GYG: Time to Pull out All the Stops

Weekend (11-12 November)

For the first time in forever I’m actually pretty happy with how the weekend went. The GYG blog has really been helping. I got a solid amount of uni work done (I maybe should have done more on Saturday), I got back into doing yoga and today I did 60 French flashcards which is way more than I’ve done the last few days. Tomorrow morning, I have quite a late start so I plan on doing some yoga and an Assimil french lesson before uni.

Reflection

So it’s been a little over a week since I started this blog and I’ve already noticed a difference in the amount of work I’m doing. Eventually, I what to become a model student but that won’t happen overnight. It would be like never going to the gym and lifting the heaviest weights; It’s not gonna go well! I’ll therefore set myself a small, achievable changes to my lifestyle or study method each week and, over time, these changes should accumulate until I become the student I know I can be! :smile:

Goal for next week
Every day go to bed before midnight

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 22

Monday, 13 November

I think I’m getting ill. :frown:

I’ve had a really sore throat today and on my commute, I couldn’t look down at my french flashcards without feeling slightly sick. I also tried to do some yoga after I woke up and 10 mins in my brain was telling me that I really need to stop. I’ve got quite a bit to do this week so I’m gonna need to get a bunch done tomorrow so that, if I get any worse, I can relax. Apart from a sore throat, it’s not really affecting me at the moment so I really need to take advantage of that while it lasts.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 23

Tuesday, 14 November - Friday, 17 November

Monday-me was right; I was getting ill. Fortunately, due to getting work done earlier in the week, I managed to complete both of the weeks’ assignments before I got too ill.

I didn’t have any classes on Tuesday so I dedicated that day to composing. I decided to redo my composition for the National Portrait Gallery concert as, while it was an interesting idea, writing a piece which uses 1-d Perlin noise wasn’t for me – it was tedious to write and I had to make too many compromises to make the piece fit the noise function. However, I did use some of the ideas from that piece in the new version so it wasn’t a waste of time. I had a composition lesson the next day so I’m really glad that I managed to get the piece done by then so that I could get some feedback before the deadline. Over the weekend, I'll tidy up the score and change the last few bars.

Wednesday felt like a really long day. I woke up at 7:30, had my composition lesson at 9:30 and then immediately went to my 'composing with sequencer' lesson on the 4th floor (thank goodness RCM has a lift)! After the lesson, I was planning on staying in the composition suite to finish off the assignment that we were working on in class, but at that point, I was feeling pretty ill and needed to get some fresh air. Ideally, I would have gone home and slept but I had to wait around at RCM for a few hours due to a composition faculty class about writing for organ. RCM recently got a new organ and there's a competition to write a piece for it and have it performed. While it's a really exciting opportunity it's unlikely that I'll be selected as only 3 people are chosen and I'm competing with everyone from 1st-years to post-grads!

During the gap between classes, I had some lunch and went to the library to work on the bibliography for a Historical Studies essay. For some reason, they’ve decided to break up the Historical Studies essay into 3 different assignments; a bibliography with two 200-word evaluations on why you picked two of your sources, an essay plan (literally just bullet points, I might do it this Sunday), and the essay itself which will be roughly 1500 words. I normally struggle with essays but they gave us a long list of essay questions to choose from and I found one that I really like to do with how avant-garde composers have used mathematics in their works which should be really easy to write about. In the evening, I finished writing the annotated bibliography. I probably stayed up a little too late finishing it but I really wanted to get it done so that as I only had to focus on the composing with sequencer assignment on Thursday. Also, I wanted to make sure that it was really good as I was really disappointed with the mark I got for my previous Historical Studies assignment (2:2). Luckily, this module doesn't count towards the final degree classification; It's just a prerequisite for next year so I only need a pass (50%).

On Thursday, I had a much-needed lie-in. At this point, I was feeling quite a bit worse but I had a lesson and I needed to finish my composing with sequencer assignment.

