Look Back In Annoyance

After the last outburst of self abuse I published on the internet, I didn't think I'd be doing this again. However, it has dawned on me that my time at Ravensbourne is coming to an end. For some narcissistic reason I felt an urge to reflect on that time spent. Well... urge may be a gross overstatement, but I digress - I opened this blog stating that I would keep it for the remainder of my time at Ravensbourne, and the time for me to close it has arrived.

Staying on that wavelength, looking back at my first post I read something (well, one thing) which I found interesting:

So, time to concentrate on the other main focus of my musical career... I've been doing extreme metal for 5 years now, and playing electric guitar for 7, so it's fairly in my comfort zone... Now it's time to get serious and take that step again for something very different... now is the time to get really very serious and learn by doing, trying to put out some pro work and not being afraid to learn from the mistakes made along the way.

Oh 19 year old Daniel - so, so naive. If you ever stop being so, yo will really know you are
old.

All I can say is this; not much has changed. I've been doing metal for 7 years now, and music for 10. What I've discovered is that these two things aren't mutually exclusive. I still make mistakes and I am still learning.There was no beginning and this won't be the end of that. It's all relevant and it will remain so until I stop making mistakes.

Truth be told, I don't remember a huge amount of my first year. Not through drinking copious amounts of fermented beverages (not particularly, anyway). The problem is nothing much really happened, and that is my biggest regret. If I could do it over I would definitely slap myself in the pretense and yell 'make the most of this time!'. Not that it would help, but I could cynically say I tried.

It isn't that I'm really unhappy with my college / university experience. It's that 20ish years of being in the education system are coming to an end, and this really is it. The end of an era - my era in my self absorbed world.

Ravensbourne has been a mixed bag. Based on my time there, do I recommend it as a university experience? No. If you're looking to spend these years you won't get back eventfully with easy going and cheaply flowing social events, with a traditional infrastructure of lectures, surrounded by thousands of your peers in one big sleep over for several years, go somewhere else. That isn't a self important assumption or dismissal - it's a question of what is important to you and how you want to spend £25k. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you're not too egotistical to enjoy it and you've got the opportunity to do that, you should take it. There are thousands of better places to spend these years of your life, both socially and academically. Outstanding universities are called that because they are that, and so will your experience be for 3 or 4 years of your life - it's definitely a good way. I can't call Ravensbourne 'outstanding' in that sense.

However, my time there has definitely been different to other university experiences, and in fact I think Ravensbourne is pretty unique. My course completely changed my life for sure. Just by being in an up to date environment with reasonably high expectations, I quickly absorbed a headstrong and confident attitude. This is what I want to do. That is why I am here. Get real about this and invest in yourself and your career. The question of how to practically apply the theory and skills I was learning really kicked me up the arse in a way that high school never did and I don't think really does for anyone.

The strange thing about my course is I didn't really learn it. The academia is minimal. I had one unit on musical theory which went up to grade VI, and that was my first unit. This was the most time I spent in lectures - after that it was 1 to 3 times a week, and I struggle to really pinpoint what I learnt from those lectures. The course I'm on (music production for media) is vocational, so I knew there was going to be a certain amount of self teaching involved and a fair bit of free time. There was no way I could have overestimated this though.

That isn't to say I didn't learn anything in the last 3 years and I haven't been worked to the bone. That's the really weird thing. The other day I did a 60 hour week ending with a 22 post production session for a record. Right now I'm jugging 4 projects with nearly impossible deadlines. I've learnt to be able to do these jobs, manage them and take pride in my work. I'm able to practically apply myself to do these crazy jobs, and I will definitely continue learning to do these things after I graduate. I am proud of what I've taken away from the course and my time spent at Ravensbourne. There is no way I'd be here as the person I am today, able to do the things I can, without having spent that time in that place, and that's a fact.

