eltit a fo gnikiht rehtob t’ndluoC

So we are gathered here again for the weekly informative and somewhat enlightening update on my musical path to a professional musician. This pathway I tread however fulfilling seems to be narrowing now as I struggle to find any time to rehearse with my instruments and outside of college band with the most part of my day spent on this laptop. Since time is a factor I shall briskly move forward to the events of my week and what stood out and benefited my aspirations.

Monday was a lazy start to the week however after some well needed piano practice I headed into to college for an afternoon of Led Zeppelin degree project. This project has been slightly unorganised with breakdowns in communication and a great deal of chasing up to find out potential set lists. In the end however we did manage stumble in to a room together –sadly without a basses- to start looking over the chosen material. The sound of course was slightly empty and the tracks were not up to scratch but I hope that with time and given my own space to look over them they will improve. I just hope that another practice is arranged shortly!

Like past projects this one has again emphasised on some of the important abilities and pressures to cope with in being a pro. There is always the chance that there will be a lack of communication and chasing up will have to be independently done. Playing under a great deal of pressure with minimal rehearsal time is yet again something that is propping up, especially at this time of year and something I am just going to have to get used to if I am to go anywhere with my playing.

Tuesday’s morning piano lesson went very well for a change with my pieces coming along nicely. With my teacher, I began to expand on my technique and attempted to find the best methods to go around practicing the difficult sections of my repertoire. Even with the flaws I felt slightly more confident and I now hope that over the next few weeks my progress with each shall be steady. My teacher has also given a more difficult Schuman piece called Erinnerung just to keep me on my toes and give me a little more diversity.

After the lesson I headed into college for a tasty practice with bass and guitar. It felt good to play with no pressure and just for leisure as it seems such a long time since I’ve been able to use the word fun to describe the practical side of the course. Halfway through our playing we were asked to come down to the studio and lay down a live recording of our jam. It was good to get back in the studio and to record as a live band. It was the first time that I had recorded without a click in a long time and was good to get this break from a robotic method of time-keeping and just use my ears to listen and keep the feel.

After the tracks was down it was Rocky degree practice with my trombone. It was the first time I had seen the pieces and so most of my playing was sight reading. Except for a few mistakes I held it together and to play with trumpet player Gavin is always good for small tips and helping hands with my technique. Overall the tracks are coming along nicely and I just hope that it all comes together in the end. Either way I am gaining a lot of experience with my trombone playing and feel that my reading is getting better with every rehearsal.

To round the day off I went to Rhythm Wave which was its usual hectic self.

Wednesday was the first real practice with our new HND band and to be honest the rehearsal could have gone better. The band was a bit disorientated and I just hope for next week that it will come together. In first study my tutor yet again addressed my texture and feel when playing different styles and although it is still a problem I am gradually overcoming the problem.

The morning also had me playing for a jazz – funk fusion project which for the first time in a while was quite enjoyable. I think the Easter break has been helpful in stopping a chain of monotonous rehearsals and now a little refreshed I feel a bit more enthusiastic about the task in hand.

The afternoon consisted of our compositions being played back to the composers to hear and sadly, wasn’t as successful as I had wished for. I hope next week with more parts my piece will sound slightly fuller and more like a piece and hopefully soon enough a song (if I can ever get my head around writing lyrics).

Thursday morning was portfolio check and mine seems to be coming along nicely. I just need to gather as much evidence I can in the weeks left so as to make my case for the “job” as strong as possible. Apart from that Thursday wasn’t the most eventful day a well, except for calamities in digital audio but there’s no need for details.

In the evening however I travelled through to Glasgow for a gig with Feel Free Conspiracy at the bar Box. The venue was surprisingly packed reasons probably due to it being a charity night. There was a lot of waiting around however as we were not on till 10.45. When it finally came to our turn we managed to clamber on stage and play a somewhat set but the quality of our playing and sound were far from being at its usual standard. I felt this was due to an exhausting wait and also that there wasn’t much enthusiasm between the group in which preparation time had been minimal. Well you win some and lose others and so I just hope are next local gig at the Tams will be up to scratch for the evening. An even bigger down on the late trip home was to find a parking ticket mocking and dancing in my face outside my window screen. A nice £30 pound fine to end the night!

