Above the clouds

It's been a while since I'd felt recognised for what I do for my music, until last night. I had got chatting with some ex-students that I'd met before, more in passing but they had seen me perform before. It was amazing to hear from them that they find me inspirational, I mean they are much younger than me and they spoke it so grown up. Respect is a big thing for me as it goes far but I really appreciated the kind words. I shiver at the word "talented" sometimes but never refuse it as a compliment. I work hard for what I do and I'm glad they see it in someway, or maybe not.

It's reminder of how far I've come and something I will never forget. These eight last eight years have been a musical journey and one that is ever changing its path. I still don't quite know where I'm going but for someone younger than me to tell me that I will go far really boosted me and with my recent levels of motivation, this was something that I really needed.

I'm glad we all got chatting, some of them I'd never really had chance to speak to properly just with class and social groups and the way things are in a college setting. I've offered a couple of them a chance to work with me in a band and it works well to carry it on. The band will be for my uni project and I will write all the material and I can see potential just from talking to them which gets me excited. However, I still want to see the musicians available at hand at uni. I'm starting to get to know and fit in with some folk but it's a hard turn pushing in and is something I don't really do. I'm patient and generally seem to wait for interest which is probably a bad thing but it's sort of working.

In other news things are getting busy. I'm a little behind with my research project but I know what I'm doing and my recording project is coming along really well and I have two bands booked in the next couple of weeks (Left Hand Lane and Red Six) that will count towards this module. Some, admittedly are back up plans but I'd rather have more, than less. I've already recorded artists at this point, Nottingham band The Jellyfish are Calling and Pianist Marcus Livingston. I received feedback on both today so I have some new pointers to guide me.

Projects and Things...

Deadlines are starting to appear and I had my very first one last week. I managed to achieve it but all in all I still feel a little behind. I have a lot of reading to do and some primary research. I will be able to focus more on my research project after this week since the deadline for my creative studies is this week and once that's out of the way I wont really need to think about it again, except perhaps keeping in mind my plan for the academic year to get it all done. But yes, once this is out the way I'll have more free time to crack on with the what has now become main focus module for this semester, my research project/dissertation. A part of me still cant believe that it has to be done before Christmas but, I believe it is possible. I've been working on my ethics form today since that has to be in by the end of the week too and its all starting to become a little more clearer and I have a good structure for the word count and my disposal and various other templates too!

I feel like I'm picking up this week... finally. I picked up a cold this Saturday gone and before that I hadn't been very motivated to do work anyway but today has been pretty productive. I mean, I've still got to rewrite the proposal for Creative studies but I know exactly what I want to do now and it will reduce my work load a little too over the course of the year. I'll be looking for bands to record very soon-ish, one for my research project and one or two for my recording project. That's what I'm most excited for, getting back in the studio again. At the moment, my best days are Thursday. Even though they are pretty slow starting with a 9am lecture that lasts two hours, we have our workshop in the studio just after for two hours and sometime we will even go into these sessions earlier to maximise the time and experience we get. I've thoroughly enjoyed every workshop session so far, even though I don't always learn something new I always get to play about with pro tools and work out how the two downstairs studios work. They are a little complex, especially being used to Logic and Clarendon's not-so-trusty RS1 where you have to patch everything in. I'm still not used to not seeing the gain structure, it seems hidden in the Rednet software but it is clear as day.

I'm going out later. This is a new bad habit it seems, Wednesday evening at the tap. It's always a laugh and I think its exactly what I need mid week. I still don't have many friends here in Derby, and the ones I have made I only see once or twice per week so going out and seeing some of my Nottingham friendies perks me up socially.

Big Steps

Although my first couple of weeks are not quite over, everything is now starting to pick up the pace as the realisation that this semesters workload is due in about 10 weeks. For me this means handing in both my recording and research project by early December whilst making progress on my creative studies album project.

It is all starting to feel a bit intense, maybe as it should. I've been given a deadline of Monday next week for my position paper for my dissertation and I'm not even 100% sure what I want to do it on anymore. In these two weeks I've learned that the summer research project which I started last year is a bit too loose and difficult to investigate especially regarding collecting primary research data. I did originally plan to run with a similar idea since I had found so much on it but if I'm aiming for a first it's no use with just secondary literature. This puts me in a position where tonight and tomorrow (before I go to work at least) I will be thinking of new areas that interest me that would be more realistic to write about given the timeframe.

Whilst my dissertation is a big concern (as it is for everyone I would imagine) there are other areas of my course that are going really well. For my recording project we sort of managed to sort out groups between us today. It might be a bit crazy working as a group of four but the people that I'll be working with all seem dedicated and we all seem to have good knowledge and ideas already of what we want to do, just not yet in paper form as a proposal. We'll have to do that soon and agree times for recording sessions but this should be easy enough to do as long as we can all make it.

