Sunday 2 January 2011

It's A New Year (And I'm Feeling Good!)

"All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players - performers and portrayers" - William Shakespeare / Neil Peart.

Happy 2011! My name is Tom, and this is my blog!

I am a Popular Music student (note - that is the name of my actual course. I'm not so bigheaded that I'd preface anything I say with a description of how many friends I might have) studying in that most prestigious of all universities, Northampton. I am a second year, although most of my family forget that I've already been away for a year!

So, I am halfway through university life (give or take), and I decided to write a blog. Of course, I can hear you all roaring "Why?". Well, I have a number of motives, clearly:

1) At this particular moment in time, I am bored, and this makes me feel somewhat productive.
2) It is no longer socially "acceptable" for a 19 year old to own a diary to write his thoughts down into, whereas as long as I publish my thoughts on an easily accessible website, that's okay.
3) I am ridiculously narcissistic.
4 ) Perhaps most importantly, I actually would like to document what I do in life at this time, my thoughts, actions, just everything about anything that I have to do with my little musical world. I'd LOVE people to see it and think about things in a different way, or read your views on things, I don't know. Social interaction isn't quite my forté (but heaven knows I put the effort into Facebook).


Music

I'm a guitarist. Well, everybody is a guitarist, I've yet to really meet anybody that didn't know the 4 chords to their favourite song, for example. I have been playing for 12/13 years, I cannot do the maths on it all. Started off playing classical music (but, in retrospect, I'd class it more as "playing without a plectrum" as opposed to playing Concierto de Aranjuez, or such things), but then took a year out at the wise old "early teenager" period, to pursue other things, such as playing on the computer, or sleeping. I must have also inadvertently consumed a lot of alcohol, as I had no idea how to play the guitar after that.

Then it all changed when I got my electric guitar. I still have my first electric guitar somewhere in the house, in a few numerous pieces, but still capable of being played (once I've had a stab at it with a soldering iron). I loved the electric guitar, it was much easier than the classical guitar I had been playing (which is also somewhere in the house). My obsession with electric guitar has grown since then, and I now have, one would argue, too many guitars and too many amps. Of course, I disagree and employ jargon to describe how each amp is very different to the last, but all equally necessary (as any good guitarist, and indeed musician of any instrument, should do).

At the moment, for all you guitarheads out there that might be interested, I am playing my trusty PRS SE Custom w/trem (although I cannot find the trem), which has yet to have a name, but I'm still trying to think of one, and will be playing it through a two-amp setup consisting of a Hughes and Kettner 25th Anniversary Tube Edition and a Marshall JTM 60w, A/B'd. When I finally have both the amps together (the H&K is still at university while I am home for the holidays), I will have a play about with the different stompboxes I have. These consist of a Dunlop GCB-95 Crybaby, a Blackstar HT-Dual (which has caused me many sleepless nights just planning how and where to incorporate it in this mass of guitar stuff), and a Boss RE-20 Space Echo delay. I am also going to buy an A/B to make this all work, of course, which will probably take the shape of an Electro-Harmonix Switchblade (for no other reason other than I was, and still am, really craving a Hughes and Kettner Switchblade stack at some point in my life).

I am currently writing music for an album that I shall be recording next year, employing the help of various of my coursemates (with them permitting, of course), which will hopefully cover a lot of musical bases that I personally enjoy playing. I would LOVE to sing, but my vocals are horrendous at best, and so I will be also looking for one or two singers to lend a hand, or voice as it were. I already have one song practically finished, an instrumental on acoustic guitar that I tested out at a few open mic nights towards the end of 2010. I envision that the vast majority of songs that make it onto this album will also be instrumentals, as lyrics are not my strength. I also intend to do a couple of covers of songs that mean something to me, as well as a few "musical experiments", shall we say, for which I have a couple of ideas, but we shall have to wait until I am back in the studio to try out!

Outside of my own university course music related business, I also have my fingers in a several other "musical pies", as it were. While a lot of the plans are still at their more basic level at the moment (or, to put it in other words, I have been told plans, and I want to get excited, but I cannot help but feel that some of the plans may fall through, causing grave disappointment to me), a set-in-stone event that is coming up this year will be Detling 2011. Detling is a Christian event (oh, I am a Christian, hence my involvement) that was put on in, wait for it... Detling, near Kent. I played at it last year, a couple of times a day with a band from my home church in Manchester, and it was a brilliant experience. So brilliant that we jumped at the oppotunity to do it this year.

I am also intending to do some light session work, or Diet Session Work as I like to think of it. This will involve me playing on albums that are being produced by people around the Northampton area (perhaps unsuprisingly, I'm not envisioning an awful lot of this to occur) and, hopefully, getting paid. But if I don't, it's all about the music. Although a few coins here and there wouldn't go amiss.

Finally, I am a guitarist in a couple of bands, which is possibly my most proactive avenue of musical life at the moment. I am part of a couple of different bands (whittling down the list to bands I will actually focus with, although I am still wanting to form a few more with focus in different genres), such as Clockface (or the band formally known as Pawes which was formally known as Pineapple Jam. Also, Clockface may not be set in stone, who knows?) and Cheynes Stokes, both rock bands of different varieties, I would say. I am also joining one or two bands at the start of this year, but if I wrote about them now, what on earth would I write in my next blog update. Which I am already excited about.


So, that is my life at the start of 2011. I'm anticipating that this year will be MUCH MUCH better than last year for a number of reasons, and I shall keep whoever reads this updated with my "life" as a musician.

Tom.