That’s about it for this week as Friday’s articulation class was cancelled so until next week... Farewell!

The Last Few Leaps

Back at college now for what I have been informed is the last 9 weeks before all assignments are to be handed. So, writing a three minute piece, creating and finishing a portfolio showing all the “fantastic” experiences I have had in my musical career (which I feel really hasn’t even begun as of yet), a PowerPoint presentation and graded interview and countless essays are just a few things that have been placed on my to-do list. Of course this shall all have to begin promptly if I am to avoid losing sleep and what hair I have on my head however, for the time being this is getting slightly too negative for my liking and so I’ll just get onto the weekly events.

Technically Wednesday was the beginning of my week due to my late return on Tuesday evening and as I arrived in for 9.00a.m I was reformed with my Led Zeppelin band to discuss our next project which was agreed to be the 1970 Isle of White festival. I was happy with our choice of songs and am confident that this time we will be able to pull off a passable performance. This was soon followed by my drum lesson which turned out to be exceedingly beneficial to my texture playing of styles. The advice I received has given me more to think about when playing in different styles and so I hope overtime, with practice that my texture will improve leading to me becoming a more versatile and diverse drummer.

In afternoon composition class the group was given deadlines for our three minute pieces and how we should be structuring ourweeks. The second half consisted of the first of many talks on the instruments we would be using in our songs with the guitarists taking the limelight. The talk was somewhat helpful and I just hope that when I hand out my sheet music next week it will make sense and sound like I expected. This task will greatly help me on my aims as a musician for the more I understand about writing music the stronger and more confident my general understanding of reading it will become. I just hope I can finish it in time.

Thursday was as usual a stretched day starting with graded unit where the dates for our interviews were handed out. Four weeks from the day I will be suited out and hopefully proving why I am right for the job confidently, delivering my epic fifteen minute presentation on my incredible skills and talents...in a perfect world that is. More realistically I will be in my rags cowering in the corner panicking over my few slides of presentation that don’t seem to be working while rummaging for my misplaced portfolio. Just hope I can get somewhere between the two. The pressure of small deadlines will hopefully help me to be more organised and prepared for as a session musician this skill will have to be accomplished.

In history a date has been set for our Adorno essay and yet again it all seems a bit too close for comfort. I am in desperate need of some intellectuality before I can begin so if anyone knows where I could purchase some I would be most grateful if the known address could be sent to me.

Session skills was for the first time in weeks productive. The music for Grtis ain’t Groceries was handed to me and we were put in the studio and told to be ready in a couple of minutes to record with click. I really don’t have to go in into detail of how this benefited me on my aims as a session for musician for this was as real as its going to get in the college at this time - except of course the fact there was no money involved. I managed to nail it and was happy to sit back and watch as each musician went into to gradually layer the track. I hope that next week will be as eventful.

Digital audio seems to have never been mentioned in my weekly blogs for I felt the class did not go anywhere however this week after talking to the lecturer we are now back on track and at the moment I am currently creating a web page advertising myself as a musician. Although the page will not be published the task has given me ideas for when the time comes to advertise myself via the web as a working musician.

Friday’s articulation class was as interesting as ever as we delved into African music and the association it has with blues roots. Every week I find this class more fascinating and take away a great deal of artists to look into helping to expand my knowledge of music outside of popular music terms.

In terns of our transcription assignment I have finally chosen the piece for analysis however it sadly wasn’t my first choice. At first I wanted to tackle the opening of Elgar’s cello concerto in E minor, then I lowered my standard to attempt Eric Whitacre’s unaccompanied choral piece Sleep however, with both, there just wasn’t enough time to transcribe the scores accurately in the given time slot. So now I’m in the middle of writing out Regina Spektor’s “Us”. The song is a straightforward transcription however the words have an ambiguous and deeper meaning and so I hope to grab my 1000 words from a lyrical perspective.

