Well, it’s been a bit more since my last post, but I’ll be covering about a week in this one. I was considering splitting it up into several posts and then posting retroactively, but that would just have been weird… So one supermegahuge post for you!
On Monday I had Employability and Enterprise again, and I feel just that little bit more unhappy with my group than I did last week. We’ve got a couple new members who weren’t there the previous week, so now we’re a very big group, 10 members. I feel like our meeting was very rushed, and we never really took the time to discuss exactly what it is we’re gonna do. It seems like this was just collectively decided without anyone really thinking much about it. We’ll be playing one pop song, and then our two flute players will be playing one classical piece, and then we’ll do a Disney song where we bring the flute players into the mix. This bit, I suppose, is alright, but the rest of the time we’re just kind of gonna be talking, and I don’t even quite get what we’re gonna be talking about…
It feels like it’s gonna be very dull and not even that educational. I was going to suggest the idea of doing some older music, maybe introducing these kids to some genres they’ve never heard before, broadening their minds a bit. But I never got the time to make that suggestion, couldn’t really get in a word before the rest had somehow decided that they wanted to do this particular thing, and that was it.
I’m not complaining. If they let me sing, I’m pretty much fine with anything we do, and it’s how we organise this thing that matters for our marks, not the actual result. Still, it would have been fun if I could have brought something into it that is uniquely me. I AM a performer, after all.
On Wednesday, my friend Paul came to visit from Derbyshire. We went to a pub in town, The Black Country Arms, and drank cider. Then we went to the Student Village and had some dinner, before he headed back to the train. I’ve never actually met Paul before, we’ve only chatted online, our common interest in sci-fi being what got us acquainted in the first place. Interestingly, we barely touched on Doctor Who when we finally met in real life, having much more fun discussing politics, religion and our best memories of being stupendeously drunk.
Dick Decent (my vocal tutor) was back on Wednesday, and I left Paul alone for half an hour to go have my lesson. Dick’s been ill, so I haven’t seen him since before Christmas, but he thinks he’ll be okay for the rest of the year now. I hope so, because we get along quite well, and he has a lot of good pointers as far as repertoire is concerned. He seemed impressed with the leadsheets I’d made for the band, which I brought and showed him, and the arrangement for All Along the Watchtower I’d made.
He suggested I record my rehearsal the following day, which I did. Thursdays 11-1 seems to be the only time we’re all free at once, so that will have to be our regular rehearsal time. Actually, it turns our Steven isn’t really free then, as he has bass lesson at 12:30, but he’s gonna try to get it switched around. I thought we had a massively productive rehearsal. We only focused on two songs, Chronophobia and All Along the Watchtower, but I think they both went remarkably well for a first rehearsal. Everyone got into it very quickly, and I’m optimistic. I was especially impressed with my drummer, who seemed genuinely enthusiastic about an arrangement that I would have thought would have been a bit boring for a drummer, and who had good ideas for both songs and caught onto my not entirely fully formed ideas very quickly and easily.
The following recordings were the last attempts at the songs. Very raw, but it might give an idea of what I’m trying to do:
Following my rehearsal, I went to my lecture for Untold Stories. I have a slightly clearer idea now of what I’d like to do for this module. We’re supposed to research something within popular music history that’s unexplored or undocumented and make a podcast about it. I think what I want to do is do one about my dad. As far as I’m aware, no one’s written anything about my dad. I can draw a general link to the folk movement in Fenno-Scandia in the 70s and 80s as well, draw in other important, perhaps more well known people, but with my main focus on dad. That’s my idea, anyway.
Then I went and picked up Morten in town. It was so good to see him again! We went shopping and made bolognese from scratch for dinner. Then we just sat around drinking wine, talked to Abi and enjoyed each other’s company. On Friday we went shopping again, and I bought a new coat (woot!). That evening we had dinner with Abi and Jodi. I made chicken green curry, and much to everyone’s amazement Jodi absolutely loved it. I felt very proud about that. We tried to play Cluedo, but failed as we all thought we had the answer way before we really did due to a slight slip-up. So we played team scrabble instead.
Last night we were on our own, as Abi and Jodi were off celebrating their anniversary (congrats, btw!), though we did have the occasional visit in the kitchen by Annette and her friend Paige who’s here to visit. Morten and I made tacos (we had enough food for five people, probably) and drank wine and watched The Princess and the Frog. Afterwards, we sat around comparing bad music taste. I think I won, with Manowar, Blind Guardian and Judas Priest. We also listened a bit to a band called Hellsongs, who play metal songs in friendly, happy folk versions. You probably haven’t lived until you’ve heard Blackened sung by a sweet sounding, smiling Swedish girl to a light acoustic guitar accompaniment. Now that I think about it, that was probably what brought us onto the topic of bad heavy metal in the first place.
Today was grey and rainy and best described by this song:
If you haven’t got Spotify, look it up elsewhere, because it’s a great song. We spent the morning, after breakfast, just listening to music and snuggling and doing nothing at all, until we had to head off for the airport. Leaving Morten there, I wished so much he could have stayed longer, and even more that I could get on the plane with him and go home. But I have stuff to do here, a degree to earn, otherwise what have the past few months’ hard work been all about? I’ve never been so homesick before in my life, but I don’t regret coming here, and I wouldn’t trade these experiences. I need to keep my eye on the ball, so to speak, remember why I’m here and that every day is one day closer to going home for good.
So, now I’m eating leftover green curry and wondering if I should push myself to be productive or just fuck it and play The Sims. The latter feels more tempting. I think I’ve earned it.