I've had a fair bit of time in the Neve studio now. I was inducted to the set up last week with the others and today in our workshop session we recorded some drums using the Glynn Johns technique and it sounded fantastic by just correctly panning the channels without and further mixing. We started with three microphones and then added another to give the snare some more definition. The drummer, George was great to work with and I need to remember to check out his bands. I think he said one of them are King B. Yesterday, I was able to get in the studio to record some drums too but with a spot mic-ing approach. This proved to be quite successful and I even learnt how to take audio recordings out of Pro Tools to pass on the work (I don't generally use Pro Tools) I think even with the stuff I'm going to do for my recording project I will probably take it out and put it into Logic Pro X to mix.

In the back of my mind however, as well as all of this is the looming doubt of this album I'm going to have to keep working on and not forget about. I have five potential ideas for songs currently, some of them only short but they are real, solid ideas I can build on. Maybe not this week though, this week its time to focus on my dissertation since I have a small deadline to meet for this now.

I'm doing better than I thought with the whole meeting new people thing although I already wish I had made more effort to talk to others in the last couple of weeks but I seem to have a nice small friendship circle developing but it certainly is hard being a direct entry student.   

Planning?

I have spent most of this evening making a plan for the most of the academic year ahead, when I say most I mean all of the autumn semester and the module within that that branches into next year. I did plan to make progress on written work that's due soon tonight but that seemed to have slipped through and instead I have composed a potential track for my creative studies module - which I guess is still productive at least, just not in an order that I had imagined. I have however started reading through a literature review from last year that I wrote over the summer thinking that I could potentially use it for my dissertation but I will have to sift out all of the bullshit first or maybe even start a fresh with a similar or new idea. So, I have a vague outline for now of just how this semester should be but I still have my proposal to write for my creative studies and thoughts on this recording project. I have a lecture on my research project tomorrow which I'm looking forward too, hopefully it will give me more inspiration to march up to Kedleston, sit in the library and get my head down.

First Lecture

This made me realise just how much work I have to do to make this happen. I find Micheal quite easy to listen to as he's a really good speaker. He spent 20 minutes just on the first slide, which I think is great. He did say thats probably covered everything but he'll run though the rest anyway. I don't think he planned on keeping us for the full 2 hours. I got some new ideas out of his lecture anyway which should benefit my project which runs through the academic year.

I have 24 weeks or so to produce something (an album most likely) and less than two weeks to set that path and submit my proposal. This has rattled my head a little since I have so many ideas and I need to choose the best that is also realistic.

I would love to fully enable the rhythmic delights of Iguana Palava and create some really interesting stuff but can't do it on my own. Realistically, material would have to be written before Christmas, ready to go into the studio for the new year and I'm just not sure I can manage that. I'd like to hope so but this first lecture was also an eye opener for how difficult mixing in with 3rd year students that have already settled is going to be. I spoke to maybe one of them yesterday in agreement that my timetable is also not fully functional and thats all I got.

I'm gonna have to be more assertive in the coming days, getting to know everyone or I have a feeling I'll be more reliant on outsiders than ever or basically just myself, but that isn't what University is about. I should be mixing in. Making new contacts and fully utilising them. I'm a bit disappointed in myself actually. I know I'm quiet at first and I know it's hard but I need to break this barrier now and just say stuff. Anything. I can't go back to being a mute now, not when it matters most.

Welcome Week

Since I'm new to Derby, I thought I'd tag along during the timetabled welcome week. There was one for each course, some I understand had separate ones for 2nd or 3rd year direct entries like myself but there was only one for all Popular Music with Music Technology students. 

There was a mix up of rooms during our first session which was amusing. The lectures were told on their timetables that they were elsewhere to us. They did find us and come down to us but it was funny being the one of the few waiting around at the start thinking, "is this all of us?" There was only 3 or 4 of us waiting by the door before anything happened. I managed to mix with a few of the other students by the first session; Danielle, India, Jay, Michel, but most of us still went off on our own for the short break. We rejoined after lunch to talk about timetables. Obviously, the ones they were handing out weren't really for me but for the first years but I was using theirs as a guide to understand how they worked; room code, module code etc. 

Tuesday was pretty long but for good reason, we met the careers and employment lady who talked about how she can help us get placements and further work and even answered some of our own questions that we'd left for her on post-it notes. After this, it was time for my first proper visit (this side of the year) to Kedleston campus for a bit of a tour. By this point in the week I had made connections with Petra. We walked up to the Kedleston together from markeaton and had been chatting quite a lot about what we're wanting to do. We was expecting two, one as a library induction and a site tour but the guy that lead us claimed their is only one so we went with that. It was much shorter than expected as we had been given an hour slot to do what we originally thought was two tours but this just meant that we had a longer break. This gave us chance to pick up loads of freebies, mostly pens as we spoke to all the 