It's worth mentioning for the record that the course has changed dramatically since I first joined. All the lecturers are different, the course is run differently and I think in most cases it is for the better. When I joined the course was one of a kind. The only other thing I have to add to everything I've said is that the course and the university are definitely relevant to industry and 'going pro' (getting work in the industry, provided you're up for putting the effort in to be ready for that).


It's a weird place, without an easy social environment to get involved in, and without a proper campus. It has a fraction of the number of students any other university has and functions differently because of it. It doesn't excel in the areas you might typically associate with university, but it does treat you like an adult and give you the chance to develop as a creative professional. You might need that chance. I did, and it worked out for me because I left high school / sixth form in a different state from how most end that period of their life.

That all went a bit... more salesman that I had anticipated. It's just some closure for my love/hate of my higher education life. I'm told this isn't the end of my life either, so don't have to make my peace with anything else just yet. At the end of these 3 years, where am I? I'm still doing my band, along with several others. I'm still writing music. I'm still playing games. I'm still very career motivated, although a big part of me has grown to appreciate community much more. 

It's true; not much has changed, but I think I was on the right track for me to begin with.

Underwhelming

24 days into 2013 already. I don't remember the last time I blogged.

This amnesia is the result of several reasons. Observe:
-> The people running my course have changed. Consequently, the way the course is run has changed. I no longer need to keep an online 'learning log'. Indeed, there is a new focus on 'academic writing' and final reports, sometimes in the form of video presentation.
-> Ravensbourne severely fucked up the timing of the modules last term, shrugging their shoulders as I struggled to stuff my dissertation into 2 months, alongside running a successful business and, would you believe, being trained in what I signed up for. The results were, all round, disappointing.

Unsurprisingly, I was rarely spared time to think, let alone ramble, and in many ways the musings of your conceited, narcissistic narrator have run their course.

I have curiously come to feel embarrassed about most of the work I have produced as part of my course in the last 3 years. Although I don't doubt that I did the best job possible at the time given the circumstances on everything (well, most things...) I have worked on, I simply do not feel satisfied and can't help but feel embarrassed about most of it when looking back. I understand that nobody is perfect when starting out, but I have 2 responses to that:
- Firstly, this fact alone doesn't stop me from holding myself to a higher standard (a standard which I can't help but think I will be held to by others).
- Second, I've been doing music for roughly 9 years, and studying it for 7. My work should be of a reasonably high caliber by now.

It boils down to this. I graduate in 6 months, whereupon I need to find a job. I need to find a job in my area of study, passion and expertise; music, or the entirety of my adolescent through adult life will be a phony sham, a poxy dream dreamt up by a romantic and naive teenager who needs to grow the fuck up, realise the world stops for nobody and bend to the conventional will of the state.

I usually come on here to talk about the big events which have been going on in my life and give some commentary to them, spending hours reciting every detail into huge essays. Here's a newsflash from 2007 (or whenever you were 16); nobody cares.

The only things that really matter are those of substance. I am guilty, like so many of my generation, of squandering my time on things of no substance, committing my memories externally in hopes of proving myself as unique individual. Am I a social media alcoholic or what? What a crock load of shit. 'This isn't what I got into music for.'

Substance and results that I don't need to be completely embarrassed about. Real people with real personalities in real life. Hard fucking work and dedicated experience. That's the way to go.

I'll be back with a professional website to showcase the things that make me me and what I can do to leave some kind of positive mark on this world. The musings are retired. Goodnight.

Cinematic Atonal Piece

Just a quick entry as part of my learning log. 

We were set a piece of work to do this week. We were studying Expressionism, Impressionism and Atonal Music (continuing on from last week's Romantic era lecture). The assignment was to write a piece of atonal music sticking strictly to Schoenberg's tone row method.

Here is the piece I composed:

http://soundcloud.com/supersmashdan/cinematic-atonal-piece

No bonus points for guessing the reference at the very beginning ;) my tone row was inspired by the underground theme from Super Mario Bros, so I thought it reasonable to homage Koji Kondo's brilliance immediately. I also really, really didn't want to begin the piece with quavers of all 12 tones. I wanted something reasonably interesting and musical, and the intro nailed that for me.

