ooh, this looks like fun and stuff like that. *sits down and helps herself to a biscuit* ok, so, I am Becki, I am 19, soon to be 20, well in about a months time. I am a student at the university of Glamorgan in Wales studying Music Technology, although I know fully well i wont be able to get a job in it at the end and so might change to maths, but i only have a few days left to find out if i can then do it, so i probably wont. i will most likely end up doing a conversion course or a second degree one day. but still. when im not at uni, im at home in dorset, such an amazingly beautiful place, but its not quite as great as wales. i see me being in wales for a few years yet. Music Tech is the bestest subject for me becuase it takes into consideration everything im good at and enjoy- music, maths and mathsy things. i have some of the songs i made this year as course work up on myspace, nothing special, but its there- www.myspace.com/beckiedwards I love uni, and all the people ive met there. its so much more grownup than 6th form/school ever could be even when we're drunk and pushing each other into bushes and peoples rubbish bins on the way home from the union, covered in foam or wearing some stupid fancy dress. this last year at uni i have learned so much, not just on the course, but also about myself and i feel like ive grown up a bit and im not scared of some of the things i was before. this summer i am working at a maize maze which is excellent fun. out in the sunshine in a field, playing games, eating too much cheap icecream, and avoiding wasps. it makes a change from being locked away in a recording studio all winter music wise i listen to metal most of the time. my favourite band being katatonia. now im at uni and im near a city for once, i get to see loads of bands that i like when they are around, which makes me feel really lucky for some reason. i drive a little 106 and i love driving, i love driving long distances. but its all really bad for the environment. but petrol prices are getting more expensive and stuff so i may have to stop driving as much which is probably good. so i might design a nice car, in a dream one night and imagine i can drive 24/7. i love rainbows. ok, i cant think of anything else to say for the moment... so i shall stop boring you there. BECKI *eats biscuit*
I have heard many good things about your University. I think that's where all the music students from my college (Woking) go to. Where do you see yourself in 5 and 10 years time?
By all means, pull up a chair, get yourself a Karma thread, and you'll have all the buscuits you could ever want
well, it is a fantastic university. so i dont blame them ok, 5 years.... i shall be almsot 25... um... probably stuggling for money so i can go back to uni for a second degree that would be more useful than music tech. 10 years.... in a nice, well paid job, a house of my own, thinking about making a family if i have a lovely bloke with me. or someting i get scared thinking about the future... never imagined now being like it is at all.
how have i changed? well, 6 years ago my dad died and my world fell apart becuase i was closer to him than i ever have been to my mum. and becuase obviously affected my whole family i had to cope with their grief as well as mine and im one of those people who bottle things away so i would just sink away and feel sorry for myself in the dark listening to angry music. well, i still listen to angry music. but i have different ways of letting out my feelings like walking, drawing, playing my instruments and stuff, sleepings was one, although i try not to do that becuase thats a huge part of the depression spiral. these days im so much more happier with who i am, the smile across my chest is acutally a smile, i can get up on a rainy and grey day and feel glad im alive, be ready for whatever is going to chucked at me that day. before id stay in bed as long as i could and go back as soon as i could. my year 11 at school was the worst. id come home from school and go back to bed, pretending to my mum that i was doing coursework or revising, only geting up for tea or to go online. the summer year 11 was when everything turned around, before then it was getting worse and worse, but during the summer i had a job, and the weather was hot, so i couldnt wear all the black clothes or trousers so i started dressing like i had done before all the shit, and brought some summery music and totally started getting back on my feet back to who i am. this year at uni i have totally grown up, realised what i need to do for myself, built up a lot more confidence in that i can much more easily phone someone or ask someone in a shop something or whatever due to little things like my car windows getting smashed. so in five years ive gone from a grieving 14 year old girl in a new school with new friends, starting her GCSE's, wishing her dad was around to take her to friends houses for sleepovers, or wishing her mum would let her friends come round more often, trying to hide the fact that she wasnt happy, living under a black cloud, into a 19 year old university student who cant wait to go back into her own house, albeit rented with a bunch of other smelly students, who drives herself here there and everywhere whenever she wants, has some amazing friends who have stuck her no matter what, who makes more of an effort to get as much out of a day as possible. there
I'm noticing that you're being very cyncical of Music Tech. Why don't you think it'll be any use to you? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious. I have musical ambitions and I know a fair few industry professionals. Only one or two of them have qualifications for what they ended up working in, the rest of them got where they are by working their way up. The guy who just produced my band's album is also 19 and is in demand as a producer and has got where he is now by first producing all the college bands he could with the equipment they had there for free, then by buying his own gear and charging. He's completely unqualified and recently he turned down work from the BBC. Do they teach you any business studies stuff along with your course or is just the actual tech side of things? Much Love Sebbi
im good at the subject, else i wouldnt have chosen it. but basically my people skills are very thin on the grown compared to my ability, so even though i can do the stuff, and chances are i can get a good degree, i dont ahve the people skills to get me doing things to boost my cv or get into the industry without being anything more than a tea maker. its a vicious place the music industry and i dont think i'll be able to fit in becuase im not great in the areas i need to be great. there are so many people on my course who are crap at so much but have the skills to get extra studio time or muscle in on someone elses to see what they are up to, they want to be in bands so can do the recording and/or producing and/or engineering for the band. although i am going to try and get a job in the rock/metal venue down the road from my uni house which could be very useful, even if i start off behind the bar, id still be around at sound checks and stuff. yes we do get taught business, although we didnt this year. the business side is quite important for music tech becuase so many people set up their own studios or some sort eventually or start various things for different reasons so the business skills are pretty useful. my aim is to find a really good placement for a sandwich year or next summer or something where i can really try my hardest to shine and maybe be able to get some work with them after i leave uni, yes, its very ambitious, but it happens. otherwise i'll find something else to do.
