its basically a truncated version of my life story that made my mate chuckle when I read it to him, so if that's your bag baby.....
Spoiler
Unfortunately I didn’t receive a musical education in my youth - due to the lack of education in
general being offered at my secondary school, the financial constraints my parents struggled with
and, being perfectly honest, my own teenage lack of interest, drive and ambition towards the world
in the 1990's that I'd grown up in. I had constantly been told in the media, by teachers and
(pessimisticly naive) friends that there were no jobs and there never would be as we were all going
to die of AIDS (as apparently everybody was too busy sharing needles to learn how to use
condoms). Sadly I must have believed this tripe, and by the age of nineteen I think I'd truly given up
any notions of ever creating anything as exotic, delicate, brutal and mesmerising as learning how to
create and organise tones and sounds, because I simply didn't see it as an option.
Since before leaving school until I was twenty three, I had been a drug user (but I kept a job
and didn’t commit crime other than their procurement/consumption) and was really just floating
aimlessly. Until this point in my life the misuse had continued in ever increasing amounts until
something inside of me finally broke. I can clearly remember hearing (through the regular daytime
schedule of virgin radio) the voice of 'God' asking me why I wasn't singing about Jesus? I thought
this was well unfair as (not being a righteous/especially religious or even church going type person)
I didn’t know I was supposed to be. A couple of weeks in this new head space was enough for me to
know I didn't like what I heard, so I told 'God' that I wasn't going to sing about anything and I
refused. A positive side effect of this 'event' however, was for the first time in my life I really began
listening to the music around me (or so I thought) as my ears had been opened.
Five or six years later, just after what one might quite rightly call the self induced mental ill
health (and at times genuine torture) had abated - long after giving up recreational narcotics as 'a
bad do' (when the telly is talking directly to you, it doesn't take a genius to work out its time give up
the coke and wacky baccy) – during a drunken night at the home of a girlfriend (whilst enjoying a
year off urban adventuring in Australia). A friend of hers picked up an acoustic guitar and started
bashing out crowd pleasing three and four chord pop classics. I'd never experienced anything like
this before and it was a genuine eye opener that blew me away. I swore to myself when I returned to
England I would buy a guitar and learn how to play. Back at home a few months and a few guitar
lessons later, it quickly became evident to me that I was only hearing songs as what I can only
describe as a solid block of audio – I really couldn't tell apart a bass guitar from an acoustic
strumming out a simple rhythm or that from harmonizing strings set to 'sweeten' within the same
mix. Thus began a questing journey of learning how to actually hear the music I am listening to that
I still consider myself to be on today. A couple of other things I realised were; I love writing songs
and I was never going to be able to pay my rent as a guitarist.
So ever the pragmatist, I began teaching myself how to record my songs because I was too
###### to find someone to play them with – that was roughly ten years ago. I am now at a point where;
A) I know my skills will improve much quicker with professional guidance than will if I continue
with the current blind alley/self discovery style I have been nurturing (you can hear my efforts if
you search my pseudonym 'emanual tehpirate' on soundcloud.com) and B ) I need to gain a degree
qualification to get myself out of the blue collar career rut I have found myself entrenched in. The
degree level course you offer seems an ideal opportunity for me to move forward in my life whilst
studying something I have a deep and genuine love for. Originally I wanted to apply to enrol this
time last year, but I dislike debt with a vigour approaching that of an obsessive compulsive (a
negative personality quirk in the economic/consumer age we live in – frugality does seem to be a
virtue of the middle ages) forcing me to save the funds instead (and at the time having not long
returned from another year off abroad blowing my savings, I was basically skint – this time in Spain
where incidentally, I found myself running the sound desk of a reasonably sized none
denominational happy clappy type church). So unfortunately after the expense of a Mac, better
quality soundcard and the outstanding various pieces of necessary software on the course faq
requirement list (I'd previously used ableton LIVE and a PC as the heart of my DAW), I am only
able to to afford to apply for the certHE rather than the dipHE I wanted to, however all going well, I
plan to continue my studies with you next year whilst I save the fees during this term.
good huh? I well reckon i'll get on the course with that