We had to get back in time for a monster jam session at 2pm. I got talking to a few more of the guys through this but it was hard work since their was so many guitarist but were told that we didn't have to play if we didn't want to, but I wanted to of course. Kimmy wanted to play everything. I started trying to sort playing bass, one of them had a dodgey input so I had to swap it for the other which worked fine. I didn't play much bass since the other guitarists, Tom in particular were noodling about and our drummer (whom I'd met before on the applicant day) was still moving the kit about. So we couldn't really do much, not at least without a drummer until he was ready. Eventually, he had a bit of a play then disappeared so that was my chance to take the drums. A risky move when I had not played in a good couple of months but I'd say it went well, I managed to hold together 3 jams at least and one of them got quite progressive. Interestingly, me and Tom always new when the ned was coming but the others not so much. Maybe it's because the others didn't want it to end. We had a comical moment with this actually which involved me hitting the high hat bell as he played the last note and we both just laughed. I did end p playing a bit of guitar. I played someone else for a bit which was an ok experience, it was an Ibanez but then I switched over to mine. I think Phil (one of the lecturers found my guitar quite interesting). I moved around the different practice rooms to see what was happening. I nearly lost my drum sticks and lead at one point because I left them in another room by accident. I got talking to the guy that runs the music society (not sure if he's a first year or not, probably not and I can't remember his name) but he's really cool. He has a band together already, the other two member Guy and Sam seem really nice too. Great musicians. We ended up jamming to Pina Colada, me playing piano with the boys singing along to end the day. That was nice.

Wednesday was pretty simple but an early start for the equipment centre induction which finished earlier than expected since we hadn't enrolled yet and they planned to set up all of our accounts but impossible without being enrolled. We did however have enrolment timetabled next, so they were kind of in the wrong order basically. I met Ben in cafe today, a Photography student. He seems an interesting character with a good sense of humour. I'd noticed him before sat outside Birtannia Mill and we got chatting. We had a similar problem in the last session where because it take so long on the admin side for enrolment, we couldn't see everything we needed to find exactly where out course resources were.

Thursday was mainly the welcome talk at Derby Theatre which I didn't realise until recently that the Uni own this theatre. Interesting. It was as welcome talks go, I guess. Lets get everyone excited about university and the surrounding city. Some parts were quite inspiring and made me realise a few things, other parts were humorous like when they were introducing our lecturers with another group and they thought Micheal was absent even though he was stood on stage and completely missed off Phil. Brilliant. We were given out maps after to find our way around the city. I'm sort of familiar with Derby but still don't know my way around that well, not like Nottingham. I buddied up with Petra and we did the main ones around the city centre, the music shops and nipped in Ryans bar. We bumped into Ben again before we headed back. It was a really wet day and we got soaked from walking around, so much that when I went back to my car my jacket was soaked. I swapped to my coat to nip up to Kedleston and on retiring my jacket was still wet!

Friday was an easy day, turn up at 11am for a performance from singer songwriter Mitch Ross. He sung and played acoustic guitar for us through Phil's little Bose system and it all sounded very good. I  thoroughly enjoyed his performance, his cover and originals were strong. He played a Phil Colins song that I didn't recognise until he reached the chorus. I love it when covers sound so original. We had one more lecture in the afternoon about well-being and how to look after ourselves which sounds a bit patronising at first. The lady shown us some breathing exercises for when we feel overwhelmed at the end of the session, I'm not sure if the lady had already exited the room. I hope she had, Phil was well wishing everyone a good weekend and Micheal said, "Lets go get depressed". His sense of humour kills me, I swear.

All in all, It's been an inspiring week to be reminded of the facilities available to me, find out about all the other little things that will be useful such as careers advices, wellbeing and the library and its just been great to familiarise myself with both Markeaton Street and Kedleston Campus. It's been a nice opportunity to meet the new students too and maybe for them to even meet me. 

The Start of UoD

I've had one hell of a great summer, all of which I need to write more about, back date and post pretty soon but more recently it's been a tough couple of weeks. It was easy getting back into the swing of work after returning from Spain for the third time but welcomings from those closest made it hard. I had an argument with my mum the first night I saw her, which wasn't even the first night I got back. It doesn't help that I don't feel as close to my parents anymore since they're always disappearing to the caravan, although I still love them. I've labelled our family caravan "The Home-wrecker" even though I've been once with a friend and it's quite nice. The argument continued to the next day when she apologised and said her piece again. Her words are still ringing through my head and I've not been great since although I'm doing my best to keep my shit together and stay strong.

The good news is (maybe, dependant on how well I handle it) this is all in time for a whole new experience; starting UoD. Tomorrow is the start of the welcoming week where I'll get to meet other students and fully enrol. It feels like it's been a long time coming now. I was getting really excited about everything whilst I was in Spain as I received all my confirmation emails and a few with further information but it's been harder to maintain that since. I'm hoping this week will bring back the energy that I seem to lost. I've been struggling to motivate myself to get out of bed, snoozed many alarms and just felt useless. It's not like I've been having a completely bad time either, I've been out with friends drinking (which is apparently a new thing) and I have all the support I could ever need. It's almost a mystery to me why I'm still struggling so much even though I know the answer, I mean there are a few other problems stacked on top, some of which aren't even mine but are becoming slowly. 

