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!