Week 12: *CANCELLED - 'snow joke*

Well due to some 'freak' weather conditions this week of college (and pretty much everything else) has been cancelled. I have welcomed this as it has given me more time to 'do work', however it is limited what I can do for college in my bedroom. For example this week I was supposed to meet my designer for a photo shoot in college, but alas that must be postponed. Also I needed to use the studio to progress with my production class, however once again that is not possible. Although this extra week has given me time to work with the singer I want to use in my production, so he will be ready to record when I get back into the studio. I will probably have to arrange another time for my photo shoot too. All my other work seems to be on track.

Enjoy the snow.

Daryl

Week 11: The Clock is ticking and so am I. *sigh*

Hello again, this is yet another blog post for yet another week. There's not much going on but there's a lot going down as per usual. The most exciting piece of news this week is that I bought a new Tri-cone Resonator guitar today. I'm pretty chuffed with it. This now means I can use it in my individual project (slide guitar), it will be a useful tool. Also this week I had a good lesson with my students. I taught them TWO songs this week ! They loved it. But alas, the class will finish in a couple of weeks and I have to do some evaluations for it. I hope I get to do another 'semester' of it, as it is good fun and good pay. This week a few of us college folk went to Edinburgh for a birthday party, it was good banter. The only music related thing that we did that night was go to the Jazz Bar. It did exactly what it said on the tin.

Well first thing on Monday we had our ensemble meetings. We discussed what we had done and what we have to do: Not much and the rest. I am aware that we have to have a draft in the next fortnight for the ensemble research and that sounds like a job for tomorrow. Also on Monday was DAPM. This class has a very familiar pattern. I tried to add to my soundtrack by making some 'epic whoosh noises'. I think the are quite effective. However I was also told to redraft my redraft of my proposal. I understand what aspects I have to change about it. Yet again, another job for tomorrow. The final class on Monday was band work. This week was a repeat of last week. We essentially went over all the songs trying to get them tight. I have no concerns about the band apart from the dance moves...

Tuesday brought my dissertation meeting, which was quite good. Apparently I have the best literature review so far... Yeah, you heard. After that though I went home as the art class was 'optional'. I met up with my designer on Friday and we arranged a photo shoot for next Wednesday. But I used my time that day effectively by arranging a recording session at a friend's house for a track for production. I felt that I needed to do it outside college as this week's title suggests, the clock is ticking. We recorded a single tune: acoustic guitar, vocals and harmonica. I would say their is a few production mistakes in the recording, but it will get mixed and mastered in college. Which leads me on to production. That class is stressing me out, there is still a lot to do and the dead line is on Friday !! You'll need to wait and see what the outcome of that will be. Will Daryl get it finished on time ? Or will he tear out his hair, breakdown mentally and babble to himself in the corner ?

I think the latter of the two.

Goodbye.

Week 10: It's not been that long since the last post

Hey guys, it doesn't feel like a 'week' since my last post. It also doesn't feel like college will be finished soon. There's work to do...

Brief: Matt Scofield was awesome. Lesson three went well, I taught my pupils a song.

I also went on a scouting mission to find information on my dissertation topic. It was a dangerous voyage up to the PRI with many obstacles and situations I had to overcome but it was a journey that lead to the desired outcome. I got loads of leaflets about alcohol and it's affects on the body. Which were ok, they really just repeated themselves.

Well prior to my first class on Monday, I bumped into my band and I was handed a piece of paper declaring that I have to write about the second Blues Brothers film. I'm sure I can do it, but I really should listen more on a Monday morning. After that, there was a similar repeat to all the Digital Audio Production Multimedia class: Sit down, do a bit more to my project for two hours and then leave. However there was a mild differentiation to this lesson as Pete had a chat with me about what I was doing. I gave him my answer and I told him I would probably have to review my proposal, which I now have to do for next week. Joy. Finally that day was band work as per usual. This week we played a couple of new tunes: Minnie The Moocher and Shake Your Tail Feather. They went alright in my opinion, but nothing special. I think we will really need to polish all of the songs up way more though.

Tuesday started with my dissertation meeting with Marlisa which I was prepared for this time, as I had sent her a copy of what I had done for my literature review. It was fine, I have to do some more for next week. Shortly after I was commandeered from my outpost at the couches to record a tune for some sound production students. So a few of my classmates and I battered out a 'raw and natural' blues jam. It was interesting, however it was good practice for on the spot slide playing. It was good fun too. In Helen's class we watched a presentation from a professional photographer. It was quite interesting and it gave me an insight into different ideas for my 'photo shoot', which I'll have to arrange with my designer...

