Yes!!! Finally I'm back at it, but what is it? Well, both blogging and the education game. After completing the BTEC I spent the summer months generally working and shamefully doing very little with sound. But now I've just commenced studying a Foundation Degree in Sound Creation Technology at De Montfort University (undertaken at Leicester College) and here I am to blog about it, along with some other bits and bobs I've been up to.
I'm only three weeks into the course and currently there seems little difference from when I was on the BTEC, I'm still studying at Leicester College and it's with practically the same set of tutors. There is so less assignments to do but they certainly seem more intense.
I've already made a start on the recording module by scouting for bands and artists to record with Mr Bryn James. The first mission took us on a trip to Leicester's legendary venue the Shed. A place I haven't been to since I last played there about 10 years and I'm afraid to say that the place hasn't changed a bit in all those years. Unfortunately the first mission was unsuccessful but we did get to see a great singer at the Looking Glass called Amy Wyke. After a small amount of Internet scouring and another scouting trip, we've hopefully secured our first recording artist. So recording should commence in the next week or two, posts to follow.
Last week was busy one for live sound with me being the sound operator for the Little Theatre's last production "Entertaining Angels" and also engineering (amongst other things) at Leicester's Oxjam Festival. The day was a fun and adventurous day with practically everything going wrong us and with the mixing console located on the side of the stage, half of my day was spent standing amongst the crowd making signals to Bryn (located on stage with the mixing console) instructing which instrument levels I think should be raised or lowered. But later on in the day I had to engineer another stage, so that gave me a chance to get some good, lonesome, hands-on experience with the (lets say) more professional setup.
So that all contributes towards the 30 hours i need to complete the work-based learning task in the business module and there's more work to come this week with me crewing at a couple of the "special" shows at the Little Theatre, but I'll speak more about them later in the week.
Time for a beer, me thinks!