I went on to continue the piece with a creepy and heavy slow bass line on the piano, contrasted nicely with pizzicato strings (violin and viola). I had the strings play simple quavers in 12/8, so there would be 4 groups of 3 (this is how I approached a lot of the music given I was working with 12 notes continuously). The strings play simple quavers in harmony - the viola is a minor 3rd above the violins, which begin on C like the intro.

The skill here was to craft the bass line around the groups of 3. With that constant and quick beat to count on, I decided to throw some progressive minimalist ideas in. I divided the piano part into 2 groups of 3 and 1 group of 6 equal notes. With 4 notes in a bar (for the 4 beats in 12), the phrase would end half a bar into the beginning of the next. I then repeated the exact same bass line with the half a bar extra ending, and that added up with the previous half to come full circle and resolve. It really adds to the unsettling and unhinged mood of the piece with a relatively simple compositional device.

I felt the piece was building up to something more, so I added cello and french horn to the bass line. Whilst simplistic, I felt that the harmony would very quickly become too convoluted - I am trying to keep this cinematic after all. I changed up the pizzicato strings by inverting the tone row (putting the intervals upside down). I kept the same harmony - not throwing the listener too far astray just yet.

Still I wanted to build, to make the piece feel like it is moving forward slowly whilst changing gradually. I replaced the pizzicato strings with a harp which also played the inverted tone row. Keeping the heavy bass going, I decided to finally fill out the higher register with an eerie lone piccolo. I designed the 'melody' with long, drawn out, piercing notes, and toned down the velocity to give it a ghostly feeling. This created some very tense dissonance against the now familiar minimalist bass register.

By now the piece was coming to a climax. I abruptly ended the main section, allowing the harp and piccolo to ring out for a moment longer than the other instruments. With a 1 beat gap, I then entered with solo piano for the rest of the piece.

This part I designed to be a lot more like a chase scene, with crazy cartoonish visuals in mind. Kind of like this trippy sequence:

I referenced the Bill Evan's piece, which Steve showed us in lecture, rather a lot for inspiration. I realised that where one tone row ends, another can begin immediately, carrying on the phrase. So I would do just that, transposing the tone row to begin on a note which I felt made sense with regards to the last of the previous tone row. With some odd jazzy rhythms I had a free time improvised line continuing. This certainly added to the unhinged vibe of the entire piece, and I felt it was a strong precursor to the incoming chase sequence - as though a cat is jumping out of reach and staring back, analysing your every move; the phrases with the irregular and drawn out ending notes is supposed to reflect that.

I also realised that the tone row need not remain only transposed. To avoid repetition, constantly ascending and in an attempt to come back down from this mad scramble, I inverted the tone row to continue the next set of phrases.

In this part I not only messed around with free time signatures, but also tempo changes. Within phrases I would increase the tempo by 10bpm mere beats away from each other, and the midi would play back the phrase gradually getting faster as the runs got more ridiculous. I then did the same for slowing down as the run wound down towards the end. Again, adding to the unhinged and uncertain nature of the piece, but more importantly trying to reinforce that image of unpredictable chase.

Finally, I did the complete opposite and went back into a strict form and structure for the final run of the piece. Playing the tone row in semi-quavers (so, pretty fast!) and having it descend a semi-tone at a time, then followed with an ascending tone row on the right hand in unison rhythmically, but changing harmony. I broke the order of the descent to hit a much lower register before the end of the phrase. I worked all of these phrases in patterns of 4's.

The left and right hand would then bounce of each other, referencing the beginning of the piece, but in changing harmony again (as one descends the other ascends). I did this quite meticulously to create harmonic unison, followed by thirds, followed by fifths, before ending with 4 octaves on total harmonic and rhythmic unison hammering away in the original 'key' (c). I left the piece totally unresolved on a sharp ending, as if it had run into a brick wall and splattered accordingly.