Wednesday was a busy day. I went in for twelve to see Kev for a lesson. I soaked the knowledge up like a sponge. I then played guitar for an HNC band. Last week I told them to pick songs and then learn them, which they did. I guided them, sort of. I jammed the tunes with them and gave them pointers. They are coming on. I then hung around for a while before my producer arrived. As soon as we got a studio, 'we' decided to move to another one for some reason. Then we started to record some guitar and as per usual there was a big delay with the headphone mix, but once that was sorted we recorded the guitar. And then the bass, which took far too long. We started on the bass at half six and it didn't get finished until twenty to nine ! Why ?! We didn't have time to record the keys, or the second bass part. Again this project is just dragging.

Since then, not much has happened.

Goodbye.

Daryl

Week 9 : Y'know what ? I'm gonna stop trying to think up unwitty titles for my posts, because sometimes it just takes too long.

Hello, that's right. I'm going to stop writing bad titles for my posts. I'm sorry. I'm just going to get cracking with the post. This week I taught my pupils some chords and it was pretty rewarding teaching them something. I look forward to the next lesson. I may have also mentioned that I had my AC30 repaired and it is now in Perth. I absolutely love that amp. She sounds so good, mmmmm. That tremolo is so warm, oooohhhhh. So vintage, ahhhhhh. And she can fairly belt it out. I was playing with her yesterday for a good 45 minutes yesterday before my flat mates came in, but when they got back they said they could hear it from outside and all the way down the stairs in the building... Sorry neighbours...

She does sound so good though.

Also this week I went to see Roll Wyn James this week and I was absolutely blown away by their talent. Kevin, from the drum shop, was very impressive. I never knew that a drummer that could play so quietly, amazing use of dynamics ! I'm glad that I've got him on board for my individual project. But my jaw just dropped for the talent of the guitar player Paul Henderson. Wow. I mean just wow. World class is all that I can say. I am also looking forward to seeing MATT SCHOFIELD tomorrow night. I can't wait. Aww man, so much guitar mastery in the one week.

Anyway to my college week. This week started with an ensemble meeting, which was neither a high or low of interest. I had prepared and emailed my contribution to the research, an analysis of Sweet Home Chicago and Gimme Some Lovin'. However I really should have brought a hard copy for everyone to see as I was handed other peoples work for reference. What I understood from the meeting was that we have to make an essay plan and I have to research The Blues Brothers 2000 movie. I wasn't too awake at that point so.... erm.... I should have paid a bit more attention.

Next up as per usual was Digital Audio Production Multimedia, which is progressing at a steady pace. I wrote another part for the trailer, which is all I can really do until I get the video. I could probably do with redoing my proposal, but y'know....

Due to industrial action band practice was moved to Tuesday morning.

This week was an improvement on last weeks non-existent practice, as we actually had a practice. I'm think we need to have a look at some more songs as the gig is fast approaching. That's all I can really say on that.

In the portfolio class, we met up with our designers again. My designer brought me a font to look at. I really do think he needs to do a bit more work because when I look at my classmate's designers work, they seem to be further ahead. The next step is to look at a photo shoot.

Production is going to close to the deadline. However this week was an improvement in progress. We have recorded two more songs this week. I even got in a guest drummer to play on one of the tracks, Mr Pepper. Despite this progress, we really do need to crack on with it.

That's it for this week.

Daryl

The 8th Week...

Hey guys, what's going down ? So here it is, 2 months of degree style blogging. Do I feel any different? I feel older and I also feel that time goes much faster than it used to. Well this week has been a very busy week indeed. Firstly I had my first class tutoring guitar, which I felt went quite well. I have 6 students whom I will be teaching for a 6 week program. This week I started right at the very basics: The guitar anatomy, how to hold the guitar, how to fret, how to use the right hand, the names of all the fingers on the hands and other pieces of information... Which I can't remember what they were but I do have the lesson plan. I also used this time to introduce the students to each other and get acquainted with them. And like I say, I think it went quite well and I look forward to next week. Also this week I played a gig with my band, The Xylophone Race, in the aid of Halloween. I went as a pimp. I think we played very well considering there was a FREE BAR. A mighty fine incentive. However it was quite a good gig in a cosy venue. We also mingled with the North Highland College UHI members, which was a mild addition to inter-UHI relations. If that really matters in the grand scheme of things. I did meet some sound chaps though. Another mild bit of news for you, but awesome news for me, is that I got my 1975 Vox AC30 fixed this week AND it's on it's way to Perth as we speak!!! WOOOOOOO !!!!! TONE !!!!

Now to talk about college. Monday was very unproductive. I initially went into college early to discuss my position tutoring outside of college, which was the most beneficial part of the day. The first class we had as per usual was Digital Audio Production Multimedia. No real work got done as I was asked to go and sing for a band which my flatmate jokingly put me forward for beforehand. In short, I was replaced very quickly... I was a little bit embarrassed. However I did return to class, but I found that everyone left to go and watch that band, so I followed suit. I think people may have stayed if Pete was there, but he wasn't. I'm not saying that his presence was needed for us to do work, but I think people would have stayed if he was there. And unsurprisingly last weeks band work must have been some freak miracle, as this week it resumed its normal dormancy. I am certainly pissed off with this outcome. We really do need to get the finger out our arses, well their fingers out of their arses. I'm sure they know who they are.