What's your romantic situation? If you had a one way plane ticket to anywhere, where would you choose? When was the last time you cried? Do you have any siblings?
romantic situation!! haha. sorry, lol. my romantic situation is such that i have an excellent and awesome boyfriend who has just graduated from music tech (bonus) and is now living in cardiff (double bonus) and its all good. happy happy happy. hmm... got carried away singing coma by guns n roses, lol. i honestly dont know... ive not been anywhere i really really would want to stay, and i wouldnt want to just go somewhere and stay that i had never been to before. so if i had to choose i would either give the ticket away to a fool or i would probably go to the southern states of the usa becuase i went to south carolina and i like the southern accent (yes probably the only person) and i like the slow easiness of life. would be kewl to be farmer down in alabama or soemthing silly like that. lol totally random um... the other week when i was deciding what i was going to do due to some twat at work telling me i was useless pretty much and then i just ran myself into the ground with panic and sadness and weirdness, so i cried and then just got on with stuff. i do, i have a little sister who is 16
hmm. ok. this is a tricky one. well, im happy being the older sibling becuase i feel my mum has always kept more of a close eye on my sister and might even be twice as upset when she leaves home or soemtihng. but she does get a different kind of treatment to me. ive always been so much more independant than my sister because when my sister was a baby, it was easier to do things myself like get myself up and dressed in the morning than mum having to sort us both out, which left my sister hopeless for years, mum always had to sort out what she was wearing even when she was 7 and still at 16 shes pretty hopeless at wearing things that suit the weather! lol. then again being a younger one id have someone to look up to and follow, although i hate that as the older, id like to be myself, not have a mini me following me, but also as im at uni now my sister gets even more of mums attention becuase she cant split it between us both. i think im happy as i am being the oldest. but becuase ive not been a younger sibling i wouldnt know which id prefer or which is better. obviously being older im jealous of my younger sister and she is jealous of me for similar and different reasons. so either way the same things would crop up just from different sides, like my sister thinks she should be able to go out until a certain time becuase i was, but i wasnt at that age and so she shouldnt and i think she gets away with more becuase mums more confident about whats going to happen becuase ive done it. stuff like that
something where i am my own boss. but well paid. lol. and that i enjoy loads and loads. i dont really have any dreams jobs wise. i have dreams leisure wise. like, i would love a farm, or some land, with a nice house. but id live in a caravan or something on the land and my house would be made into a recording studio. and id own a landrover (lol) and maybe some animals and it would all be kewl coz i could get money from running a studio and i could live how i wanted and even farm a bit if i wanted. but its a crazy and huge dream that probably wont ever happen. you never know!
so how much maths stuff is involved with music tech and do they teach you how to use cubase as i cant get my midi controller to work in it. help me
there is a fair bit of maths. mostly to do with acoustics or electronics. havent had to do much so far, but next year i will! yes, i have been taught how to use cubase but a lot of it i did myself. you wanna try going through the settings and check them all. and on the midi track you want to record on, in the panel on the left hand side with all kinds of goodies such as track parameters and inserts and sends and that, on the main bit of that about half way down there are two drop down lists, on saying in and the other out. under in, select the midi controller if its there or whatever your midi input is named as, for example, i have a m-audio fast track pro, so mine says fast trackpro midi in or all midi inputs. but that might depend on the sound card or whatever. you might need a vst instrument then to make sounds. in that case, hit F11 and click on one of the no instruments and pick one. i only have 3 which came with the software and i usually use reason rewired to get my sounds. then click on the out bit in the panel on the left hand side and pick the name of the vst instrument. and it should, technically work.... some soundcards have general midi, the out setting should be to the soundcard and then there are two options, bnk and prg and then map beneath them. fiddle around with them. i dont use them so im not 100% sure on how it all works. hope that helps. just ask if it doesnt make sense or you need to know a bit more