And that's the whole thing. Enjoy!

This week in learning blog..!

Well I've had a rather bizarre week. A health scare in my extended family, a new nephew, a gig at a bizarre club, a semi-successful games night and an overwhelming amount of work as described last week. All in the space of 3 days.

This was all followed by quite a depressing start to the week where nothing seemed to be going right and the work just kept coming. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.

However, today's music lecture was so good it restored some balance to my psyche and I feel quite alright now. My amazingly supportive girlfriend has also helped me get my head around some of my work and time management issues, so there isn't really any problem - just a lot of stuff at once getting to me.

Music Production for Media - the Hollywood Sound
It's difficult to describe why today was so good. We had an assignment to find our favorite (or one of our favorite) pieces of film score music and talk about it. I picked this one:

Today actually inspired a lot of confidence in myself. From discussing the piece I picked, and from hearing  everyone else discussing theirs, I realised what our different strengths and insecurities are. I feel a lot less self conscious about my work and about presenting it.

Other than that, I'm very clear about how the course will be progressing; what we will be doing at our next lectures, our next assignments, and when we will get our summative assignment clips to work with and where we're going to end up. That makes me feel a bit more stable and happy.

Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
E&E... wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The lecture sort of cleared up some of my questions from the brief and made it clearer how things will pan out. I'm planning on using Phyrexia as my product to market and sell (in the brief it says we can have business partners from outside uni and can expand upon businesses we have already set up). I have records, merch, business cards, press release, gigs and tickets, etc to work with, and it's a good excuse to get in touch with the record labels and mag/webzines and invite them to Penrose Market. So yeah, I'm not too worried about it as I already have a strong foundation - it was okay! A lot better than the last couple of years.

That's basically it for now...

Spanner in the Works

Leading on my excellent and inspiring music lecture the day before, Thursday was... sickly.

Dissertation
I felt sick all day, the reason being that it had suddenly dawned on me my dissertation is due in 8 weeks. Literally, the final draft is due in 8 weeks. The rough draft in 4 (although they don't expect it to be  a rough draft of the final 7000 - 9000 words).

To be fair to Rave, I did double check this with the course handbook given at the start of the degree... and it does say the dissertation would be due in November of the third year. In that respect, I (and indeed, we as the vast majority of courses are in the same boat) should have realised and prepared accordingly.

On the other hand, it's still a terrible, terrible idea to have the dissertation in the first term of the final year. This had been planned like this knowing full well that motivation during holidays, after the intense portfolio unit of the previous term, would be at an all time low. Furthermore, help is not at hand during the holiday weeks - no lecturers to ask questions, no-one replying to emails, and Ravensbourne was closed for huge portions of the Olympic period, the study zone being out of commission for weeks whilst being refurbished. Many times I wanted to go in to find books on my music reading list (which tie into my dissertation, but I digress) only to find the building or library out of operation. That's quite a big deal.

From a subject standpoint, the timing and planning of this was a poorly executed. The dissertation is supposed to be our headline piece of work from university - one of our main showcases to bring to employers and people of high standing in our fields. Typically dissertations are planned throughout the entire academic year, with the last 2 months or so solely concentrated on finishing the final paper. This gives vast amounts of time to plan and get primary source information from interviews, gather thoughts and get the skeleton of 10,000 words down. A dissertation is completed in the last 2 months after all other modules are finished, so there are minimal distractions. Most institutes understand this - it's obvious. We want to produce a great piece of work for our dissertations, researching into our fields and getting the most out of it.

Sadly, that won't be the case. It's not even worth arguing that under insane constraints on your time (i.e. having no life and spending all of your time for 2 months on this one piece of work, whilst attempting to pass the other 2 units) that it wouldn't be anything short of a miracle to pull this off. Rave have limited my opportunity. It almost seems deliberate as I hear many other 3rd years do not have to hand in the dissertation until May next year. It doesn't matter that the institute have their asses covered in writing, this is really bad, and you can certainly kiss goodbye to your student satisfaction ratings if you're going to fight and limit the students like this.

