which was of model railways all of which were very well made and well cared for. We had a short walk around the gardens before deciding to wait for the train, the driver was on his lunch break when we sat down and joined the line. We had to wait about 40 minutes in the sun and the most unbearable thing for me was that there were loads of wasps around, it was the same near the caves too. I hate them at the best of times and am quite terrified of them so to be stuck with some for two thirds of an hour was quite a challenge of not to break down in tears (That does happen when they buzz around my ears to much or just don't leave me alone). The train ride was rather enjoyable though, I'm not sure if it was worth the wait but, yes it was very pleasant. For the rest of the day we went to into Seaton again. I had spotted a shop last time that wasn't open on Sunday that sold games and gaming merchandise called ItemDrop, it was there that I brought my Charizard hat, a couple of Zelda keyrings and some mints packed into a Hylian shield for a friend. I didn't buy much else from Seaton, we nipped to Tesco's again briefly for a few other little bits and then we went back to the van.

By Wednesday I was starting to feel quite upset that we still hadn't visited West Bay and that they chance of that happing was dropping faster than then chance of dry carpet in the bedroom. We had a leak in the van and could not for the life of us work out where it was coming from apart from some plumbing of some kind. Whatever it was made both my mum and dad's room's floor wet and mine and my aunties and that was getting rather annoying too, stepping onto wet carpet wearing only socks on my feet and the water it was wet with was starting to smell too. I'm still feeling rather upset that we never visited West Bay if I'm honest and this whole Wednesday felt the same. My auntie decided to stay at the van, I don't blame her to be honest because she didn't really miss much. I went to Sidmouth with my mum and dad which I must also add is the complete opposite direction to West Bay. It was ok there but, it wasn't West Bay... do you know what I mean? I'm not sure I wanted to be there either, not West Bay, Sidmouth. The place seemed quite bland and straight for a sea front town, it was defiantly alive just a little... boring. The museum was interesting though, like Ilkeston but with added fossils. I brought a few souvenirs from there, I found a book on the periodic table of elements and a mall soapstone Dinosaur that I rather appropriately named, "Sid". I ate pizza from a bakery for lunch and managed to find some Doctor Who books and other little bits in the charity shops, I also found a new one in The Works. No, I'm not sure I was particularly interested that day. Later that night I almost choked to death, can't forget that one.

For quite a few days of the holiday, myself and my auntie had started going on walks after we got back to the van. She was trying to challenge herself a certain amount of steps per day and just wanted to push them over. The first night we walked up to the top of the caravan park which is is an even steeper hill and then again with my mum too. We start to walk across the fields using the footpath given but turned back, we went that way twice. The first time we only got to the bench at the top and turned back but then went on into the village of Beer discovering a flatter toe path that leads most of the way. The aim was to go up the steps that we could see from where we was on the caravan park as they went rather high up into the trees. We did make it in the end, I can't really remember which day we did what and I didn't write everything in my notebook just the main things. We found a few rope swings up there that were quite fun, a little scary mind with the height you could get of the one we both sampled, a good couple of metres. Thursday soon came around and it was home time, proper home time. We packed up in the morning and left Beer about 11am, it may have been a little earlier. We stopped at the services half way, the opposite side to where we stopped on the way there and enjoyed some lunch. I had a large sausage roll and by "large" I don't mean length, I'm talking width. They were an unusual set of services but very lovely. The had a large cafe, a smaller on-the-go cafe, toilets and made complete with farm shop. Adorable. The long drive home wasn't too bad either, I started to feel a little more at ease as I started to recognise places vaguely and the motorway. I was still a bit miffed about not going to West Bay and I still am but, I think what bothered me the most other than that was that I had one last day to myself before having to go back to work. Oh, the chore!

It was a lovely holiday anyway.

Stafford Driving Experience 2016

Today was a very different kind of day, one that should have probably happened months ago. Brought for me as a Christmas present last year, I finally got around to doing my experience day. In all honestly, I wasn't really looking forward to it at first especially on the way their but, as I we got closer to the site (My dad was driving us) I couldn't distinguish what it was I felt between a mixture of feeling nervous, excited and scared.

We arrived at the site not long before 1pm and not long after sorting little bits of paperwork at the reception, I was off in my first car. The first one was a passenger ride where the guy driving me was driving a manual Lotus while explaining to me how to drive on the track, pointing out that I should aim for the green cones and brake past certain points which had big boards up either side saying it anyway but, the cones where a little trickier to spot. It became a case of looking for a green glint between orange in certain places. It doesn't particularly help when the track is surrounded by grass which is also green.

The first car the I had the chance to drive myself was an automatic Audi R8. All of the cars I got to drive were automatics so I won't bother mentioning that again. This car has always been one that I've liked the look of and it was very impressive. With it being my first couple of laps I was a little tense and didn't really manage to break out of my comfort zone with it although my driving was still complimented at the end by my instructor with a percentage score of 86%.