Tuesday was a mixed bag of treats. In our art class, we met up with our designers and he finally brought something to show me. I wouldn't say I was enamoured with what he had shown me but it's good to know he's doing something. We then had to present our case study to the class, which I'm pretty sure I was one of a small handful of the class that had done the work. This put me into a position where I was liable to do a presentation, which I'm not going to lie, I was quite unprepared for. However I did have a presentation in the eventuality of me actually presenting that day. With some very relaxed and improvised 'honesty', I 'sailed' through the presentation. Now I'm not sure if Helen was impressed or annoyed, as I did swear once or twice during the presentation (which I did apologise for) but I also 'raised some interesting points'. I'm not sure, but I do know it was supposed to be 'relaxed'.

I had booked some studio time for production class, and I'll be honest again, I felt went pretty badly on Tuesday. The producer had asked his friend to play drums on my track, which I wasn't too keen about as, I felt, he wasn't very good. He was adamant that he was playing drums on the track, I kept asking him to play the part that I had written, but he refused. So I decided to end the session as I thought it was a waste of my time. This is the only class that I'm actually worried about as it ends this semester and we have done bugger all for the class. We arranged another session for the Friday, which also went up shit creek. We agreed to meeting the studio for 9am, that includes the musicians I had 'booked', to start recording some more tunes. However, a certain producer was hungover and didn't make it in until... Noon. I was very angry. I had to apologise to the musicians I had asked to come in. We only laid down a drum track that day. I was very disappointed.

So that's this week in a blog-shaped nutshell.

Daryl.

7th (Week) Heaven

Hey guys, time for another post and this week it's live from Alness. I bet you are just overwhelmed with excitement. Happy Halloween by the way. This week I joined the gym, but upon reflection I should have joined it earlier... Also in my spare time I wrote some lyrics for one of my pop songs for specialist production, they are rancid. You'd think that they were written by an actual cheese-monger. Oh dear. Despite the 'fromagual' resemblance, they actually work quite well with the song, I hope...

Well Monday morning brought a 'surprise' ensemble meeting which I was quite lucky to attend because it was on the off chance that I was early. In the meeting we discussed our 'progress' with the Blues Brothers band. Marlisa was impressed to hear that we had not been practicing, not thought about our ensemble research project and our dance moves were just not up to scratch. Well, actually she was impressed with the dance moves, we are really good. So she outlined what we had to do for the research aspect and gave us a clear goal to head towards. My goal for this week is to analyse the original versions and Blues Brothers versions of Gimmie Some Lovin' and Sweet Home Chicago. She also helped us out by getting us a new bass player for the band. More on that story later. Next up was Digital Audio Production Multimedia, which was very similar to last week. Went in, sat down, opened the work, did some more of the work, left. So that is starting to shape up nicely, I will need to get the footage soon though so I can progress further.

The last class of the day was band practice which, for a change, went really well. I mentioned a bit earlier that we were assigned a new bass player, one for HNC no less. I was very impressed with his playing and his enthusiasm. He just came in without really knowing the material and jammed along with us, he picked it up very quickly. Good man ! This was good motivation for the rest of the group and we nailed four songs straight up. easy as pie. I look forward to the next practice as I can see it becoming more productive and highly polished. But I hope to see more players such as brass and keys soon.

This weeks dissertation meeting was again very helpful. I came along with whatever little research I found on Jstor on my subject and presented it to Marlisa. We went through the three essays that I had found on the effects of alcohol: the first having absolutely no relevance whatsoever (upon reflection), the second with very mild relevance almost not worth mentioning and the third which was actually quite good which talked about the physical effects of alcohol in depth. So not a total waste of time. She then suggested that I look at some alcohol awareness pamphlets and then I said 'Hey! Woah! Hold the Phone now! Just because I haven't shaved?!?'. Not really, but I should of said that, that would have been hilarious to epic proportions. You can't really say that I don't entertain with this blog, my jokes are world class and you know it. ANYWAY she suggested those because they would have accurate, government body information that couldn't be beat! So that is my task for next week. I've already picked up the leaflets from the Student Services. She also suggested that I don't throw away my bad references as I can use them in my literature review ! Wow ! So many suggestions !

So afterwards we had our 'art class', which was mildly more productive than last week. My designer did show up this week and was keen to get a picture of my face for my portrait but hold the phone son ! Where's my logo ? He didn't have it with him, but it was 'at home'. I'll be interested to see it next week. However I did get my case study finished which is just proof that a degree can give you the skills to be able talk about something that you have no real knowledge of and still fire out gold.

