26/09/09

Hi again. This week has been 'jam-packed' with various musical activities. Last Saturday my band, The Xylophone Race, had a gig in the not-so quaint town of Invergordon. The band played really well and got a good response. We also played Grover Washington's Just the Two of Us, which went down well with the crowd. This was a good networking experience too as we chatted with other bands that were on that night and we talked about doing more gigs together. We have another gig booked for the 3rd in Inverness by the way...

This week at college Kevin set me the task of arranging a solo guitar version of the Beatles' Hard Day's Night. This will be a good experience in song analysis and harmonic awareness. In band work we were given lyrics to an obscure Beatles song and we had to write a new song with those lyrics in the style of the Beatles. I feel that we accomplished this task and it is good songwriting experience for all of us. However, I feel that some ideas were overshadowed and that some of us could have been more involved with the process. Also in the band work class, some tend not to listen and get distracted from the task at hand. This shows that I can work with difficult people. This week in graded unit we had another guest speaker, Pete Honeymoon. He shared his knowledge and stories of his experiences as a Session Musician. I found this very helpful and interesting. Marlisa also told us to be more reflective in our blogs. I feel that my reflectiveness has increased since writing this blog. This will help me when I need to look back at something in a critical sense...

And now for the best part of the week.

On Friday night my band and I, The Xylophone Race, embarked on a journey into a recording studio in Dingwall. This was not the first time that we had been in the studio, but it had been a while and we were excited to record new material. We set out to record and mix four songs in 8 hours. We recorded all the songs, but we didn't get them all mixed. They should be finished later in the week. I received a rough mix of one of the songs which I will use for the song-writing competition. I really enjoyed the time in the studio and I feel it was excellent experience for becoming a session player.

There's a nice picture of me in action too !

Bye Guys.

Daryl Hockin

19/09/09

Hi guys, time for another post.

This week was a bundle of joy. I FINALLY moved into my new flat, which was good as now I can get to college easily ! Also this week I had a band practice for a gig tonight, we added a cover to the set : an arrangement of Grover Washington's Just the Two of Us, and I must admit that it's sounding pretty groovy. I was also very excited about a songwriting competition that was announced in college. I've submitted a pop song I wrote in the summer, I hope it's worthy...

But anyway this week in college I discussed with Kevin about learning some slide guitar, which I look forward to doing. Also he explained that I have to come up with a solo guitar arrangement of a Beatles tune, should be interesting.
In Graded Unit we had a guest speaker by the name of Fiona Mackenzie (I think). She spoke to us about working in most fields of the music industry and I thought her speech was very inspirational.

Quite a short post, but who cares ?

Bye guys.

Daryl Hockin.

First Post

Well, this is my first 'weekly' post for the blog that I need to do for Graded Unit. So, here goes...

Hi ! My name is Daryl Hockin and this week I started my HND in Music at Perth College. It was good to see everyone back at college and some 'fresh-faces' too. I had the flu but I didn't let that stop me! I also had nowhere to stay because my flat got delayed again !! I ended up staying in a B&B, which was actually very nice. Anyway, I found out mainly what this year's work will entail this week plus I learned some stuff too.

I will go through the classes to summarise my week (It was really only two days). First up was Creative Musicianship with Mary Leaver. This is where the classes got put into bands to work on songs by The Beatles. There was confusion with the bands first off, which lead to slow start, but our group got on well afterwards and we did a bit of jamming. It was good to work with people I hadn't played with before.

Next up was First Study with Kevin Murray. Apparently this was big news because the college hadn't done one-to-one instrumental tuition before. I feel that the college made the right decision to change the teaching format as last year there about 15,089 guitarists in a room with one lecturer which wasn't really practical or that productive. So I was pretty keen to start my lesson. Kevin asked me to start off by playing a 12 bar blues, which I immediately made an arse of, with the flu and all. He then told me that I had to 'think like a bass player' and embellish the bass parts of the chords with 'my ears'. I found that lesson very useful as it made me think about how I can improve my improvisation skills.

Creative Musicianship again with Marlisa Ross, but this time in the classroom. Marlisa outlined in detail what Creative Musicianship was all about. I found out that it involves: A presentation, 2 band compositions, 5 of The Beatles' songs, Music Analysis tasks, Composition Exercises and a Cuddly Toy! It's quite similar to last year but 'more in-depth'. I look forward to it.

Music Theory 2 with Marlisa. Going over the basics of Rhythm, easy stuff. Also finding out that the theory test is in blocks rather than 1 massive test. I think more people will do better this way.

Graded Unit 2 we had Marlisa again and she told me I had to write a blog (thanks Marlisa, *sigh*) instead of a logbook for a portfolio, which is fair enough. I also have to prepare some questions for a guest speaker who I can't remember her name and choose which 'career-path' I want to do in the game of life. Think I might go for Session Musician (Like anyone else will pick that) because it's pretty much the same as the West-end Musician job. I'm sure there's some leeway.

Session Skills with Gavin Spowart sounds like a class that should be excellent fun, I can't wait for it to start properly.

And finally DAW/ICT Promo with Scott Donald. Looks like an interesting class. We found out what the class entailed and some key commands for Cubase, which I found pretty handy.

So, I guess that's it for a week.

Bye guys !

Daryl Hockin