I'm not really feeling anything now upon the eve of starting a fresh and I'm quite sad about that. It is a mix of things though, I believe. Of what I explained and maybe some hidden anxiety of meeting new people, having to deal with that, be an adult ect. Another worry is I have a whole new city to get used to. I'm not very familiar with Derby, only the main city centre as a pedestrian so basically I don't really know where I'm going. Or I do, but only just? I had a bit of a test run the other week with a friend which wasn't so bad, but that was mostly to see what parking is like. That was pretty easy but god knows how busy it will be during term time.

I'm still wondering what time I should leave tomorrow morning. I could leave ridiculously early and avoid all traffic at something crazy like between 6-7am or risk it at 8am. I don't need to be there until 10am but, I want a good free parking space. I'll probably leave later than I want to. Never mind.

I Feel Like My 19yo Self Has Just Spoke To Me...

So this is an old blog ost that is still live on a web page I have. Some of this is painful to read and I actually forgot that I lost interest in music for a while. I'm completely blown back by reading through this so thought I would share.

"I am a nearly-nineteen-year-old who spends most of her time practicing or producing music. If I'm not doing that, I'm either out with my trusty camera or being the casual layabout that I am. I'm not really lazy, I'm just tired all of the time.

I've been playing guitar for six years now and playing the keyboard even longer... well, just a little!! I got my first guitar just before my 13th birthday. It was probably the best present I had ever had brought for me though, I don't own it any longer as I sold it for a bit of pocket. Well... it was taking up space. It was a challenge to learn how to play it when I was younger minded as I taught myself for six months. I started with the basic chords and tuning, just major and minor chords. When I look back, I'm glad I started out this way. If I had learnt power-chords first more basic things would prove a challenge now! However, I did start having lessons at school after this six month period. I started to learn new things and songs that (at the time) I wanted to learn.

The first song that I ever learn on guitar was by Green Day and was called ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’. Like all things at first it was a challenge but, of course it would be. Though, the song wasn't that technical, I was still new to some of the material within the song. I must brag a little though. My progress with it was very good as I learnt it quite fast. I was so proud of myself. I was told to learn many more things on guitar but got a little bored if I’m honest because it wasn't as interesting to me. After a while I got bored of just ‘chording’ and started to lose interest in music. It didn't help that at the same time my music GCSE course was on a decline and slowly going downhill. Most of the other pupils weren’t bothered and starting to lose interest too as most lessons became sitting at a computer, watching YouTube. I was kind of stuck in a rut with that. I got and F in Music after all that, which knocks the pride a little but, I know that it was not strictly my fault. I wasn’t the only one to blame.

I had already planned my next move. I was to go to college on an Intro to Music Course (lvl1) because I didn’t believe I was any better but, I felt that I needed to regain an interest and desire in music. I needed to rebuild the passion that I once had. Intro involved me working with new people and was a great way for me to make a fresh start. I learnt a lot form that year, I sometimes think that it’s a shame that it went so fast. I worked hard to ensure that I succeeded. I put in extra effort for theory to make sure I had a thorough and clear understanding still managing to finish the work in the middle of the year. I was offered to continue with my hard to work so that I could access a higher level course at the end of the year. Basically, by the middle of the year I was given an unofficial conditional offer for a lvl3 BTEC course. At first thought, it was a going to be a big leap but, I knew that it was going to be worth it.

A long while later and here I am, on the second year of the lvl3. It still does feel a bit of a long ride but, I’m getting there.
Faith restored.
…Partially."

http://kimkeeton.wixsite.com/musicphotographylife/blog 

19yo me, it's been a pleasure. I'm so proud of you and we've come a long way since. My HND is complete. I start my BA in less than a month and when that's over I'll have some real achievements to talk about.

Wow.

SPAIN TOUR 2018

In short, Spain was amazing. What an incredible experience. If I'm honest, I wasn't really sure what I was going for in the beginning as I was asked a little last minute but, I was on the mixing desk a fair bit, sharing the role with other tech students, otherwise getting drunk (...What?) I'll walk you through the days.


Tuesday

So, First flight to Alicante followed by a  night out in an Irish Bar immediately after getting settled in the villas.


Wednesday - Maggies

We had trouble getting to our first gig due to an issue with Taxis not showing up on time or even in the right place so we didn't have much time to set up once we had arrived and because of this the stage wasnt very well thought out. We had an electric drum kit to build which ended up in the centre of the small stage which didn't leave room for much else.

Totally lost most of my pedals that I supplied that night but I wasn't fazed.


Thursday - The Stray Sod (Acoustic)

The second gig was one of the best for me since one, I was actually doing something on the desk and two, everyone really got into it. We walked it to this one from our Villas. My highlight from this one was when Emanuel made a shaker out of his drinks and me are Mori called him up on stage. Also, there was a house band playing inside after us called The Cages.


Friday 3 - Maggies

The second appearance at Maggie's sounded much better since we got there much earlier with the help of a mini bus service. I did some live sound for this one too and turned Dan down too much. Too funny. It's all experience!