Going on Friday was a complete mistake though. I only had one lesson and I had to wake up at 7:00. By the time I got back home, I was coughing multiple times per minute and felt absolutely dreadful ☹. I relaxed for the rest of the day which I think was definitely needed! At 15:00, I had a wonderful nap which ended up lasting 3 hours! 😊

Tag List
To be notified of when I post. Just let me know if you what to be added (or removed).

Spoiler

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 24

Saturday, 18 November – Tuesday, 21 November

As I was still ill, I focused on having a restful weekend. Recently, I’ve really missed doing maths. In secondary school, I loved doing Senior Maths Challenge papers so I’ve decided to start going through ‘A Primer for Mathematics Competitions’ so that I can get better at those types of questions. Over the weekend, I also finished the solo violin piece I was working on.

Last Sunday, I set myself the goal of going to bed before midnight… that ended up happening maybe 4/7 times. This week I plan on making it 6/7 times (I went to bed at 2:30 am yesterday).

Yesterday was just a normal day – nothing too interesting. I went to class and started orchestrating Ravel’s Sonatine.

Today was quite productive. I got some work done for a test which is coming up and I continued to orchestrate Sonatine.

If you have any questions or any comments on how to improve the blog, please, feel free to comment below.

(another one of my compositions if you're interested)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTQBn4VWz4c
[video="youtube;vTQBn4VWz4c"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTQBn4VWz4c[/video]

Tag List
To be notified of when I post. Just let me know if you what to be added (or removed).

Spoiler

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 25

clouddbubbles

Original post by ChocCheesecake

Spoiler

what piece were you working at on the violin? and what grade was it?

Reply 26

Original post by clouddbubbles

what piece were you working at on the violin? and what grade was it?

I was writing the violin piece. :smile:

It’s called ‘One of Them is Human’ and is based on the portrait of the same name from the 2017 Taylor-Wessing Portrait Prize. If you’re in London on the 8th December, it’s gonna be performed at a free concert in the National Portrait Gallery (assuming that the RCM staff or I can find someone to play it by then).

Reply 27

clouddbubbles

Original post by ChocCheesecake

I was writing the violin piece. :smile:

oh wow that sounds really really cool!
hopefully you’ll be able to find someone :biggrin:

Reply 28

Original post by clouddbubbles

oh wow that sounds really really cool!
hopefully you’ll be able to find someone :biggrin:

I just got an email saying that they found someone to play it! :smile:

Reply 29

clouddbubbles

Original post by ChocCheesecake

I just got an email saying that they found someone to play it! :smile:

that’s brilliant! yayyy

Reply 30

Ooh this blog looks interesting. :awesome:

Reply 31

Original post by 04MR17

Ooh this blog looks interesting. :awesome:

Thanks! I've been busy recently but I'm gonna update it at the end of the term. Should I add you to the tag list? :biggrin:

Reply 32

Original post by ChocCheesecake

Thanks! I've been busy recently but I'm gonna update it at the end of the term. Should I add you to the tag list? :biggrin:

Reply 33

I’ve had a great first term. Since my last post, quite a few exciting things have happened. The least exciting but most relevant one being the dramatic increase in my grades! Ever since I got 56% in a Historical Studies exercise, I was determined to never get such a low mark again and to get that module’s average up to 70% where it belonged. At 68.9%, I’m not quite there yet but hopefully, my end-of-term essay will be good enough to bring it up to 70%. As this is literally the first essay I’ve ever done (minus the tiny ones in GCSE English), I’m really not sure what to expect mark-wise. I know the content is good as my essay plan got 76% but, as I said, it’s the first essay I’ve done and there are undoubtedly many nuances in writing a good essay that I’m completely unaware of. In other modules, I’ve got 74% and 77.8% (I won’t bore you with the details). 😊

The highlight of the term was definitely the performance of one of my pieces at the National Portrait Gallery. There was one caveat though, before I could enjoy listening to my piece from the comfort of the auditorium, I had to stand up and give an introduction to my piece. While this may be a non-issue for some, I’m not a very talkative person and as someone who can only just do one-to-one conversation without feeling like a socially inept pillock, talking on a stage is… a bit much for me. Even though my speech wasn’t that good, I fortunately didn’t embarrass myself; I merely sounded nervous which for me is a victory. Hopefully, my music speaks for itself as evidently I’m not very good at speaking for it. :biggrin:

The performance on the other hand was more than I could’ve hoped for; the violist Iida Lymi did a fantastic job. It was definitely the best performance of one of my pieces that I’ve ever had - it was a delight to listen to. There’s nothing quite like the rush I get hearing a piece of mine performed.