All in all, really not cool. I've got 10,000 words roughly to get through in 8 weeks. I've got to aquire primary source interviews, surveys for qualitative and quantitative data within that time - given that this stuff relies on other people I need to get that turned around now or the results may well not come in time at all. I've got to draw conclusions from data I don't have in order to write my paper. And I've got to refine it by 30th November. All alongside music assignments and E&E assignments. All of these units count towards my final grading when I graduate. The dissertation is only worth marginally more credits than some of the other units, but takes a considerable amount of effort and work (the course handbook recommends at least 100 hours research alone). All whilst remaining a creative individual at an arts college. It's starting to feel impossible to strive for a 1st, purely because of what feels like unfair planning.

Worst of all is if I'm going to get through this; I need to not waste energy on complaining to deaf ears. They really are uncaring, deaf ears. Nothing would change, and I'd be that much closer to running out of time and failing . So this is the last I will do so and talk about my dissertation in any real detail until it is done. Rave - this is a problem, sort it out!

In other news...
Thursday was generally quite a shit day. I had to do something which felt like cutting my own arm off (that'll become clear in time). On top of that there were some family health scares, it was a very long day which ended with me walking back home in the rain at 1am. Not exactly in the highest spirits.

Friday saw me hosting a MAGS event. To my dismay we didn't get the help I asked for from the SU. I get the feeling this will be an ongoing trend, and I begin to question the heavens "why can nothing ever be easy?". On the plus side the event was still a humble success as usual. Lots of fun new people, got to play some awesome Japanese games on a friend's converted SNES and NES, got to catch up with Paul, etc. Saturday saw the Colors 'Revenge Match' gig. We had soundcheck really early, so it basically took up the whole day. It was a bizarre venue with 2 parts club going on, which drew a really chavvy demographic :S but our crowd were pretty good and stayed to watch us and all. Good gig really, just something was lacking and my bass is breaking (another thing on the list to spend money on... sigh). Then some good news - I am an uncle! As of Friday really, but I only found out at 2am this morning. That's pretty cool!

In short, it's been an emotional week. Very bizarre, pretty scary. I'm gonna sign off and get on with things!

5 Centimeters a Second

Today was the the first day of the first term of my last year at university. I am happy to report I am quite satisfied with how it went, and excited for the year ahead.

A New Era
There was a big change today; we have a new lecturer. I believe Steve Alexander will be taking us for the majority of the rest of the year, at the very least for our music lectures this term. It's always a bit nerve wracking with someone new, but he was great. He was happy to speak and listen to all of us in turn, appeared to be happy with his new class, and was a very good lecturer. I felt that I learnt something today, that there was actually a full day's worth of content to absorb, and that's a big difference from how I felt about the lectures in year 2.

The first unit is, as predicted, The Hollywood Sound. As you may recall from my last post(?), this is the unit I was least looking forward to - more music to film, orchestral trend VST obsession. Somehow, Steve has managed to not only make me interested once again, but also make it seem as though the next 9 weeks will fly by and I'll finally have something which I can have some confidence in by the end of it.

In the first lecture we got introductions out of the way, as I said, but also covered the course criteria for the module. 60% practical, 30% learning log (this), and 10% seminar contributions. The idea behind this unit is to get a real understanding of Western Film Music, how we got here and how to make it. Over the next 6 weeks or so we'll be going through a study of the Romantic and 20th Century era music (which we began today), through to great film composers, analysis of the techniques and principles of great orchestral film music, through to creating orchestral film music and getting to grips with VST plugin packages, and finally down to orchestral arrangement. By the end of the unit we will submit our recorded score of orchestral music to a film clip (there will be a selection of contrasting clips) and do a short presentation about it.