Saturday - The Stray Sod

Final gig of the tour. I did a lot of live sound that night and recorded some great videos of The Alphas performing and Harry's guitar solo.


Sunday

Shopping and Celebratory Drinks in the evening. (big kids were allowed to stay out into the small hours)

Monday - Flight home


Amazing!

Catch Up Post: HND Final Weeks

I've been absolutely rubbish when it comes to keeping up with this blog, probably mostly to do with my new found party lifestyle that seems to have arrived more later than it should (as a student... hmmm) combined with the fact that I've been busy, so I wan't to use this post to sum up the last moments of my course.

The last month was a bit of a stress.  I didn't have much left to do really, but it didn't help that my Mac Mini's HDD decided to fail so I had no choice but to wipe it. Thankfully I didn't lose any of my work as it was all on my USB Stick, but then even that decided to fuck up and I had to format that too. Thankfully, that was just after I had sorted out my Mac, reinstalled the iOS and managed to still pull everything from it even though something wasn't quite right. Mayhem. At the worst time as well, when everything is due in! All of this delayed me in finishing my work that I needed to submit within days. Since I had wiped the HDD, I had to reinstall Logic and all of it's instruments and sounds since I was using some for my project so it was essential that I got them all back. On top of all this, we wasn't even fully aware that we also had to master all of our tracks for our final submission so everyone missed that deadline. Like seriously, everyone. Even me, Miss. Perfect Student ngl.

I managed it in the end and thankfully our tutor gave us an extension since he had actually given us a fair bit more work to do with little notice because of some dickhead external examiner. Ugh, that dude seemed nice too then he just hits us with a shed load of work that barely covers a unit. Prick. My tutor basically said I've pretty much wrote a dissertation just so he could tick one box, which ok yeah thats cool and reassuring that I can pull off that sort of workload in a short space of time but Jesus, where's the complains department for Pearsons at?

Realise

Oh, I'm so glad that's all over. The amount of stress leading up to this week has been unreal, although still more manageable than some moments form last year. I'm pleased to announce that our Realise project is over. My performance was on Tuesday but there were still a couple more students left to perform theirs today. I've got all my feedback and and pretty happy with it to be honest, expect maybe one certain "Tutor" who decided he was going to bring me down. Well, guess what? His awarded scores stick out like a saw thumb against all the student awarded scores and considering not all of the student in the audience know me. I'm convinced he's got it in for me.I'm considering talking to my actual tutor about this although he said not to get too worked up about the feedback but it's just shitty that the worst feedback is from staff and I guarantee my tutors score would even be higher.

At this point, I've nearly finished my evaluation and its almost time to start some of the final projects due in soon. Spain is forever on the horizon and I have my passport ready, although there are a few things I still need to sort out for that. We've had the letters, so it's happening! There was probably a few more things I was meant to do this evening actually whist in the library but, oh well. I've managed to be extremely productive on a day where I have no musical functionality. I've pretty sure my musicality has been drained this week from our last major project. I couldn't even play drums this morning which was a little embarrassing but I have also been extremely tired.

Industry Week

I totally missed writing about this week. For now, here's a link to the performances I was involved in and maybe I'll add some more stuff when I'm not so buy.

Thursday and Friday was a laugh! Friday was probably the best night out I've had in a long time.

Easter Half-Term

Last week was quite strange. I knew I had tonnes of work to be getting on with but day by day decided to completely avoid it. The old, "I'll do it later" job followed by, "I'll just do it tomorrow." and then, "I'll just do it next week." There were a few events I should make note of. I had my first double date on Thursday evening with Aaron, my friend Chantelle and her fiancé Kyal. We went to Nandos and few were quite shocked that this was my first experience. However, I'm still not sure if I was really that impressed. The evening was nice but the food wasn't as good as I thought. It didn't help that I had already eaten a little too much before going out so I was practically force feeding myself, it was nice but not amazing. My favourite part was the paprika sprinkled chips. We went to McDonalds after for a McFlurry. On the Saturday, I was actually social and went to a party with Aaron after work and met a few of his friends. My parents were out at the caravan so I stayed over at his that night. I didn't last long at the party from coming over from work. I still feel a bit bad for making him come away from it all fairly early but we still had a nice night.

This week has been much more productive and I've still managed to get it many hours playing games I've played all too many time. I've figured it's all about balance. I've managed to further progress my video by almost five minutes over the last couple of days (which for me is quite impressive after last weeks struggle) but I've certainly reached a point where I can't wait for this particular project to be over. I'm just sick of it now. It's weird because I like making music videos and made a few since as early as 2013. It's like I feel like because it's not 100% related to music, it's niggling me as being part of the course. Oh, well... there is only one more smaller project after this and that should be a little more fun recording samples of random things (with a theme obviously) to make a track. I'm looking forward to that one at least, but i just need to get this lump of shite out of the way first.

