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