What was nice today was we covered so much basic ground work. This is generally what I've felt has been lacking in my course so far; there have only ever been a few lectures on something before the formative and summative quickly come round the corner, and I have often found myself left to my own devices to figure it out. Sadly, 'figure out' often means 'blag', and truth be known I haven't a clue how I've gotten some of the grades I have in the past, particularly in the production modules.

The only exception to this was the first unit, 'musical language' (aka music theory), which I felt was a great module. We were in 4 times a week studying music, covering the theory from grade 1 through 6. What wasn't so great was this was never really touched upon in subsequent units again - we were left to our own devices for composing as I say, and never really pushed to think about music in ways we hadn't tried before. It was as though the music theory didn't matter.

I've uncorked a big can of worms with that debate. My stance is this; by understanding what you're hearing, be it when listening, reading or writing music, you have greater control over your creativity, and ultimately that's what new ideas are born of. Without understanding music and pushing oneself, one's music becomes stale.

I often feel embarrassed by my actions, or lack thereof. I've just explained to you my stance on music theory and why I believe it's important to learn. So why haven't I sat down with Grade 6 through 8 music theory and made the effort to understanding and master it? Why haven't I done this and backed it up with real practice in scoring and getting my ideas into audio files? Why haven't I done a lot of things in the 3 years I've been at university?

This is a problem I've faced for most of my life. I've struggled to push myself in many situations. I have developed other skills - a knack for leadership, the for-sight to successfully get communities together and make things happen, decision making skills, etc. But this is a hurdle I've never gotten over. A lot of people figure this out when they're 16 and taking their GCSE's. Sometimes even younger, with the bizarre exams nobody remembers anymore. I didn't do so well in my exams, especially compared to the people I've grown up with, surrounded myself with and the expectations myself, and others, have had of me. I don't want to use a cliche, but it is a viscous, self-destructive circle.

It's bizarre that it has taken me over 21 years to mature and figure this out. I suppose it could be worse - it could have taken 22 or more years. I haven't felt pushed by the course at times, but I should have been pushing myself the entire time. It's easy to hear or read words like these - it isn't an uncommon phrase - but to really understand what they mean... it just hits you. Hard.

Steve was very reassuring today. He pretty much has an open door policy, telling us to get in touch if we have any questions or want to discuss anything. Despite our year group being the senior year of our course, and individuals amongst us having their own insecurities (I've just told you some of mine), I never felt judged in his presence - not even by my peers. He is there to bring out the best of us in the time he has with us, and I think I can work with that.

Finally I come to our afternoon lecture. As mentioned, we moved straight on into Romantic and 20th Century music study. Steve went through the context of the movement, discussing the age of enlightenment and how attitudes changed throughout the period. This groundwork then gave a solid backing to the different composers and pieces he presented to us from different periods of the age of enlightenment. He showed us some really quite astonishing pieces of art and compositions (sometimes to match - that's called a symphonic / tone poem, don't you know, and was an idea Liszt [my favorite of all 'classical' - in the broad sense of the word - composers]). It was really inspiring in places, some pieces really struck a chord with me (pun intended). We skimmed over the information which is relevant to us for a few hours, taking in compositional ideas and getting a good idea of where film music originates from. Indeed, he proved this to us by playing several clips from films which feature romantic era composition heavily, including Platoon (which features Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings).

Although I knew this in the back of my mind, it was both really nice to revisit and acknowledge that once again, and despite that I did feel like I came away from today having taken something away from it and understanding where this unit is going. This is why I think it's really important to cover the ground work - it was so well executed!

Rediscovery

I began writing a piece of music for my own pleasure yesterday. I picked up the last composition I was working on for myself and continued it. I began that piece 2 years ago, but never got around to finishing it because of previous compositions waiting for release, distractions (see my big spiel about how useless I can be) and being preoccupied with university compositions.