After the concert, I went to the halls, collect my stuff and travelled home for the holidays.

Over the holidays I decided to take up coding again which has been really fun. I’m learning Python using sololearn.com and I recently finished the HTML and CSS course on freeCodeCamp (brilliant website, I highly recommend it).

Next term, I’m gonna need to start revising for the Historical Studies paper. Also, while I have had plenty of ideas for compositions I only ended up finishing one piece this term which is kind of embarrassing so I’ll definitely have to rectify that next term. I also have an orchestral commission which I want to have finished by March so I can focus on exams during the final term.

Tag List
To be notified of when I post. Just let me know if you what to be added (or removed)

Spoiler

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 34

Tip for essays: the university (or royal college:rolleyes) should have a generic marking criteria for essays and stuff (I think you should be able to find it online). Have a read of it forat to get a flavour of thr things youll need to do in the essay. Then use it when you're proofreading to make sure you've hit the right spot. Beyond that it's difficult to know what the tutors are after.

All this sounds so exiting. :dance:

And a well written blog: a joy to read. :smile:

Reply 35

Amefish

that performance sounds amazing! :woo:

a really great opportunity! And it's good to hear your grades are going up too, you can get it up to 70% definitely :h:

Reply 36

Original post by 04MR17

And a well written blog: a joy to read. :smile:

Thanks for the tip and I'm glad you're enjoying the blog! :smile:

Original post by Amefish

that performance sounds amazing! :woo:

a really great opportunity! And it's good to hear your grades are going up too, you can get it up to 70% definitely :h:

I'll also be getting a recording of the performance which is super awesome! :woo:

I'll upload it to my YouTube channel once I get it.

Reply 37

Monday, 1 January - Goals for this term

The time has come. Term 2 is right around the corner and today I thought that I’d write about some things in my life that need to change this term. While my blog may be titled “Time to Pull out All the Stops” I think that it’s fair to say that in term 1, few (if any) stops were pulled. In fact, I think I only had 5 truly productive days last term and they were because of impending deadlines. So, in order to save the spring term from being yet another tepid attempt at productivity, I’m introducing some core goals for this term which, hopefully, will help.

•

Compose every day – This one’s a priority. I mean, come on! I’m a composition student. I’m at RCM to compose. The least I can do is write something each day.

•

Do 30 minutes of revision every day – Now, you may be thinking “that’s not very much” and you’d be right. Here’s the thing, I’ve never been good at doing daily-revision so I’ve got to start small. It’s all well and good saying I’ll do 3 hours every day but I know that’s not going to happen – it’s an unrealistic goal for me at the moment. This is a manageable goal that I can stick to and, eventually, build upon.

•

Do 15 pages of reading every day – Since Sixth form, I’ve loved the idea of being someone who reads regularly. In secondary school I think I read a total of 4 books (not include textbooks) and that really ought to change. When I was little, I loved reading. However, over time love became loathing. Bad teachers and mind-numbingly dull syllabuses slowing killed all enjoyment I used to get from reading. It became a chore instead of a choice and I think that’s a real shame. I plan on reading during my commutes to RCM since I’m not doing the French flashcards anymore.

•

Go to bed before midnight – I find this really hard. After a busy day, I just want to relax which is fair enough. However, this “relaxing” often included hours of YouTube videos, Netflix, Reddit, etc. at half past late and that needs to stop.

•

Do daily updates on my GYG blog – There’s no reason why I can’t do small updates. Plus, they really help to keep me accountable.

Anyway… that’s enough about me. I’ll talk more tomorrow. Byeeeeeeeee.

Tag List
To be notified of when I post. Just let me know if you what to be added (or removed)

Spoiler

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 38