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!