I can't express to you in words how great it felt to be writing again. It really does take you getting off your arse just once, and then continuing down that road, to turn things around in a complete 180. I'm actually tackling a pretty ambitious piece for Organ, which would probably require 2 keyboards to play (seeing as I don't see myself getting my hands on a pipe organ anytime soon, I'm writing it for keyboard with pipe organ synths in mind).

This, coupled with the motivation I feel for my course, are leading me to a much healthier lifestyle and mind-frame. I'm even rediscovering the things I like and why I like them. It's a really strange time for me - I guess it's easy to lose site of these things along the way. *resists self deprecating statement*



That's about all I wanted to talk about tonight. I felt really tired after a full day today so didn't get much done. I did watch a film and a short film; Forbidden Kingdom was silly but fun, and 5 Centimeters a Second was just lovely. I really enjoyed the latter, it re-sparked something inside me. I've also been playing Skyward Sword a lot again lately (not today, too tired for physical puzzle solving), and as you may remember from Christmas last year I recommend this particular game as 'The best game I have ever played, period'. MAGS is going really well, I'm seeing a Phyrexian tomorrow, playing a Colors gig this weekend (last week's was cancelled due to a power cut!) and have Verloren booked weeks in advance. With this better organisation and more proactive outlook, I'm slowing life down a bit so I can enjoy it again. And that feels great!

Unstoppable

That's how I feel right now, listening to the opening theme from Yakuza 3:



Today I've had a very lazy day off. I managed to get my old phone contract cancelled at long last, but Indian call centers is about as close to stress as things got. The day before however was the first day that university has been open at regular hours (now that the Olympics have all finished). I spent that day finding out everything I could about my final academic year, finally sitting down to work on my dissertation, and generally reflecting on the year past and the year ahead whilst looking out of big windows.

I've got a pretty cool year coming up. For one thing I actually have a specified Video Games module this year, where I believe we'll be supplied with a game and made to write accordingly. I'm hoping it will be a more traditional game (side scrolling platformer / beat 'em up), and that it will feature interactive music changing based on conditions (e.g. health, enemies being around, being spotted). We'll see - it may very well be something based on the unreal engine considering that is free. Then again it may be something more related to current gen systems (which could mean anything from a ps mini / xbox live arcade style thing to full on 3D game). All I know is I'm super excited for it!

I have a final major project of course, and I think that can be any kind of music to visual media. Of course before term has even begun I have found myself on 2 video game projects with some of the friendliest and most capable students I've met in my time at university. I'll be keeping these in mind all year and doing my very best work - I'd better step on the gas and learn and thing or two about music!

Another cool module which I'm mostly in control of is a project headed by myself. That's it, more or less. I have to decide what I want to do, organise it and make it happen, completely independently utilizing my resources, contacts, so on and so forth. The only real stipulation is that it has to be related to visuals - not just purely audio based (like a band thing). Seeing as I'm already on a few games and I'm fairly sick of writing to movies all the time, and as I can't really head either of those projects, I thought something more based on performance might go down well. I'm hoping to get together a visual kei type of thing and really work the theatrical edge of a neo-classical rock/metal project, get it rehearsed and filmed, etc. If I'm going to take something like that on I need to know now, so I've sent an email to my new head of department. Nothing back yet, but I'm hoping to meet for a chat for more guidance on this in particular soon.

I didn't realise until a moment ago that I have been mistaken - I do indeed have a portfolio unit this year again. Drat! I'll have to find more films to work on after all. Nevermind - it's definitely something more stressful than it is really challenging, at least technically. I learnt a lot from last year - perhaps if I can source more work earlier in the year there'll be less of a rush this time. At least it's a lot of creative stuff where I am more or less my own boss.