Finally this week was production. It was the first recording session for the class and I think we got off to a good start. This week we started on my pop song Be In My Arms. Me, my bass player Ricky and my producer met up in Eastlake 2 after a short delay and began work. Our initial plan was to record guitar, bass and drums that session. Well you know what Mr. Loaf says: two outta three ain't bad. Guitar and bass done. We didn't get the drums done because the drummer had to leave. But I think we made some progress this week, however I think we may cut it fine...

Tonight I'm playing a 'rare' gig with my estranged band The Xylophone Race in Evanton, hence why I'm in Alness just now. I'm really looking forward to it as I love gigging and there is a FREE BAR !! I probably will need those pamphlets later. I also had some good news the other day too, which I would like to keep quiet until it's final but basically I got offered a job teaching for the college in the evenings. I am very excited about that too!

Until later.

Goodbye.

Daryl

6th (Week) Sense

Hello once again, I hope you're 'holiday' was refreshing and more productive than mine. You would expect that I bring back many tales of adventure and redemption from my week off, but unfortunately I have no real resemblance to a buccaneer of any sort. I did however get Internet at my flat during the break so now I can blog LIVE. How interesting. But I did do one worthwhile thing during the break and that was a gig. I was asked to do a bit of depping for an ABBA tribute band in Montrose. I played the gig, made some good contacts and made a few quid doing it. I did also met up with my producer for my specialist production class. We discussed the material for the project and I showed him some of the material. He seemed keen to start the project after he had a reminder of the studios and the equipment. We met again and discussed more stuff, but that's for later on in the blog... Other than those things not a whole lot went down.

I'm not going to lie, but this week of college had very minimal activity. We all got a nice lie in on Monday morning as Research and Management has been replaced with nice new, shiny individual dissertation discussion feedback slots (I don't think that's what it's actually called, but we'll go with it just now because 'individual slot' sounds a bit vague for what it's worth). I can't talk about that yet as I have not reached that point chronologically in my blog, so just wait a minute or scroll down. ANYWAY, that means that our first class was Digital Audio Production Multimedia, which for once I got something done of some mild value. I previously mentioned that I received my friend's script for his animated action/thriller trailer, which, to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed. Well this week in class I went through his script and took note of the various locations and characters in the script to see what instruments, styles and sounds I should use in each part of the trailer. So far I have selected some sounds which create a general tense ambience underneath the various melodies. I have also added some orchestral stabs as this seems to be a recurring trick within action/thriller trailer soundtracks. However this may all be in vain as I don't have the video yet so I don't have timings for each section of the trailer, so it'll all just be ideas up until then.

A major disappointment with Monday is a recurring one. Yep, you guessed it. Band work that doesn't happen. This Blues Brothers thing isn't really going anywhere. However, we have discussed that we really do need to practice next week. Whither it happens or not, I don't know, but it does need to happen and soon. Despite this predicable set back my time was not totally wasted, as I decided to fill in playing bass in another band playing various soul tunes. It was good to finally play some music.

Tuesday brought me some mild activity with my first dissertation meeting thingy. This was really helpful and gave me some direction for my dissertation on Music and Alcohol, which I had been struggling with to find a starting point as my references seemed to be all invalid and redundant. Marlisa pointed out I should go down the avenue of looking at medical journals on the effects of alcohol and how that would affect various people .eg. musicians, listeners, composers .etc. I have taken note of all these things and I have researched for various essays on those subjects, which I have to comb through for next week.

Next up was Helen's art class, which could have been productive if it weren't for the absence of my less than productive designer. This threw a spanner in the works, design wise. So I researched stuff for my case study, which was great fun. I didn't find much, but I will when I attempt it at home... honest...

Finally came the production class which was pretty much just like my meeting with my producer earlier in the blog. However we decided that next week we will start putting down some drum, bass and guitar tracks. Good !

Other than that I put up some shelves, which I'm pretty proud of.

Yeah, totally.

See you later.

Daryl

Mambo No. 5(th Week)

Hello once again, I’m probably going to sound repetitive this week as once again not a whole lot has went down aka ‘this week’s blog is going to be pretty dry’. I might just ask you from now on to presume that ‘this week’ will be dry until further notice. How about that? Anyway this week I met up with Kev (from the drum shop) as he is interested in playing drums for my individual project (slide guitar). We listened to various tracks and discussed options for my set list. I found this to be very helpful as it broadened my slide guitar ‘vocabulary’, if that makes sense. I also revised my set list to include different genres of slide guitar, including Hawaiian. Yeah! How many Perth college folk have done a Hawaiian style? I’ve also considered the performance aspect of the show, as I propose to join certain songs together. So anyways here is my new set list.

