Week 1 - a new beginning

Monday 5th October, my first tutorial session. Not a tutorial session like any other I've ever had! From my undergraduate days I recall scores of students sat around in a muggy lecture theatre, trying to stay awake through the pain of Freshers hangovers while a tutor rambles on about timetables and attendance. This couldn't be much further away from my first session.

We'd already had our first assignment - prepare a song over the weekend and either play a recording or perform it live to the group. After meeting everyone on Friday and learning what we would be doing over the coming two years, I was feeling inspired to write something. Andrew West, our tutor, didn't give us any guidelines as such; he just said "you've probably got something knocking about" - so we had a free reign to do what we wanted.

I woke up on Sunday and picked up my guitar - I'd had a little riff running through my head for a few weeks and had written a few words, but had abandoned them pretty much as quickly as I'd written them. I strummed the first couple of bars and words suddenly started flowing. Within half an hour I had a couple of verses, and a decent chorus followed. It's quite a while since I've felt that creative flow, so I made the most of it. I had the whole song pretty much written 6 hours or so later. Subject matter was fairly predictable - new starts, turning points in life etc. In fact, the song is called "New Beginning". I wanted to write a really upbeat, positive song, and hopefully I've managed to achieve that.

I got a rough recording down that night and in the morning had a little recap of what I'd done. Of course, I was not happy with it - anyone who knows me will know that I've never been happy with anything I've written. But that's the aim of this course - to improve as a songwriter and work on my weaker points.

I got myself ready for the journey into Uni - since I don't own a car at the moment, my only options are bus or bike. Since I hate buses and I love cycling, the choice was obvious! The route is ideal - I can join the Bristol-Bath cycle path half a mile or so from my house, then the track is traffic-free for the next 10 miles or so. After getting off the cycle track, it's a couple of miles extra to get to the Uni itself. Works out to be about a 30-mile round trip, through the beautiful countryside of the South-West. After leaving Bristol, I saw more squirrels than I did cyclists!

Door-to-door, it took me just under an hour. If I'd walked to the bus station then hopped on a bus, it would take at least as long, probably longer. And it would cost me an arm and a leg. The only problem is that I can't bring an instrument on the bike, but that's not a problem as there's plenty of guitars and pianos around that I can use.

The Newton Park campus is absolutely stunning. It's set right in the middle of the countryside, with a large lake and nature reserve, and some amazing buildings including a 14th century castle. In fact, I believe one of our tutorials takes place in the castle! When the weather brightens up a little, I'll take a camera down and post some photos on here.

So onto the tutorial session then. I think I was the first there, as I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get my breath back and have a good shower. I bumped into Mark, who was also early, and we grabbed a coffee and sat in one of the practice rooms. The other members of our group arrived steadily, and I was glad to find out that they were all as nervous as I was! A couple of people had written new songs, whereas others relied on recent pieces of work that were still in the development stage.

In our group of six, we sat in a circle and one-by-one, played our songs. First up was Andrew's piece, entitled "Put A Little Song In Your Heart", if I remember rightly. Andrew writes songs for children's choirs, which are then performed in a gospel style. So it was very big and bold, there was a lot of production in there - in fact, this song was the finished article already, really. Totally not the style that I expected, and a great way to start the session. We added our thoughts and moved on to the next artist.

Next up was Kim, who performed a song that she'd written at the weekend. It was beautiful - just acoustic guitar and voice. Quite folky and very heartfelt. It was fairly flawless, and only Andy really managed to pick any holes in it.

My turn came next and I was pretty nervous. I decided to play live, mainly because I'm not keen on listening to my own recordings! I borrowed Mark's guitar (thanks Mark!) and played my one day-old tune. Everyone was really positive about it afterwards, both the music and lyrical content were praised, so I was really pleased. I honestly didn't know what to expect, I kind of imagined the reaction to be "it's ok, but...". So I'm really encouraged by that, and it's absolutely inspired me to get writing more and more. Got some great feedback on how to improve the song too, so I'll be re-writing that one this week. I'll post the demo of "New Beginning" on here later tonight.

Next up was Bex, who played a recording of a song she'd written at the weekend. It was a beautiful entanglement of haunting vocals and one simple repeated guitar riff. Reminded me of Portishead or Massive Attack. It was a rough recording, but this gave it it's character. The challenge for Becks now is to recapture that feel when she comes to record it properly. Amazing potential to that song though.

Heidi came next - playing keyboards and singing beautifully, although she was nervous and didn't seem confident with her song. She had no reason to feel that way, as it was a fantastic piece of music. Her real strength was in her lyrics, although musically it was strong too. She conjured up some amazing visual images through her clever use of words, and we all agreed that we couldn't wait to read the lyric sheet back, and really analyse it properly.

Last but certainly not least was Mark, who played a catchy acoustic pop song called "Wish I Could Read Your Mind". Mark's style was probably most similar to mine, and we agreed that we must get together and work on some material. It was already a great song in it's own right, and perfectly publishable, but we still had plenty of scope to suggest improvements.

Overall, it was a tremendously productive session. I feel comfortable with what I'm doing musically again, which was a barrier I was struggling to overcome. There are so many different styles within our group; it's great that I can write and play in my style, and not feel like what I'm doing is too clichéd or predictable.

I'd better run now as I have to get on my bike (literally), but I'll get some music on here very soon. Ciao!