Starting Point

So as a starting point prior to my commencement of the Uni course in September I thought I'd better get some background reading underway.

Now I haven't done any serious reading for many years - just some delving into reference books & reading articles online. Never really been into reading novels etc so the last time I did any 'serious' reading was probably way back when I was at college (1977-79)!

Luckily I've kept all of my books over the years and have a reasonable collection of music books (sadly many that I have never read) so I thought a good place to start would be  'An outline history of European Music' by Michael Hurd. This was one of the text books I bought when at college and is only 132 pages so wouldn't be too demanding! So the other night whilst the family were watching soaps etc on the TV I grabbed a mug of coffee and settled down in the study and began. What seemed like only a short amount of time later one of my daughters appeared to wish me goodnight - I'd been sat there for almost three hours and had just about completed the book in one reading session. Now whether or not I will retain much of the information read is another matter but I got quite engrossed and really enjoyed it.

The book pretty much covered everything from the beginnings of polyphony in the middle ages through to the music of the 20th century (predominantly classical based). So it was really a good grounding to get me started.

So what to cover next? Revision of Harmony & Composition; Psychology For Musicians; The Language of Music? Who knows - they all need covering at some point so will pick the next one purely based on my mood at the time :-)

New Beginnings

I know I haven't been writing for some time - mainly down to health issues and more recently family ones too. However after many months of soul searching at the back end of 2014 and into January/February 2015,  I decided to apply to the University of Hull for a place on their BA (Hons) course (with foundation year) to study music production/technology!

I know - at the age of 55 this to some may seem a little absurd but heh - you only live once and timings seemed to bode well - so I went for it. Last week I had my interview day and I have to say I was a lot more nervous than I was expecting to be, but I didn't have to worry as the staff and students who were doing the talks and tours were absolutely fantastic. The member of staff who interviewed me - Dr Mark Slater - actually knew one of the lecturers from my days at Clarendon College of F.E (1978/79), he was interviewed by him in 1995 for the position of music lecturer there - small world - and it was the same chap who kindly did my reference for Hull - Doug Wilkie - awesome musician and still blowing strong! (he's a trombonist).

The interview was absolutely brilliant! Mark made me feel well at ease and it was a very interesting 40mins or so discussing all sorts of musical topics and basically stuff about what makes me tick as a person and a musician. Some quite probing questions which really got me thinking and I have to say spurred my willingness and eagerness to get onto this course even further. So the following day when I got an email to say I had been accepted on the course I was of course totally over the moon - forget being 55 - I felt like I was 18 again :-)

So I now have to get myself back up-to-speed, so lots of background reading and an awful lot of practice over the next six months but I am genuinely looking forward to it. I have to factor in moving home at the end of April beginning of May but that shouldn't take more than a week I hope!

So onwards and upwards!