4/03/2019
Today was my first day in the Bachelor of Music (Popular Music). While I was already given a warm welcome by Dr. Luke Harrald during O’Week, our Songwriting and Performance lecturer Robyn made me feel even more welcome and a lot less anxious about the course. Having a lecture about the Creative Process was incredibly enjoyable and to learn the processes of great artists such as Sia was really enlightening, and I’m really looking forward to carrying on and learning more and more about songwriting over my time in uni. I really hope I’ll have the skills necessary to write at least one decent song that I don’t hate after 2 weeks.. Anyway, here’s to the next years of my life!
6/03/2019
Today was our first session of the Improvisation side of SW+P. Meeting Derek was a great time, and while we were primarily focused on honing our skills, we all had a great laugh and a good time. I really enjoyed taking part in the activities he had for us, and it was an incredibly fun experience all around. I’m really looking forward to more of this course, and can’t wait to see what Derek has in store for us for the rest of the year! As we’ve been told to bring our instruments next week, I’m wondering what stuff we’ll be incorporating into our sessions soon! It’ll be good to jam with everyone and improvise.
Public Holiday-Weeek 2 Lecture interfered with, will be done on the 18th instead
13/03/2019
Bringing my instrument on the long journey to uni proved to actually be a lot less troublesome than I expected – my laptop fits into my Baritone guitar case like a glove, meaning i no longer have to haul TWO BAGS everywhere i go! Anyway, the lesson went great! I was luckily picked on to play guitar in this improvisation session, being granted the absolute JOY of playing through an Orange amp (really really good). Improvising is one of my strong spots, but today was a fun challenge that will definitely help advance my skills in playing. Figuring out my place in the ensemble was what proved to be the toughest part, as we were all trying to achieve similar “places” in the sound.
18/03/2019
Today marked lecture No.2 of Songwriting and Performance, the day where we covered song forms over time, and potential song forms we could use in our songs. Personally, I am balanced between the use of simple and complex song forms, and see them both as equally viable and enjoyable. The comfortable simplicity of a few verses, a chorus, a bridge, so on and so forth, is a warm feeling that can keep most listeners, well, listeners! Of course, complex forms can be really good too, as there are times where your lyrics alone can’t tell the full story; you need the changes in music to show the next act’s arrival, and sometimes more colour and tone in a song opens up more expression, which, while turning away listeners with a lower attention span, opens up a limitless world of appreciation in those who can stomach your full Epic!
20/03/2019
Today was our second session with Derek, and oh did we cover a lot today! Once again amidst his wonderful humour we were introduced to a multitude of different aspects of performance/improvisation and how we can really add some extra colour to our performances, improvised or not! After a session of demonstrations, led by Derek and another fellow student, some of us were invited to pick up our instruments and get a little backing track going, for the others to demonstrate their favourite things from the lesson. We ended up creating a really cool sound that could honestly create quite the audience in Elder Hall if we were given the chance to go there! After this course I went home to mess about with “Glossolalia”, which led to the creation of an incredibly technical riff..
My Journey in Popular Music 