Wednesday 2 February 2011

New Year! Therefore CATCH UP!!!!

Well...been back at college a few weeks now. Not much has been happening over the course of this half of term. We've been working on the decades work on fridays still, which is going slow. We're still on the 70s/80s. We started to record the songs two weeks ago, but we haven't done enough practice on them so, giving up. we tried again last week. We've now got Jump and Ashes to Ashes down, now all that's left is to get the original tracks down too before we can move on to the final decade which is the nineties to the present.

Other work being done is the scrapbooks to go with the decades work, that's coming along quite slowly. It's due in in a couple of weeks so need to step it up a notch if i'm going to get it in on time. Matt's work... has finally been handed in, the essay completed with all the references etc, we're now working on our powerpoints to present what we've found out to the rest of the group. Can't say i'm really looking forward to that part. I don't like talking to a group at the best of times, but once that's over, the assignment will be complete, ready to move on to the next one.

In Simon's lesson on Wednesdays we've also been doing some remixing of a track by Marvin Gaye - Through the Grapevine. As i found out shortly after starting, remixing is actually pretty difficult, especially when the song goes in and out of time throughout. The cop soundtrack was slightly easier though (the task we did before starting to remix), still haven't finished that task yet, but it's nearly there - one more lesson should see that one completed and another "few" lessons should hopefully see the remixing task finished. Not sure how it'll turn out since i can't say i'm very good at it but will give it my best shot.

The last thing i think i should mention is the Old Dance School folk people who came into the college to do a workshop with us all and then perform. I personally didn't go because i couldn't get transport for the day, but those that did go said it was a waste of time and the only good part of it was the performance. I can understand that it would be good to have as something we participated in to broaden our knowledge and experience for university, but other than that the rest of the points made were complete nonsense. It was not a vital part of the course and had no relevance to what we're doing assignment-wise. We never knew that it was coming up because we were never told until two weeks before and by that time, most of us already had plans for the day. The only place it was mentioned evidently was in the booklet/leaflet calender thing that Caroline gave out to us, which i don't think anyone's read. However, the thing that made everyone angry was the part where she added an ultimatum. We had to attend and pay not only for our travel on a day off, but also pay £4.50 for a ticket to something we're not interested in and didn't want to go to, and if we didn't go then we'd have to write a 5000 word essay on folk music. This then changed slightly to a 1000 word essay but not being funny, how is that ultimatum fair? you pay or you do more unnecessary work on top of all the work we're expected to do to pass the course. I think pretty much all of us are slightly behind in that as it is in some way we can't afford to spend the time writing unnecessary essays.


We're going to bring up a load of problems etc in the rep meeting on friday, but another one is how pointless tuesdays are. Other than matt's lesson we dont do anything really. Practice time is a shambles because there aren't enough of certain musicians to go round so there's always those of us who are left ambling around and (not being funny, but) those who get into groups don't really do much in the way of practice. The rest of the day, matt's lesson isn't particularly needed because it's basically turn up, get signed in and then get on with the work that was set in previous lessons. Independent learning is pretty much the exact same thing - you just sit and get on with work set. There is nothing during the day on tuesday that i can't do at home. It's a waste of my time and money coming into college all day from 8:30am - 5:15pm to do what i do much better sitting at home doing. I don't see the logic in it somehow.
Now i think that's all for now. You are officially updated on the past few weeks and i've had my rant for now.