Work I have done

                                                            

For my radio project I did this year I had to think up and broadcast a 30 minute radio magazine programme. Unlike other people who chose to make theirs like Radio One, I decided to make mine like Radio six music, and I decided to give a more alternative spin on the radio shows that my freinds were making.  I found this really fun and challenging at the same time, I think I came across really confident in my finally produced package and I think it seems like I am talking to the listener like a normal human being, not patronizing them or anything. I am really proud of the work that I did for this and I am very proud of the final peice.
                                         

                                          

In the first year we had to think up an idea for and direct our own individual experiental film. For my video I filmed these two people walking into college.  It was the first time that I used a camera and iMovie and I was very pleased with the results. As I've said in a post before, iMovie is a simple and affective way of making music videos, and I made this video simply and effectively which to I think is a great standard of work. I found it really fun to do as well as really challenging in terms of using completely new and different software.

Software I can use

 

 iMovie- iMovie is a very simple yet effective peice of software that comes with any apple mac computer. I can edit films with ease on iMovie and have made a few films in college with it, one of which you will see posted on this blog. 

\Dreamweaver- I have Dreamweaver at home which I find really easy to use. Dreamweaver is a website building software which you have to purchase seperately on your computer. It is very expensive but I managed to get a discount on it and it is in my opinion worth every penny in terms of developing websites. 

Fireworks- Fireworks is an image editing software which I find really easy to use. Infact, I created the banner for this page using Macromedia Fireworks. It also comes with Dreamweaver and these other Macromedia products too. 

Photoshop- Photoshop is another image editing software which is more proffesional than Fireworks, being proffesional editing software it is quite complicate to use which makes it difficult, but once you get to grips with it it is really easy. 

Cubase- Cubase is a peice of music editing software which me and my friend use to create songs for a good laugh. We have made alot of songs but most of these arn't really to gain success or anything it is just for fun.

Contribute- Contribute is another website editing website which I use from time to time. I used to use it alot but now I'm more into making music on my four track instead of making websites but I've always been very creative no matter what I do.

Glastonbury Festival

I attend the Glastonbury Festival yearly. The Glastonbury Festival is an Performing arts festival located on an overwhelming 1,100 acre peice of land called Worthy Farm in pilton, Somerset. This year I saw U2 do their legendary headline slot, Coldplay play an amazing performance and on Sunday night (Seeing as I'm not really that much of a fan of Beyonce instead I saw Kool and The Gang who played to me one of the higlights of my Glastonbury. At the start of the show they played Get down on it then they went straight into a cover of a Michael Jackson song, after this they then played Fresh and after that they broke into a plethora of funk and jazz jams which lasted up to 10 minutes mostly. In these Jams they would alternate between trumpet, saxophone and guitar solo's and the showmenship was incredible. Right at the end of the gig, they just played hit after hit after hit. The year before that I watched Stevie Wonder play an absolutely incredible set closing the pyramid stage, As well as this I watched the best live gig I have ever seen, The Flaming Lips, who played the other stage on the Friday night, here is a youtube clip of The Flaming Lips closing their set with the song "Do You Realise?":

 

As you can see from the clip above, they played an absolutely fantastic and life affirming set which I amoungst many other enjoyed. Another thing I like doing at Glastonbury is exploring Shangri La. Shangri La is an other worldly, weird, post apocalyptic rave in a feild with many different venues and places to go. It is very hard to discribe the weirdness that goes on in Shangri La, so here is a Youtube clip of someone who went there early (it does get very busy after the headline set finishes) and explored it: 

                                      
Also to explore at Glastonbury during the day is the Green Fields, which still tries to keep the ever dying hippy culture alive. Another thing that goes on at Glastonbury is the many circus fields. Which is like a lighter version of Shangri-La in the day time. Shangri-La, as you can imagine, has quite an anarchic vibe to it, but The Circus Fields have a much more peacefull vibe and you can see alot of amazing performance art there, including street performers and there are many different circus tents you can go inside and take a look at the many interesting acts that perform, here is a funny act that I just stumbled across this year, Bruce Airhead:

                                                                
As you can see, there is a load of good stuff that happens beyond the main stages at Glastobury,  and it is more then the BBC make it out to be. I highly reccomend that you go there and experience it for yourself.

Music and Me

In 2007 I became seriously into music, going to live concerts regularly and buying albums in general. In 2008 I taught myself how to play the guitar, shortly after that I started writing my own songs. In 2010, I formed my own band with two other friends from two different bands, we wrote 3 songs in one practice. However nothing else came from that and we disbanded shortly after. Also that year I jammed with a few bands and me and my friend used to jam every Wednesday afternoon then this open mic night at a pub on Wednesday evenings. We covered songs by Incubus and Badly Drawn Boy. After this however, I decided that I would go back to writing and recording my own songs, which is what I am still doing now. I can write about 10-15 songs daily if I am feeling in a creative mood, and record a 5 track E.P in about half an hour. About five weeks ago however, I was invited by the friend who I was jamming with to join a funk/jam band called Danny Dangerously Band. I jumped at the chance and in the first week I was asked to play rhythm guitar for this band which I am still doing now. We practice every Wednesday evening and we have a few gigs coming up in the summer. The first gig will be at the Goffs Park Social Club in Crawley, the next gig will be at The Apple Tree in Crawley and the third gig will be at The Shelley Arms pub in Horsham. I am looking forward to playing these gigs as I have never played live with a band before and I am sure that it will be nerve wracking and exhilarating experience.  As I've said before, my band is a funk band so in practices we will sometimes have these Jam's which will last up to around 10 minutes at times, we hope to make every show we play a different experience, weather it's in terms of set-lists or in theatrical terms.