Category: Musicians Blog

How did we start this lovely day then, well we had one of our second to last rehearsals this morning which was tiring none the least. Our set went very well considering how rowdy our guitarist is being towards me, I don’t think he likes living under my shadow or that’s what I have heard at least…

These last two weeks are definitely going to be the slowest period this year, my patients for everyone around me is diminishing as I am slowly releasing how most people on the course are inferior to me in a sense because all they go on about is sex and drugs (and rock and roll) relationships, all of that jive. It doesn’t interest me at the moment, purely as of my age and I think it is fairly childish they way most people are getting at such things on my course. 

Anyway, next up was composition, well instead of that we had Aural Perception because we don’t actually start composing until next year in which I may have previously mentioned. I am going to be going into fine detail with the elements of music and Aural Perception within its own section so keep an eye out for that!

Right listen here, afterwards we had Stylistic Analysis with Jason, always fun, never boring. I finished up typing my notes from Aural Perception, I had finished my work for Jason a while back so I have had the hour with him on Tuesdays to catch up with everything else. 

Lunch time, the best time, I am joking I highly dislike it now; eating is fun but socialising with others on the course is not a thing I desire at all. I used to spend my lunches talking to Ben who was an adult, or I was in charge of the rehearsal rooms, etc whilst he went for lunch which was great, so being round people my age again to talk to is not something I am fond of. 

I think I get along with Chris, Jason and Dan more than I do the students which is funny, I tolerate everyone else but I know for well I am not interesting to most and I am not like most teenagers as I have a more adult approach to life. 

Rehearsal after lunch was so heated, our last rehearsal as a band before we get segregated next year, I felt a bit sad to be losing Millie as a vocalist because she is very talented and lovely to get along well with but apart from that I felt nothing. 

Tutor was pretty basic this week we went over reflection and evaluation, but we will be doing that next week considering how we have to round all our work together! Afterwards Chris checked out my bass to see if he could use it for the gig tomorrow if he didn’t feel like carrying his around, that went well. 

Spent the rest of my day with Jason which was something I look forward to because we have some mutual interests, unlike all the over students. He gave me some pointers on how to finish up my Stylistic Analysis which will be done by Friday which is relieving, I think it is going to be the first piece of work I have done in a while which I am really proud of. 

This evening I am going to finish up Jason’s Christmas present, he truly deserves it after everything he has gone through this term and for helping me out with my miniature catastrophe recently.

Woah, I am pretty tired. Our day mainly consisted of two rehearsals, the rest of the scheduled sessions were D.I.S.

Rehearsal was fine considering it was the first time we had worked together in about two weeks, our guitarist was pretty rude with me last night over the phone so that set a lovely mood for the day which will carry on until the rest of the term, but I won’t let it effect the gig no matter what.

T’was refreshing to see Chris and Jason after a long hard week, I got a bit of work done, but I mainly took my time to look at things with a wider perspective. I went back into school last week to speak to Ben about it all which was the final push I needed to carry on and realise that I’m doing alright, and that I don’t need to dwell in the dark as I have him, Jason, Tom and many others.

I finished my peer evaluation work up at the end of the day after rehearsal as after that session I always feel determined to do more which I did so with pride. I am going to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training tonight which I am looking forward to it because everyone misses me, my sarcasm and my wit..

The only major event that went down today were our instrumental exams which were surprisingly well organised. I completely messed up and forgot everything on the spot which wasn’t the best thing that could have happened. I am going to ask Chris for a do over on Monday which will hopefully take place before we break up for Christmas!

I spent the rest of the day sitting round feeling pretty mediocre, speaking to Jason helped a lot considering I thought hell was breaking lose in reality, but it was honestly the best feeling ever after I was told straight up as now I know how to move on and be the best I can be.

Theory was interesting, forgot my book because having a little cry last night was a priority over most things. I took in everything Chris was saying as a weekly recap which was nice, afterwards a handful of us went over the subjects at a much faster pace, someone kept getting some parts wrong which they called out but hey ho they’re learning. 

I thought why not be very nice and cheer myself by helping Tom out with his theory work, we went up to the section Chris wanted and beyond. I made sure that Tom understood how it worked and tried my best to explain it to him, I think this will be great practice for in the future if I am aspiring to become like Ben, Chris and Jason!

Well, well, well. It looks like NONE of my band mates were in today which was excellent considering what I had ahead of me. I’m going to cut it short but it wasn’t pleasant but I am happy (in a way) of the overall outcome, I feel like absolute garbage but I want to be better very, very soon because I don’t want stuff like this getting in the way of my dream/aspiration. 

I got to say, I did enjoy the time away from everyone else as it gave me way more time than usual to ‘reflect’ or as Jason would like to put it (which is well said I have to hand him that) “dwell in the dark”. I did end up getting some Stylistic Analysis done with Jason whilst he taught the rest of his class, working seems to get my mind off of a lot which is quality.

Essentially I spent my whole day alongside Jason which was very kind of him, this included coming with me to student support which wasn’t pleasant but him being there made it ten times easier, tolerable so to speak. 

I tried my hardest not to waste the time I had being absolutely upset and I did my best, all that there is to do is move on and work hard with help from the best lecturers around! 

Quality. This morning we had Aural Perception with Chris, I do enjoy the lesson a lot but when I have a headache it doesn’t help at all, especially along side my peers talking on and on throughout the songs we are trying to listen to and by we, I mean me.

