7/02/10

Wednesday morning. No Alex. No John. No Jamie. But another drummer - yay! Now we have 3! What more could a band want?! This will have to be resolved somehow. We either do Samba-Hip-Hop or change genre. I’m not sure how either of these suggestions might work.

Thursday - heaved my entire computer into class to do my Beatles presentation. I am getting extremely fed up with this rubbish computer/no internet situation! Anyway, after finally getting the machine set-up and working which took goodness knows how long, I commenced on my presentation which dealt with the many Beatles conspiracies. In retrospect I believe that I chose an aspect of their career that was too wide. There are so many conspiracies regarding the Beatles and some of them are very very interesting with lots and lots of information that I found it very hard not to get bogged down in detail. Coupled with the fact that I was highly aware of the time constraints (I had heard about a 15 minute presentation that had lasted for an hour), I felt that it would have been possible to produce a presentation that dealt with only one of these conspiracy theories and for it still to be engaging and interesting. I think that I had found it difficult to structure whilst writing but was reluctant to revise my original plan due to my lack of access to the internet making it difficult to do further research at home. Technical difficulties and problematic content aside I feel that it didn’t go too badly and that I can take lessons from this experience forward to future presentations.

In our session skills class we were given a talk about music production by Dave Patterson, which I found really interesting. Dave’s background comes from the famous Ca Va studios in Glasgow and he has worked with many Glasgow acts who I admire such as Isobel Campbell of Belle and Sebastian and it was enlightening to hear his take on what we, as musicians, should be considering not just as songwriters but marketers and producers of ‘our product.’ He talked to us about demographics, production techniques, producing a product for certain markets. It highlights how much more thinking there really is behind a finished song that you might hear on the radio other than just writing the song and recording it in the studio.

On Friday we received “THE DEGREE TALK” from Pete Honeyman in Articulation class. Really puts into perspective the level we are expected to attain in order to progress to degree and what we can realistically achieve with our qualifications. Degree isn’t necessary to become a session musician or instrumental instructor. Neither is it a sufficient qualification to become a class room teacher. Nor does is automatically allow you to train become a primary school teacher. However, employers in many fields look favourably on job candidates who are music graduates due to the nature of study requiring students to be creative, confident and self-motivated. He told us that this year there is a record number of applicants for places on the degree course and that there may have to be some kind of audition or exam process to determine who will receive the limited places available. There were over 40 people in the classroom today and a further 20+ outside applicants. There are only 26 spaces on the degree course. Eeeek. Major competition.

On a more instrumental instuctory note … Elaine has asked me if I can tackle some of her students as part of her teaching module for her honours degree. She has had more than 12 applications for extra tuition and is up to her eyeballs with work for her degree project so I have said that I’m happy to help as it will be a great experience for me to get to grips with teaching older students and learn to tailor lesson plans for pupils who generally already have studied music.

Oh and finally - results back for The Beatles gig - A- for overall band. B- minus for me. Apparently the only thing that has detracted from my mark has been time-keeping. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that this class starts at 9am which is the same time that I have to have my daughter at school for. I have no car and there is no direct public transport. Currently I have to rely on friends and family for childcare and lifts and if they’re not available I have to pay for taxis around the place. I am NOT able to get to college at 9am on a Wednesday morning, Although I always endeavour to try and be as close on time to that as possible. Now, the argument could be that if this was a job then there would be no excuse as to why I’m not there on time and should have to arrange a child minder in order to get to work on time. However, I would be getting paid for the job and also be able to claim working tax credits in order to pay for childminding. I’d also try and arrange my working hours to fit in with my family life if I could! So I think that my personal situation should have been taken into account when considering a mark for this particular gig. And also if that was the only thing wrong with my performance and musicianship I ask why it warrants a B MINUS?! Surely the inclusion of pluses and minuses in a score system means that the utmost best is an A plus, therefore the only complaint being that I can’t always make a rehearsal on time (and considering the fact that half the rest of the band were bloody late or not there or whatever half the time anyway!) is it really a serious enough factor for marking me down by a possible 6 degrees in the marking scale?!?! If you were to look at it from this point. If my performance warranted a B + by these calculations my mark would be reduced to a C-! Boo Hiss. Rant. Sob. Ok …. I am a calm and peaceful person. J