1. Ry Cooder - Get Rhythm
2. The Eagles - Heartache Tonight
3. Keb’mo’ - Henry.
4. Little Feat - Dixie Chicken.
5. The Pahinuni Bros. - Jealous Guy
6. Ry Cooder - Feelin’ Bad Blues .
7. Elmore James - It Hurts Me Too
8. Sonny Landreth - Storm Of Worry .
9. Bobby King & Terry Evans - At The Dark End Of The Street
10. Ry Cooder - Let’s Work Together

Isn’t that great? Anyway the proposal for that will get done soon... So, what else happened this week? Well first up in research and management we learned about the new referencing system, which I don’t know the name of but I do know that it uses footnotes. I really need to download the PowerPoint on it. Then we talked about how to write and structure our actual dissertation which was also quite helpful as it gave me a solid idea of how to go about the dissertation. We were also assigned to our supervisor for the dissertation. I have been paired up with Marlisa. She told me to go and read some of my sources. There.

After that was digital audio production media, which was far more productive than usual, but still a bit dry. Firstly I watched some trailers for action/thriller films to take notes and inspiration from the music. I watched three trailers and took note of the styles in the trailers and the instrumentation. I noticed that most of the trailers had very similar music. I then took my information into account and sat down and wrote a few bars of ‘ambient trailer music’. I don’t think it was the best of work, but I got an idea of what voices and feels I should use for the trailer. I also forgot to mention I received my friend’s script for his trailer he is animating. I enjoyed reading through it and I think it will be a good project for writing music to.

There was no band work this week as everybody went home. I’ll let you guess what I’m thinking about that.

The next day we had the personal portfolio class which was actually good fun. First we went over various styles of portrait that we could have. It gave me a good insight into the different artistic effects for my posters and Daryl Hockin branded tea pots. After that Helen clarified what we have to do for the case study thing. I’ll report back to you on that once I have done it. But for the main task of that class we had to draw an example storyboard. I think it was to help with idea’s for drawing a storyboard for the videography for the background of my show. The subject of our storyboards was ‘the journey to college’. I didn’t finish it but I enjoyed drawing my very melancholy, predictable morning routine. I would describe it as a very drab comic. In every scene my character would be sighing about something. I found the mediocrity hilarious. But I did find the class quite helpful.

Alas production was also a lost cause, as some little bastard had taken my pen drive with all my work on it. Therefore I could not do anything, but I plan to write all the songs this week so I can catch up.

Time for a holiday.

Chow !

Daryl

Forth Time’s a Charm: Week 4

Hello and once again it’s time I bring you tales of my life from this week of college. I hope you have a glass of water with you because this week’s post will be a bit dry, as not that much has changed (except they live underwater)(*sigh*). Anyway as I previously mentioned, I was at a wedding. I must say I had a lot of fun, but I tore the gooch out of my best suit doing the cha-cha slide, which doesn’t really help much with anything at all. But other than that it was all very good. I don’t think there is any other news. If I remember any news whilst I’m typing, I’ll type it.
So this week in research and analysis class we talked about how to write a literature review, I would like to impart what I learned about literature reviews, however I may have switched off because of maximum interest limitations. I actually only really remembered what we did in that class because my flatmate told me. Although I do know we have to write a literature review for our dissertation and submit it in the near future. See! I was listening! Also in that class we talked about being more reflective in our blogs. Well, I feel that I should have listened more intently in that class, as I would have learned more about literature reviews. There, I’m putting my learning in action. The remainder of that class was spent ‘doing’ the ensemble proposal. We sat around for a while and tried to fathom out what to do, which to be honest was quite a simple task, but due to our lack of care we just didn’t do it. I’m pretty sure we finished it but I think we could have done a better job.
Well you can probably guess what happened in the digital audio multimedia production class. Not a whole lot. Again we fought with our proposal, which is becoming a recurring theme of the class. Although this week, our lecturer asked us to propose our proposals to each other, which I found to be quite helpful as it helped unravel the mystery that is the task of that class. But to many people in the class this seems like just a time-wasting task for four weeks in. There were quite a few people who had informed me of their concerns of the class.
After that we had ensemble practice which I thought didn’t go very well. The first hour or so we spent looking for a room to practice in. If we didn’t have help from Ronnie we probably wouldn’t have had any success. I think we should have gone down to the practice room a bit earlier. Once we started practicing, we had realised that we had forgot most of the songs and we hadn’t had a practice for a couple of weeks, so we were pretty rusty. This made the practice quite unproductive as we were just going over old material which we should have already known. I also felt that all our playing was a bit sloppy. I think we all should have practiced the songs really. However the dance moves were spot on!
The next day I had my advisor meeting. It was fine. No real issues. I had to raise issues regarding digital audio though, but that’s my duty. After that I had a meeting with my designer. He produced a mood board with various images on it. I was impressed; however I had noticed that other people’s designers had sketches and pictures for them. But what can I say? He’ll have something for me next time. During this time we looked at different fonts which took my fancy. It was fine. We have also been given some more written work for a laugh. Great. Some sort of case study about performer’s who have designs that impress you. I’m sure I’ll be able to fit in my part time art critic’s job with my degree work (actually to counteract my initial cynicism, I probably could do that, I’m only in college two days a week and if I did a bit more knuckling down and did my work straight away.)(*sigh*).
The final class of the day was specialist production, which filled with tragedy. First up, I was handed back my proposal as I had some corrections to do which actually isn’t much of a tragedy. I went away and corrected my mistakes, but apparently that wasn’t enough. He said that I had to put some quotes into the justification, which I don’t understand because it’s a proposal for my project... I’ll do it anyway. But the main tragedy was my sound engineer dumping me! I was distraught for seconds. But ‘my case’ was handed to another sound engineer, whom was a bit unsure of taking my proposal to give him an idea of my project. I think he hadn’t been to the class before; he seemed like he didn’t know what he had to do. This should be fun.
Well I should post again next week.
Daryl