The second car that I drove was a Porsche and is my easy favourite from the whole day. The controls were slightly different from the last but, once I got used to them I felt fine with it. The R8 had flappy paddle gear controls where this Porsche had buttons that you either press down on the front of the steering wheel to chance up or sort of flick up from behind the wheel to change back down. I did get it wrong on the first corner but, everything went fine. No crashes or anything! The instructor that I had for this car was probably the best I had all day. He was quite comical and talkative so he was a lot more encouraging for me to put my foot down on the accelerator. One of the first things he said to me was "Can I call you Kim? It that okay? I prefer less syllables, its just a lot easier if we die." He was great.

Next up was the Nissan GTR. I wasn't really sure about this one. It was back to the flappy paddle controls which were alright but felt a bit heavier than the Audi and looked a lot more mechanical. I feel like I probably did my fastest lap in this car as I had a lot more confidence about me and I'm sure it was this one that I managed to overtake two cars in one lap. It might not have been the most prettiest car that I had driven today but, that doesn't mean that its not impressive.

Finally, the last car of the day that I got to drive was an Astin Martin. When I realised that that was what I was going to be driving I did get a little more excited. A lovely silver colour. It was very fast just like the others but, I did work out that the breaks did have to work a lot harder... and so did my breaking foot. A lot of the time I under braked and then had to break harder last minute but, this car was so much heavier. A very impressive drive though otherwise. Between all of the cars I think I managed to reach between 80-90mph on the track. I was kind of hoping for more speed and I think my dad was too but it is only a short track with two straight runs.

All in all, the whole day was a big success for both myself and my parents. I think my dad was quite proud that I came out alive and with no scratches... on the car that is. We collected all of the photos on a disc from the booth and I even got a free print of one of the photos that was in with voucher. We ended up being all finished by about 2pm which originally by the itinerary should have been when we started because we arrived quite early! On the drive home we stopped off at KFC for food and eventually got back home at about half four.

Here is a link to an album that I have created on Facebook with photos from this awesome day!

https://www.facebook.com/thekimkeeton/media_set?set=a.10204848347168104.1073741849.1821894295&type=3&pnref=story

So Much To Look Forward To...

So, as you might have guessed a lot of things will be happening over the next few months and Im starting to get rather excited about it all. It won't be long until I reduce my working hours so that I can get on with uni life and officially become a student again. It is less than two months until I get to meet everyone now. I have spoken with Carol at work, well, while I was just driving out she called me. I had bluetooth set up so now Im offically just working weekends from 26/09/16 as that is the day I have to go to the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham for the welcome event.

There is however something as equally exciting happening in the end of October, shortly after. On the  28/10/16 The Piano Guys are releasing a new album called, 'Uncharted'. Of course, I have already placed my order, I have literally just done it. I have ordered the personalised bundle for $49.95 but then $21.38 shipping on top of that makes that $71.33 total. Oops. I am really excited for this though. The seem to average a new release each year, they are very hard working musicians and I just love and admire them so much for all of what they have achieved. The other day they reached 1 billion youtube views which is insane.

Before all of this I have my experience day driving around in a few sports cars and a short holiday to enjoy as well. Knowing me, I will take most of my tech with me on holiday. We have CCTV now at home but, I still hate leaving most of my valuable stuff just incase. I treated my self to a PS Vita the other week. I had been eying them up for a while and I finally found one at a decent price, the slim model for £90. I had to pay £8 for a 4GB memory card too but its still not bad and the screen is excellent. The battery life if quite impressive too. I've tried the remote play with my PS4 and when it works it is really great its just I don't think my internet speed is really suitable for it.

What Am I Excited For The Most?

This is just something I asked myself earlier today and it made me think for a moment. I've got a lot of things happening over the next few months. I have an experience day, holiday and then going back to Clarendon to study. While its all exciting being able to drive a few flashy sports cars around the track and that a nice break from work is always a good thing, it's more the little aspects of getting back into education that seems to excite me the most.

I still don't really know exactly what I want to do with my chosen subject but I already feel confident that at least this time when I finish my degree I won't be stepping out into nothingness. Last time, when I finished my level 3 course I found it difficult to get a job immediately after, in fact it took me almost a year to finally get one. At least for now I can live with the comforts of still working for ASDA part time and as long as I can handle it alongside my studies I'll always feel stable. I've been trying not to rule out any other options that I could go for when I finish but, I've also thought about what I really like doing, what I know I can do and whether I enjoy doing it enough to keep as a potential job. There are three main things really: Recording, Filming and performing.


With recording, I feel like recently I've really taken crafting sounds as a passion and in the process that has made me feel more at ease with music technology. The best part by far is when I manage to complete a song but, coming very close in second would be the very start of the idea for the song or melody.

With filming, I lean more towards making music videos because that is all I know. Even though I don't have much professional equipment to do so, I always manage to 'get by' fairly successfully. I manage to tell the story I want to and I've quite selective of the various takes I usually do.