I tend to jot all over my work with a lot of tribe, so I am not going to put it on here as it is incredibly hard to if you’re not living within my shoes. We went over a bunch of songs and then we discussed what we as musicians and active listeners look out for, in our case today it was time signatures which is always a mouthful. 

When the lesson ended we had a quick break which then led on to us finally getting round to recording our music video. I got to say I did enjoy the process of it all but I wasn’t too fond of the time span we were given and having to mime our parts. It felt like all the attention was being put on the guitarist and singer which is fair enough because they’re what passive listeners listen and look out for, so me and the drummer were just left in the back to fester which I didn’t mind as I’m not up my own arse when I play an instrument like others. 

Our director did some close ups of me playing bass along side Tom but in reality the video rotated around the other two which was painfully funny to watch, as it successfully made my day worse but great at the same time I can’t compare the feeling but when it happens it’ quality.

During D.I.S, I was mean’t to catch up on my work considering how I have let the big sad take over my weekend which wasn’t great. So instead I went to go practice the song I am going to play in my Bass exam on Wednesday, but Jack decided to come in a ruin what I had going soon after Tom wanted to come in and sit with me which wasn’t epic.

The rest of the day was in shambles really, our vocalist took off early as her and the other two were taking digs at each other all day which I stayed well away from as per usual as I am in college not secondary school. So for that session I sat and just spaced out which was great the others played some Led Zeppelin which I can’t get into so I left them to it and backed up and sat outside to cool down mentally.

Parents evening was cool, it was nice to go over what is install for me next year and to hear good comments from Chris and Jason which I have to thank greatly for helping me settle in perfectly and to achieve what I have done so far!

Welcome to thee most boring day or the week, unless you dress up as your college lectures.

We started the day off by rehearsing as Piss Christ and going over ‘Dragonaut’ by Sleep, at this point only Chris and Dan had seen us dress up so we were now just waiting for Jason’s arrival which soon struck us, he was entertained by our efforts also which was quality.

Our guitar lesson consisted of going over the A Natural Minor Scale within four positions but I cannot seem to get them into my thick skull even though I spend at least an hour an evening going over scales and chords which is in reality a major kick in the head. But considering I was dressed as Jason I had a free pass to just be slightly frustrated after a few attempts within lesson.

Oh well as I will eventually get them down because my musical memory is due to kick in sooner or later. I’m growing not to like Wednesdays purely because there are too many people about and it makes me feel very crowded having to know the majority of them, as we were dressed up it felt like we were the laughing stock for the day which I didn’t mind but having a lot of people speak to me is fairly surreal. 

As we went about the rest of our day as the lecturers which was then concluded with a lovely theory lesson which is always a mood booster after a very tiring week but luckily we have the day off tomorrow to do whatever we seek fit!

We started off this morning with a lovely rehearsal, what to expect out of these sessions now is a couple of performances of our set as a whole, mainly making sure we don’t go over the 15 minutes we have been allocated. That went well, this week I am feeling pretty sick of the set, I got to say when you know something as well as the four songs we are doing you’ll go pretty insane, especially if you’re on bass and in some songs you have to stick to the single note bass line and not go to town like Les Claypool.

Then we had a session to go through all of our work, mainly our blogs considering how much work other students have put into theirs, sometimes I feel like I write too much for a non existent audience, because I am pretty sure people put less work in than me when it comes to blog posts and get the same mark anyway…

Stylistic Analysis was great, I got a few notes down to myself about Disco, mainly I was thinking about organising next month because I am like that which is fairly sad. I finished the majority of the piece early on and all I have left to focus on is the production aspect of it all and completing some errors within my poor spelling and grammar which has been highlighted throughout my blog! 

Lunch, cool, not worth going into as it’s not interesting at all. If I don’t enjoy sitting around listening to other students garbage why should you.

Rehearsal, going through our set was a little more tolerable as I was joking throughout it and playing like a maniac which best suits me. Is this something I will carry on doing in the future, maybe, it is great for me but our guitarist hates when I laugh at any and everything especially whilst he is playing as he takes it as a personal dig, quality.

Tutorial with Chris is always fun, he says it will last for this certain time span but it goes over considerably or not at all, I am not condoning this but it would be great to bet on, but no bad habits over here for me.

This morning we had a double rehearsal, well I say double but Chris came and swiped the room for the second hour to work with his band. I don’t because I was tired and quite frankly in pain, Chris wanted to hear us go through ‘Black Velvet’ and ‘Just a Girl’ during the first song I missed a note as my wrist popped which was ungodly so I tanked through it but by the end of it all I was sore and just wanting a big old nap.

We went to lunch early as our singer went off early to smoke and then didn’t come back so our “double rehearsal” had essentially been destroyed. I had a big meal again as I thought I deserved it again as lately I have been working a lot on every and anything, some say I’m being a try hard but you know, anything that can get me into UNI would be great.

During D.I.S we worked upon my composition for next term, essentially what I had in my head came to life until it all came to shambles so I left it to pick up later on next year, we then had rehearsal again but that only lasted for twenty minutes as our guitarist couldn’t get a capo as he didn’t give it back to Dan at the end of the first rehearsal and then everyone else apart from me didn’t want to go through ‘I Want you Back’ so we only went through two twice through which wasn’t the most productive.