Third Time’s a Charm, Occasionally: Week 3

Hey everyone, it’s that time of the week again where I mandatorily ramble on for a bit about stuff that has or hasn’t happened. Great. Might be a bit dry this week, as not a whole lot has went down. I’m going to wedding tomorrow, just thought I’d add that in there. I’ll tell you about it next week.

Well I’ll start the way it usually goes down. This week I received a call about depping for someone, however it’s not your usual dep. I have been asked to fill in for a guy in an Abba tribute group, but wait it gets better, I have to dress up in some sort of cat suit and miming is also optional... I won’t lie, I am looking forward to it as I reckon that it will be a good opportunity to meet some contacts plus it’ll be an easy £75. Also this week I was asked to write a petition letter, as I am Daryl Hockin Esq.: Student Representative P.I. It was a known issue that instrumental tuition (the absence of it from our lives) had been talk of the town and word on the street was that people wanted it. Badly. Some would do anything to get it. Even pay. So I set out with my posse to write a letter that would “fuck the establishment”. I won’t lie; the letter looked pretty good and read rather well. But despite the effort from all the signatures and admin, the letter’s only effect was a meeting shortly afterwards, which supplied a very firm and roundabout ‘NO’. Student Power!! (Fails again).

Moving on to my week of college endeavours firstly was my research and development class, which was as wonderfully entertaining as ever. We got some sheets about something or other and then we ‘read’ them, but I’m pretty sure they were probably important. I still have them. Honest. Then we moved on to something else about learning how to make surveys, it was quite useful, or it will be at least. As we did that we also worked on our ensemble proposal as a group and didn’t watch funny videos on YouTube. Also during this time, we were called up individually to discuss our dissertation topics. It was seen that my Music and Alcohol topic was the strongest. I explained the various things that would be covered in my dissertation. Once again I will elaborate later. But I came up with a witty title on the spot, which I am half and half proud of and ashamed of.

Music and Alcohol: Gin and Tonic Chords.

I am the king of puns. However, I think that I could come up with a better one with a larger time-span. After that class was the riddle class, where we, once again, wrote proposals, which didn’t go anywhere. I just want to do a spoof trailer. Please let me get on with it. I could have done research for it, if there was Internet in that room, but there is not, which therefore stunts the growth of my project.

Ensemble this week was a bit of a failure too. The bass player and the sax player had to play with their other band this week, so we decided to write the group proposal. However, Tiffy had his new Micro-Korg with him and one thing lead to another and we ended up we worked on the choreography for the Blues Brothers show... I just can’t get that Charleston right in the chorus....

The next day we had that ‘meeting’ and we all know how that turned out. Afterwards we met up with our designers for our portfolio again. We were puzzled by this sheet we had to fill out and why I had to make a mood-map (which had some cool stuff on it). I really should listen more sometimes. But we eventually got the sheet finished and discussed what he had come up with, which wasn’t actually anything. It was ‘in Glasgow’ apparently, which from past experience means that he’s done bugger all. I let him off cause he’s a nice guy, but I did tell him to have something for next time.

Despite all the non-productivity of the rest of the classes, Production was the odd one out of the ‘week’. As this week we met up with our sound engineers and discussed our ideas. I met my engineer by shouting “Anyone wanna do some Pop music?” which was followed by the reply “Yeah Ok”. My engineer is called Bryan and was interested in helping me out with my project. I gave him a copy of one of the songs that I had written to be part of the project. I have yet to hear his thoughts but I think he will have some good ideas.

That’s it for this week guys.

Daryl.

College Week 2: The Streets

Hello again, it’s that time of the week where I tell you about my life (at college). This week’s post will be written in advance of posting as, unfortunately I temporarily have no Internet connection. However despite that oh so tragic news, it is just a Trojan horse of good news waiting to attack you with glory. The news is that I and two of my fellow college mates have finally found an abode in which to dwell for the college terms. We live in a flat now and not the ‘street’. We are overjoyed. In other news this week, my eye still looks horrendous as it is all zombie-like and red. Also this week, I shall be putting my student representative status into force with a ‘student power’ letter, but we’ll hear more about that later.