In other news, I'm gaining weight rapidly. I think I've put on around a stone over the holidays (it is Easter, so the chocolate has been about in larger quantities) I need to be a little more careful now and think about my "summer body" for when the Spain thing happens. Not that I'll be walking around with much on, but I certainly won't be comfortable with my current amount of flab. I've even brought some fruit. There will be gym sessions and I will cut down on the a sweet stuff. I think I do have an addiction though, still at least I don't smoke. It's hard to get to the gym at the minute without thinking about my workload, hopefully I can find some time next week once I've made some more progress as it is looking more likely that I may reach my goal of around 10 minutes video footage complete by this Friday. It's a big ask, but it's certainly possible and if I achieve this it will certainly give me a little more freedom.

Pre-Easter Stress and Relief

The weeks of school gigs have been pretty intense and made it a little stressful dealing with my own work due for a rehearsal this week. On Monday, I probably should have done more that I did in preparation. Tuesday, I could probably say the same although I did manage to do a few things like setting up my interface and a channel in Logic to send midi notes to play live in time with my project. Thats something. Wednesday was extremely stressful. I knew I had to run though everything with what seemed to be minimal preparation. Even my video wasn't ready but that couldn't be helped. I wasn't due to perform until about 2:30pm which gave me the morning to do a few practice runs with the minimal tech I decided to take with me. Using the looper became a bit of an issue as it so easily went out of time with my backing track. This was all I needed, more issues on the day.

When I arrived, another student, Johnny was in the venue waiting about for Matt, our tutor. He had just done his performance and within ten minutes or so it would have been time to perform mine own. As Matt was in and out juggling us AO brought in some alumni to show off his new desk (which I'm sure some of them saw last year) oh, and the new side fill monitors on stage. Really? Now? I was anxious enough knowing that my performance was minimal and now I had an audience to watch me set up. Fuck off. Get out. I wanted the room totally to myself, but of course I didn't say anything.

Thankfully Matt was kind enough to allocate me sometime to get some more practice in before he filmed me perform. This gave me almost two hours, which even I thought was a bit much. Knowing that it wasn't going to be perfect anyway made me want less time to get in and get away quickly. I mean, it was the last day of term and no one really wanted to be there. I managed to adapt to my looper a little better although it still wasn't 100%. I did finally do the performance. I interrupted Matt in his office because I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted to get it over with. I had a better idea of what I was doing and if I'm honest, overall it went much better than expected. I just wish I had the time to put more effort in beforehand then maybe it would have been even better.

As a mini celebration to end the stress, I caught up with fellow band mate, Peter in town. If I'm totally honest, my original plan wasn't to have a big meal but naturally that happened. We went to the Pit & Pendulum, where they ID you for coke and they managed to mess up my order. I wasn't in an amazing mood already so I mostly went on about that as they eventually solved the matter. We tried to talk a little about band stuff but its hard when you don't have a full band anyway. We're still after a new vocalist and probably a new bass player so I can jump on keys or guitar.

Thursday was much more relaxing. Finally. It was also a day that I had been waiting for for weeks. Its a shame it couldn't come before all the stress to chill me out and I hoped so much that this day could bring me some much needed inspiration. Recent days have felt quite cold on those terms, creating the odd progression here and there. The rather legendary NR had arranged a charity evening in support of LOROS including a meal and recital. I figured it would be nice to see him and his little village and so told him we would come. By we, (I guess I haven't mentioned him yet on this blog.) I mean my fella, Aaron. We're a rather new thing but I think we work. This made a nice date night for us and also meant that he could meet Nick too. The evening was amazing. I was feeling adventurous with the food and so had the lamb curry and Aaron had the pie. It's always amazing to watch Nick play piano, especially sight reading. It's a skill I don't think I could ever have, as much as I understand music theory I still struggle to read a treble clef at the most of times. Sophie's voice was amazing too. It's a shame I didn't really get to speak to Nick all that much but I definitely got my fair share of hugs. I can only hope that he will still teach me. He's far but he's worth it.

I slept over at Aaron's for the first time that evening, we didn't get loads of sleep because of the sun beaming through the loft window but it was enough to spend more time with each other. When I awoke, I realised how beneficial the night before had been. Even now, almost a week later, I have a sense of closure and a clearer head. The months I'd spent worrying when old news was new. Absent feelings. It almost feels like a new me but for now its back to working on my projects. It's great to still be in contact with Nick.

For now, I've got to continue work on my final projects which currently I have no motivation. I still believe its a lack of students that brings me down and maybe the fact that I do so much more abd have to balance all of that.Either way, in a couple of months I'll be free form it all for and I cant wait. One last push then no more NCN or Nottingham College or whatever they want to call themselves.

*Shakes fist*

Here's to a new new start at UoD!!

School Gigs "18 (Part two)

The last two weeks have been pretty hectic but extremely fun. I only really mentioned it the opening of the tour in my last post as I had so many other things to mention. Since then I've collected an array of stickers as memorabilia from some of the schools we visited and have plastered them all over the schedule. It was a slow start at first while the students got used to the ordeal of loading and unloading the van but we started to get a little quicker in the first week. My only real day off was the Tuesday of the first week since we had no gig but then we were straight back to it on the Wednesday. Wednesday was also pork pie day, which seems to be part of tradition whenever we play in Melton Mobray. AS brought mine this year as a thank you since he's been lacking with the chocolate. One of the highlights from that week came from visiting Ye Olde Pie Shop when AO returned out from the shop stroking his pork pie.