With performing, its been a while but I certainly do miss it. I feel like it is easy for me to say that it is the thing that I miss the most because the last time I performed on stage was about two years ago. I'm still hoping to play an open mic with Lara soon to get me back into it before I go back to Clarendon.


It really is hard for me to choose out of all of these three as I know they are my main skill set and I feel like the opportunities given to me at Uni might be what makes the decision for me, that or I might just choose all of them because I can. I hope that going to Uni means that I will meet some great people that share the same or similar interests as I do and I really hope that they are not all younger than me, i.e. 19 (The age I would have been if I stayed at Clarendon after my level 3 to do my degree) and I hope I get to work with a nice mixed group. At the moment, I think it is fair for me to say that I am really excited for the welcome day at the end of September and generally starting the course. I can't wait to get back into those band practice rooms and get creative again.

Something Different...

Yesterday, I spent most (if not all) of the day working on a music video not for myself but, for my friend, James. We just about managed to film all of it in one day with a little uncertainty as to whether or not we will need any additional actors, even though in the end we managed without.

We had two different locations which were the subway/underpath in Ilkeston and under the A52 bridge near Stapleford by the canal but on the opposite side of the toe path. Once we were on location it didn't take long to record a few takes that we could mash up into the video. We shot all of the intro and verse one in the subway and focused more on verse 2 at our second location. I felt like the second location was a lot brighter because more natural light coming into the shot and seemed to give the video a more hopeful feeling.

You can watch the full music video on Youtube here:
One Last Time M.I.L.L.I.E. - JEM The Ruff Diamond feat. Ali

Check out 'JEM The Ruff Diamond' for photos of the shoot, tour dates/gigs and extra content.

Two Years Of Employment

Two years ago, this would have been my first official day of starting work at the Esso Petrol Station. It does still feel like it was only yesterday (well, there abouts) and I can't quite believe that it has been two years already. I still vaguely remember my training shifts with Vicky, whom I still work with to this day at the now ASDA Petrol Station, and other training shifts working on my own where Ash, the manager would come into the store every now and then to check up on me. I had to be able to work alone because there was never anyone else working with me unless we had a special visit from Mr. Ronson who basically owned everything, bringing flash cars, many guys in suits/ body guards all the way up from London with him. He always took up a lot of space as he trotted around the forecourt, inspecting it and from what I heard about him and his ways I quickly took a disliking to him. I never got a chance to speak to him really, just be in his presence but he seemed to have these old sat ways where he would prefer one or two ladies working on the till to a guy. So, yeah a little sexist but that wasn't a problem for me and those days are over, for me at least.

I remember the the big announcement last year in the end of January that something big was about to happen and then having about an hour long meeting the next month with an ASDA lady. Before everything made sense, I remember a bunch of people walking around the site not quite like Mr. Ronson's but there was one that gave it all away. One of the men was wearing his hi-vis jacket the right way around and it quite clearly said 'ASDA' on the back of it. It wasn't long until one of the others told him and then he turned it inside out to cover it up. I didn't think much of it at the time, just that maybe that was the only hi-vis that he had but no, they we sizing up the place ready for the take over. Making plans and stuff.

It wasn't long from that point that we transferred over to the ASDA at Long Eaton so that they could host us while our store was in the process of being knocked down and then rebuilt. I spent most of my time there working on the produce section quite simply because it was the most fun and the most hard work, lugging vegetables around the place on what they called a 'Dolly'. It was like a trolley but, with a de-tactchable handle. I made some new friends over there, some who even joined us at the new petrol station. Of course, working at a store that just about qualifies as a 'Superstore' isn't the same as working at a tiny little petrol station so eventually we had to go train elsewhere. Woodville.

Woodville was rather nice, I really enjoyed my experiences there even though it was so far away and the tills were very easy to get used to. There was only a slight difference to what I was used to and they made a different kind of irritating noise when the pumps go off. A slight improvement to constant beeping, it was the sound of a males voice that said which number pump not so constantly. I made a few knew friends at Woodville too which I was a little surprised at with the short amount of time we was there. Did I mention that we got paid for travel too?


I had never prepared a brand new store for opening and I guess its one of those things that you just don't do every day! When opening week came, we had a lot of shelves to stick SELS on and then fill up once we had our very first delivery. I remember the first few days of that being literally just putting all the SELS out and then when we had our first Ambient delivery in the middle of the week, it was time to start filling. We got all of the fresh stuff last minute, I think it was the day before we opened so that the shop was all ready on time for its big day. We had photographers from the Ilkeston Advertiser and an adorable group of toddlers from a local nursery to be involved with the grande opening. Its not far off the store's 1st Birthday now (29th July) and I can't believe we've already been open nearly a year! Its been a crazy experience, yet alone with just the transformation of the site (I have still kept my other blog open with all of the photos, http://larklands.blogspot.co.uk ), how well customers have adapted to it. Some still come in through the exit but, we can let them off for that a few times.