Now to talk about this week’s college based antics. As per usual, first up on Monday morning was the research and management skills class, or what it really should be called, the dissertation appreciation society – with mandatory membership. During this week’s class we discussed how to do a bibliography properly, it was very essential. We looked at previous dissertations of form former students to spark inspiration. It inspired me to write a poem. Not really. Although we did have to write our own bibliography for the next research and management class, problem was I didn’t have a topic for my dissertation at that point. So skipping forward in time a few days and hours, I sat down with my laptop and racked my brain for things I was interested in which I could write about. I thought about the Average White Band for a while, but then I couldn’t really come up with a topic that involved them directly, maybe a cameo mention but that’s just not the same. In the end I came up with three topics:

Music and Alcohol – Let the Good Times Roll?

When Did R&B become R’n’B?: A study of change in context.

Music and Movies: Does a Soundtrack Determine a Film’s Success?

Although all of these topics are my ‘children’ I must choose the strongest to develop. I think the Music and Alcohol topic will be the strongest for a dissertation topic as I reckon there will be some room for ‘experimental’ research to come to a conclusion.

Next up was the mystery bag of a class, Digital Audio Production Multimedia. This week the mystery started to unravel a bit more as the lecturer explained more about the final product. Although still not as ideally clued up on the class as I’d like to be, I have a rough idea about what I’m going to do. Essentially he would rate our idea on paper first before we are a loud to do anything about it, so I spent most of my time in the class this week writing a proposal and then waiting in a queue for him to read it, which never happened. However I did finish the proposal and then later e-mailed it to him, still awaiting a reply. My idea for the class is to film a spoof trailer for an imaginary film and the write, record and overdub the music for the trailer. I hope it goes well.

After that was band practice for the ensemble project, which I have recently found out that we have to write a proposal for and an essay about the chosen topic. That doesn’t really tickle my fancy. However despite this band practice went off to a promising start. Once we tuned up and plugged in, we went straight into a whole load of the Blues Brothers. Soul Man was our first tune, which might I say, we nailed pretty quickly, even with some dance steps. It was great fun. Second we played Sweet Home Chicago, which was also very fun to play and a guitarist’s blank canvas. We jammed that out for a while and it was sounding great. I had some mild concerns about the Sax player as she didn’t seem to play along with that song, but that may have been my fault as I didn’t tell her the right key, but I have full confidence that she will be able to do it next time. The third song we played was the Blues Brothers big hit; Everybody Needs Somebody (To Love). Once again it was a really simple song to play as it’s pretty much straight comping all the way through; however it is also really fun to play. By the time we had done that an hour and a half had went by and we had to let the bassist and the saxophonist go to their other band. I think what would have made this practice more productive would have been a medium for all the band to listen to the songs, for example a CD, as we ended up listening to someone’s iPod headphones going through a microphone, which wasn’t really adequate. After people went home I stayed around and jammed with the other band. They were doing soul music and songs from the Commitments. They didn’t have anything prepared, so we jammed for a while and then went home.

The next day, I had a lie in which was sweet. This was because I did not have a student advisor meeting. Joy all round. So, I ambled into college for noon where my first class was that arty class, Presenting a Personal Portfolio. This week we met our designers. It was strange meeting all these new, cool, trendy faces we had seen around carrying big black portfolio cases in person. I was teamed up with a guy called Marc. We introduced ourselves and then we walked around for a bit trying to find somewhere to do business. We settled for under the stairs where another musician/designer team were. I started by telling him about myself, what influenced me musically and what I envisioned my final project to be about (slide guitar). He furiously scribbled down notes about my musings and then he showed me some of his work. I liked what he had previously come up with and he said that he has a ‘simple but effective’ artistic style, which I feel is appropriate for my project. After that we exchanged details and walked back to class. He told me the ideas he had off the top of his head and I agreed with what he imagined. After we returned to class, we made a short amusing video about our conversation. We discussed everything we went over previously on the video. After that we said our goodbyes and left. I was then asked to do some sort of ‘mood-map’, which I think is like a mind-map but with pictures. I may have trouble doing that, as I don’t have the Internet or a printer to find inspiring pictures, I could always just use a magazine though.

The final class of the week was our first dose of production. Despite my initial scepticism for my choice, I think I will really enjoy this class and it will benefit me. I would also like to give a big hand to Dave Patterson (the lecturer) as he has been the only lecturer who has explained a class in plain English which everyone understood the first time round. The aim of the class is to produce a 20 minute EP of music. There. Simple as that. Even wrote the proposal already. My idea for this class is to produce some pop music. I think this will expand my compositional versatility further. I plan to record and produce a pop song I wrote called Be In My Arms, as this has been on my agenda for a while and I would love to get it done. I will also write 3 more pop songs to fill the remaining time, but I intend to keep the same quality. I will produce those and put them on a CD. We also get paired up with a sound engineer, so I won’t have to learn about all the recording equipment and software straight away. I may even get my graphic designer to maybe do a cover for the CD. I am actually really excited; I think this project will be excellent fun and a learning experience.