Some of the schools we played, I was familiar with from last year. Melton Vale, Yeoman Park, Carlton Digby are just a few from the first week. By Friday, an illness was starting to sweep through the group and a couple of the students really weren't feeling to strongly about performing. Sets started to be cut down and into the next week we saw absences effecting bands being able to play. I also picked up the bug which made me a little slower and less responsive but still somehow survived turning in everyday despite being ill. The was one day during the second week when I was the only member of my band that turned up. AS did try to contact me but I think I had already left the house and missed the call so I still tagged along to help, which with almost a whole band missing, I'm sure they needed it. Looking back it feels like the most of it was spent travelling which I've quite enjoyed. Its been nice to be driven about and be able to take in the surrounding as well as overhear all of the tour bus banter between students. Laughing and joking, getting to know some of them a little more. Some of the topics discussed should probably remain on the minibus.

The only real problems I've had are related to my own work, since these school gigs relate to another course. While helping the lvl 2s boosts my performance skills and gives me more experience working with the other students, it means I cannot fully focus on my work. Its been especially difficult to balance this time around with illness making its rounds. I did try to produce some visuals within Modul8 but it decided that it wasnt' going to play. After rendering the video, the file would not work. This was quite infuriating as it took a lot of my time during the only spare time I had and as a result, I got nothing out of it, which means I'm now having to really push hard to get work done over today and tomorrow to be ready for Wednesday (Which I'm really not looking forward to.)

It's sad that I'm not sure I'd be able to do this all again next year. It's an amazing experience and the kids love it. I feel like  I want to keep helping out but at the same time, this time next year I will be focusing on my BA. It's hard for me to take in at the moment that actually, my current course finished in less that three months. It's crazy. I'm looking forward to it, though. I firmed my place this morning to study at The University of Derby and sorted out the student finance. It's becoming evermore real that it's the end to an era here in Nottingham, for me to study at least. On a positive note, I can't wait to get to know Derby as a city much better.

School Gigs "18 (Part one) + News!

It's been a long while since I've posted again and if honest it's mostly due to laziness this time around, plus I've had a few deadlines to panic about such as a 1500-2500 word report on Synthesis and Sampling which had to be in last week. At least that's out of the way now. In comparison, it feels like the next two weeks are going to be a bit of a holiday. School Gigs are always fantastic, we started our tour today. It can be a lot of hard work setting up, tearing everything down to do it all over again the next day, but it's the reception is always extremely rewarding. We play at a lot of Special schools as well as regular junior schools and their response is just so genuine and loving. One of the students I work with summed up todays on stage experience very well, "As soon as you're on stage, you feel like a million dollars." The kids really love it. I've played school gigs many times now, so much I'm starting to lose count. Is this my fourth or fifth?

As much as I know, I'm going to enjoy this little tour. I still have other bits of work that I can't really finish while this happens. Things I ned to do whilst sat at Mac. I finally brought Logic last month, as I gave up going in during half term. That certainly saved me some fuel! ...Somewhere, yet stung the purse of £199.99. It took a couple of days for everything to download and instal with my internet speeds, but now I'm all set. The only thing my little studio is missing these days are some proper monitors and I'm in tow minds whether or not to buy them or some monitoring headphones. Anyway, I still have my Realise project to finish off which is sort of flailing at the moment. I know what I'm doing, or need to do (I think). Most of the uncertaincy comes from it mostly being unfinished. I've got a lot of work to complete over the next couple of weeks to be able to pull this together successfully. A bit of filming, editing and recording some bass. Realistically, I need to set goals for each week now so the workload doesn't become unmanageable as we're about to rehearse everything.

It doesn't help that I'm still a stressy mess about Uni choices... yet more decisions to make! UoD seems to be my favourite option at the moment and I've booked an "Applicant Day" to see what its like. The have the same Gold award so, I'm hoping they're basically as good as DMU just closer. I might be looking into Huddersfield too, but I don't think I'll have time to view properly at this stage. At least confetti is still an option. I have a day to myself tomorrow and most of it will be spent catching up with my project. In the morning, I'll be doing something a little more unusual (for me) first. I'm finally going to apply for a passport. Mostly because I've been asked to help out in Spain this year by my old tutor Kirsty and you know what? Yeah, I quite fancy that. Something a bit ridiculous (again, for me). I've never been abroad so surely there's no better time while I'm still twenty-three.

No doubt, I'll post more updates on school gigs once its all over. It can a challenging time but it really  is so rewarding. Remembering last year, AS couldn't thank me enough last year for all the help, no doubt I'll get the same thanks again, hopefully including chocolate.