Finally, we have the Hollywood Sound module. This is the music module I'm least interested in. It's a cool idea and something worth learning in this environment, but I am so so sick to death of this VST Instrument obsession which is doing the rounds in the music for film industry. I get the feeling that is what this will be about. What's fashionable now is Hans Zimmer. Typically, I've never been interested in what's fashionable. The soundtracks to The Dark Knight and Inception didn't actually stand out to me when I first watched them, or really since - I don't really get what all the fuss is about - a load of massively pretentious overblown bollocks if you ask me (as far as the subject of music, 'cinematic orchestral pieces' and VST instruments goes). I can't say I'm really looking forward to this unit with any zeal, but I hope to pick up some really helpful skills - it may well benefit my other projects significantly.

Following on from that, my dissertation question has changed. With a few months to mull it over, I've realised what my problem has been. It was too broad for me to really provide substantial enough data to answer the question. I have kept the evolution of music in video games part as that is the subject which I want to research and write about - I want to find out everything I can in this year on the subject - but I have changed the 'how has this affected society's perception of music' part completely. Now I have changed the focus to my real interest as a retro gamer and video game musician; what has the trade off been as video game music has become increasingly cinematic and mainstream? I spent too long pondering how best to phrase this overall question, before a friend of mine (one of the guys who is doing a video game I'm working on) pointed out this is merely fun procrastination, and as long as I have the skeleton of what I'm going for the semantics don't matter right now. In light of that, I am going to continue planning each chapter of the essay, dividing it up into areas of study to research, and not necessarily approach this in chronological order - working backwards to constantly modify the final essay. Thanks for the insight, Shwar!

I also have IPP and E&E units this year -_- I haven't even bothered to read those briefs yet, those 'subjects' are too far beyond hope. I'll do whatever they ask to a reasonable standard as they affect my overall degree, but I won't spend more time on them than they are worth. They're really awful, terrible subjects and are majorly distracting from the best parts of my course (see everything I've spoken about above). I'm not expecting to enjoy them, but if I can get something out of them I will do so, gladly.

As you can see, I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about the coming academic year and planning what I can do. Now all I'm waiting on is running this all by my tutors, getting some guidance and cracking on with it. There's more than enough I can do in the meantime, stuff I know won't change regardless of my chat, so I'll get on with that for now. I just really hope the modules are spaced out nicely and in a not so predictable order - it would be just like us to begin with the Hollywood Sound at the same time as the Dissertation and IPP units, and that wouldn't make for a very inspiring beginning to the term. With so much game and 'be your own boss' stuff - stuff which is way more interesting - things could be really good and inspiring from the word go. Here's hoping.

I've also had to think about my society a bit more again. I've struggled to really get a feeling for it without being in university. More than anything right now it's just a lot of management stuff. I've had to pass up a press pass to Eurogamer in order to represent the soc at freshers fair (luckily I have one for the day before). We've got quotas to reach, membership fees to apply, events to plan, and meetups to book, as well as other general discussion going on. I'm going to try to get the majority of that last part out of the way in one relatively short meeting.

And then we come to my performance based music stuff! Colors UK are stepping things up a notch from what I understand - I've a few songs to learn for the next rehearsal and gig at the end of the month, a song to record and plans to make (or rather, plans which are being run by me to be a part of). Phyrexia is the thing which is taking up the most dedicated time as usual, and the sooner we find management the better. It really is basically just about booking the launch show now, for which I'm considering phoning up a particular venue over and over again until I get through (as they don't appear to respond to emails). Verloren is going fantastically - we wrote a really exciting track which has quickly become my favorite recently. It features some really tricky melodic keyboard stuff, so I've really got to get practicing to get my chops back up to speed! Good stuff.

I've actually been thinking more about my solo album again, and how best to produce guitars from my home studio, etc. When my loan comes in I think I'll be spending a significant amount on gear, as I'm running into a few dead ends right now. All of these things - demos, uni work, self released records - will really give me a boost in both my skill as a producer and recording artist, and also with my resume. I can't wait to get this show on the road - it's really exciting! - but I need to really pull my finger out and throw myself into it. For a year.

It's going to be mental, but I think it's going to be fun. This time next year, I hope to have a lot of work behind me to be proud of!