So that’s it for this week, I thank you for reading.

Catch you next time.

Daryl.

Back to square one. A different square one with more words. 11/09/2010

Hello 'everyone'.

If you've just joined 'us', my name is Daryl Hockin, and you are reading my blog.

Why a blog you ask ?

Well I'll tell you, but after I have told you a little about myself.

Once upon a time back in the early mid-naughties, a strapping young lad picked up the guitar and tried to fathom out how to use this feat of engineering. Further on down the road he went to 'study' the guitar and do some more fathoming at college. That boy was me, Daryl Hockin.

I have survived two years of music at college to obtain my HND. However I 'craved' more of this and now here I am typing this blog for my 3rd year, my Bachelor of Arts degree. If you were an avid fan of my first series of blogs (from the HND graded unit archive), you are sad but you will be satisfied with this second series.

Now to answer that question of yours, I have a blog because I don't like writing but also I have many classes in college which require me to keep a logbook. Besides, I can't check Facebook with a regular old pen and paper, so an electronic version is more suitable.

In this blog I will probably talk about my classes and experiences chronologically, unless something really cool/shit/important has happened then that will take priority. Also social events will probably precede college stuff, just to get the ball rolling (but in no means overshadow it).

OK.

Let's do this.

Alas, back to college. It's been good to see everybody again after Summer, where pretty much across the board nothing happened to anyone. My main qualm over the past few weeks has been trying to find somewhere to live. I would say that being 'homeless' has affected my first week of study, but that won't be a problem for long as I have found somewhere to live and hopefully will move in next Saturday. Whoop. I would also like to thank my fellow collegiate, Natalie, for letting me sleep on her floor the past two weeks.

Anyway, the week before we started officially, I went into college to help with inducting the new HNC students. And I'm not going to lie, I had a good time. It was cool to get to meet new people and more musicians. It also let me step into the shoes of people from the other side of town, aka the lecturers.

The next day was our inductions, not a whole lot to say on that matter. A couple of new faces and a shit load of old ones. Signed some forms, looked at sheets, no biggie. Went home.

Ok, now to my actual days of college. First up was a class called Research and Management Skills, with a name like that I was expecting lots of crazy antics like making animals out of balloons and some light disco dancing, but I was severely disappointed. In the class we actually talked about our various choices on topics for our dissertations. This included a sheet of previous dissertation titles which we had to rate. Very interesting. We also talked about deadlines. We also talked about our ensemble and individual performance projects, but I'll get to that later. I know what the question on your lips is right now: "What are you going to do your dissertation of Daryl ?!?", and the answer is that I'm not so sure yet, I'll get back to you on that one.

I'm not going to lie, there is a lot of work to do. I'm pretty sure if I fart I'll have to write a proposal for it.

The next class was called Digital Audio Production Multimedia, another spin-off of DAW. Initially I thought I had this class in the bag, but really long winded speeches with long words and no jokes really threw me off the understanding trail. I'm not really sure what I have to do for that class, but all I can fathom from it is that I have to put music to a piece of film or something. I mean by the end of the class I was thinking of writing a short film that was set in Dundee, what's that about ? I really don't know what's going on. He got me worrying about catering for my film crew... I don't know how that happened. I will need some more clarity on this class before I can really talk about it properly. I also have to write a load of proposals and logbooks for this class too.

The next class was the practice time for our ensemble projects, finally some actual playing of instruments! For our ensemble we will doing songs from The Blues Brothers. This tickles my fancy. We plan to watch the film(s) together at some point as part of our research. However because we didn't know any of the songs, we decided to learn a few for next time. This time was not 'wasted' though, as Tiffy, JP and I jammed the Commodores smash hit Easy, that was good old fashioned fun. You may be wondering what I am planning on doing for my individual project. Well it's slide guitar, I'll elaborate a different time.

The next day we had our advisor meeting, all we really did was sign into Blackboard. Then we had a class called Presenting a Personal Portfolio. It was kind of the mystery prize of the classes. We had a brief for that class and I getting from it that it's somehow linked to that DAW spin-off. However I understood the jist of this class a lot more as it was quite well explained. We basically get paired up with a designer and we make a promotional package about ourselves; posters, CD covers, mugs, coasters ect. I am photogenic, so this will be easy for the designer.

Finally the last class this week, the choice class. We had two options, Instrumental Instruction or Production. Despite Lorenz's persuasive charm, I chose Dave's class production. I have an interest in production, hence the choice. But I also chose it because I have an idea for a project in that class. Once again I will elaborate a different time.

Well, that was my first post for my BA blog.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Or at least read it.

I'll type for you next time.

Daryl Hockin