A Quiet Late Night (Much Needed) Moan

I apologise for my lack of interaction of late but I've been busy and I feel like now is the time to have a public rant before I potentially fix all of my problems on Monday. Hopefully. Before I start, everyone that knows me well enough knows that I love music thoroughly, generally. Recently, I've been lacking motivation mostly because of conditions at college (I believe I managed to correctly rule it down to this) it's not the equipment, it's not the staff but the lack of enthusiasm. My course has slowly dwindled over the time it has been running and I mean from the very beginning of year one. We started with around fifteen of us which minimised to nine and then shrunk further to severn, now potentially six for the second year. Not having many other students to motivate me makes things hard and often I become the problem solver or rather, I'm the one that is asked how we do a particular assignment. It does't bother me and I quite like the role of leadership but I still have my own work that I need to guide myself through and being almost constantly disturbed by focusing on other peoples work upsets such activity. I'm currently behind on my Realise project and I'm not sure if I care any more. I mean, I know I do just obviously no where near as much as before.

This year is hard and has been made more stressful by being forced to branch out; something I never thought I would do. Now, this is becoming stressful and I feel like I just need many weeks away from everything. I have received an offer from NTU for a BA Top Up in Music Performance and a rather more obnoxious offer from DMU which completely squashes the HND qualification I will have achieved by June this year. This is the problem I'm having to fix on Monday which if they can't fix it for me and I'm unable to get a suitable offer I may have to take a gap year which, in fairness would benefit me financially. God, I miss having money and not being able to spend it due to working so hard and then complaining about working so hard. Those were the days. I've spent too much recently mostly on equipment for the band and my realise project. So, going back to my Uni work... if I can put money towards it where has my motivation gone? In my purse? Maybe, I haven't quite worked this out and I'm just brilliant at spending money.

Who knows...

A Year of 2017: Summary

I can't complain too much about 2017 as its been enjoyable for the most of the time but also stressful. I'm not feeling all too deeply reflective as I wanted to today, to be able to write properly about how it has been as a whole. Uni work and college stuff took up a good chunk, even during the holidays and one thing I know for certain is that this year has been key. I feel like it was the right time for myself just over two years ago to make the decision to get back into education. I'm probably reflecting back further than I need to, but had I not been away from it all I don't think I would have valued going back as much. I do still have an ounce of regret for not continuing my studies when I was younger for many reasons, included in which is the mucking around and having to potentially search elsewhere for my BA, which reminds me I still need to sort out my UCAS. Urgh. I hope they have updated their website.

For the most, I feel like I've learnt a lot. Admittedly, there are still things I'm pretty shit at but some things that I've learnt are still very new to me. Recording is the easy job, mixing is a bastard and yes, I'm still salty about my grading before Christmas but at least I know what to improve.

I'm still continuing to develop my little home studio. I brought myself a new pre amp at the beginning of December. I'm hoping to pick up some new monitors before we reach Spring, but I'm trying to build a pedalboard as well. My latest toy is the Boss DD-500. I still need to play with it properly and without a doubt it will be used in-band now we are functional again. There is nothing to hide. We had a small conflict between us which lead to an unnecessary argument, cancellation of gigs but mostly just a delay of everything. We were all stressed and needed a break and we have learnt and grown from it. We have experienced a lot in the short time we have been together. Name change, three gigs, recording, part-break-up, reformation and now we are stable again, ready for the new year.

In other news, I have been enjoying this Christmas break a little too much and have not started on any written stuff due it the week after we go back. They're nothing big so I'm not particularly worried. I will start them this week though at some point, I'm just trying to save myself some stress. Its been a nice break and I can already sense that January will be hard. Not only with deadlines, but getting out of the do-nothing habit. The January blues will hit hard as soon as I'm back in college. This year will not be the same as the last.

Last year had it's fair share of hard times and at these times when things were bad, they were made better by being reunited with old friends I had before now, lost contact with. I'm also thankful for all of my new friends I gained last year, some of which have become amazing, supportive friendships but what I'm mostly thankful for in my Uni experience on a whole. Okay, it wasn't a brilliant start and things were a bit shaky at the beginning but I got through it and my overall grades show how much I have progressed.

I achieved most my goals from last year with ease because I'm such a good student but that doesn't mean everything was easy. I managed to balance my Uni workload with work somehow. I naturally ended up collaborating with other students to help with their assignments, then there was also the dub project more recently and there was and still will be The Nottingham Improvisation Club. All of last years events are cherished and I will let them savour in my memory. I passed the first year of my course with pretty decent grades and now I'm into the second year, I'm not sure how I will feel when I finish this year as everything seems different and I have some big decisions ahead of me. I'm glad I finished this year with a bang!

My resolutions for this year are a little more simplistic than last year, with my main one being simply to eat a little healthier. My college being sited right next to a Lidl store has given me bad habits to live off their doughnuts for the last few months so I'm going to try to cut down on sugar mostly and start going to the gym regularly again to remove some puppy fat.

And Finally, for those that were a part of 2017 and my readers, thank you and Happy New Year!!