Apart from college my only real out of hours event this week has been a traditional band practice. The band has now chosen a date for a half twelve concert sooner than I hoped for and so now we are choosing material for the up and coming gig. Although I am happy that we have a target to aim for and am sure that the gig will boost my confidence as a fiddle player I feel that this slight pressure will rip the fun out of coming together and playing the music. I surely hope that this doesn’t happen but as the date draws closer I am sure that tensions will rise.

So that’s that, next week is surely to be a hectic one as I begin to play for degree projects and my own HN2 performance. An update will follow one week from today on these activities!

The Holiday for Eggs

So I felt to keep in the productive side of graded unit I would have an update on my holiday escapades and the and how this season has benefited and brought me closer to my aspirations as a musician...not too much in all honesty. Firstly a small update on the last week of college.

In the last week before breaking up there were a few lectures and speaker that were both interesting and educational. Firstly games composer Stuart (“I can’t quite remember”) came in and talked about his time at Perth and what the life of writing for video games was like. It was good to hear from someone who had successfully pulled together a career from their time at Perth College and also to hear about the methods and abilities that are needed to become a composer. The second fascinating talk also took place in the Brahan lecture theatre and consisted of a successful engineer referring to his career and how he had managed to climb up the employee ladder to become the boss of an established company. This talk really helped to motivate me for the gradual rise in jobs to become accomplished striked similarities to that of being a session musician.

Now however the holidays areover and have almost been too good and enjoyable to return for as I gradually drive up the treacherous A83 for my return Perth, all fun and motivation seems to drain. With 7-9 weeks till the end of college and now at the last hurdle I need to find all the enthusiasm and focus I can for the many hours of studying that lies ahead.

Having access to a piano over the holidays has given me a much better balanced practice schedule with the weighted keys and acoustic sound restoring some enthusiasm and fun into playing. At my last piano lesson before the holidays I sadly had to reschedule my associated board grade 4 exam for a later date. Recently I had begun to notice my practice schedule had been cut due to college assignments and so I feared that work may get in the way again as the exam date drew closer only leading to stress and lack of preparation. So now I set my target for November sadly making my planning stage goals one less completed.

Speaking of Associated board exams after what seems months of waiting I finally opened up my e-mails to find out that my exam results for my grade 5 theory had been published online. After finally finding the old e-mail with my password and account number on it I logged in and slowly watched the buffering page reveal that I had passed with distinction -93%! This result has given me a boost to look at the grade 6 paper and although I know it is rare seeing as grade 5 is the bench mark I feel that it would benefit me, obviously on an academic level but also force me to learn more about the classical side of music and the fundamentals that come with it. It is after all the foundations of popular music and to an extent helped to shape it to what we know it as.

I don’t know what it is about this course but it seems the more I study the popular side of music the greater my admiration to western arts music and orchestral music seems to grow. Whether this is because I have a natural reaction to rebel or because it is a genre I lack knowledge in it seems that more and more frequently my iPod is churning out Debussy over Dave Matthews band and Thomas Newman (film composer) over Tool. Whatever the reason it has caused me to look into this genre for choosing my transcription for articulation class. Over the holidays I have looked over countless contenders in terms of chamber music, overtures and symphonic poems however the position is still open and the quicker it is filled the better. I feel the next stop will be an analysis of film composer that could become a candidate for my complex analysis. Although this is an extreme challenge I believe that the amount I will learn from classical music and the orchestra in general will benefit me in later life.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that while at home I was strangely asked to be on the judging panel at a local music talent contest. This opportunity was both fun and difficulty as I had never before judged anyone’s talents in such a formal manner and had always been one to be judged and brought to criticism than bring it on others. The contestants were of all ages and talents with acts ranging from guitar, accordion and violin players to singers/songwriters and small choirs. The talents that some people showed were incredibly admirable for their age with posture, intonation, maturity and their general musical ability commendable. I almost felt that some of these young kids had a better knowledge of their instrument and music that they could replace many students here at Perth.

So that was another experience to add to my portfolio with it I also managed to get a picture in the local paper.

So that’s my thoughts on this ever so sunny day, back to college in a few days whether it be for better or for worse I don’t know.