Even though it was a back in May I thought I would post a few clips of this term’s choir concert. It was held at St Clement’s, the same church as the Christmas concert, which is a beautiful old church near Old Street tube station. We sang Fauré’s Requiem and Cantique de Jean Racine along with The Beatitudes by Arvo Pärt. Here are a few clips I thought I would share with you all.

It was a lovely concert and my last one with the City University chamber choir. It has been a pleasure to sing in and I am very sad to be stopping but was happy to be able to take part in it during my time at City.

Watching these clips of my last choir concert made me reflect on my time at City and reminded me of some of the great things I’ve taken part in.

I have some great memories from our Christmas Cabarets, the annual Christmas party the music department has. It’s a great event, with food, drink, people making music and our famous staff v student quiz! The best thing about it is everyone from the department gets together so is a really good chance to spend time with your friends and get to know others in the department even better!

Another thing I’ve loved about City is the diversity of the modules. It’s a really good chance to not only choose all the aspects of music you are really interested in but also to try out new things you wouldn’t always go for. When I came to uni I had never done any music technology or even spent time in a recording studio but after having a taster of it in first year I decided to take studio composition in my second year, I debated whether to take it as I really didn’t know how I’d find it but it was a really great module to take. It gave me a great grounding in different music software (I learned so much about Logic which I had never even used before uni) as well as opening my eyes to other ways of composing and how to take my own recordings and manipulate sounds. To compliment this module I took Sound Recording and Studio Techniques which gave me a good grounding in how to use the recording studio.

This module was the probably the biggest surprise to me as I had never done anything like it before but I think my favorite module has been Sound, Music and the Moving Image, I have always found film music very interesting so I really enjoyed this module and found myself looking forward to every lecture – a cool opportunity we had along with this module was the chance to see a screening of the silent film “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” with live accompaniment from Neil Brand (who did a great series for the bbc called The Sound of Cinema, watch it if you can!) and who has accompanied silent films for nearly 30 years.

I enjoyed the module so much I decided to have an attempt at composing myself so took Composing for the Moving Image in my third year which was great and I had an added bonus chance of attending a live Q&A talk with the acclaimed film composer Patrick Doyle.

I also have some great memories from performing, especially all my concerts with Gamelan and also African Dance and Drumming, a highlight of which was playing Samba at the London Marathon which had such a great atmosphere. Of course, I have also loved having the opportunity to take performance which has meant having a series of solo performances on flute, my main instrument, throughout my three years at City.

Overall I feel lucky to have had the opportunities to try out such a range of new things and experiences. I’m really going to miss City!

Here are my top ten tips for surviving uni…

1. Be open minded! Make sure you go into everything with an open mind you may be surprised! City’s music course has a huge range of ensembles and modules for you – pick something different, try something new. (I didn’t like composition possibly because I found it difficult so lacked confidence with it but when I had to take it in first year I really enjoyed it and ended up doing it all the way through my degree!)

2. Get involved. City offers you a lot of music making opportunities. Join as many ensembles as you can – it all helps develop a great overall musicianship so even if you’re not playing your main instrument it still helps loads. (You’ll also have great fun, make friends and play at some cool events – in my first year we played Samba at the London Marathon)

3. Keep an eye on your expenses – don’t spend all your money at the beginning of the term and run out as the term goes on, remember deadlines fall in the second half of a term so you don’t need the added stress of money troubles whilst writing essays and revising for exams!

4. Save the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves! Okay so you’re moving to London obviously rent isn’t going to be cheap and let’s face it you’ve picked one of the most expensive places to live so it may be tricky but be sensible and save money in the places it’s easy to save in – for example make your lunch everyday, you don’t need to spend £3 every weekday on that meal deal! – say you spend £3 on your lunch everyday, that’s £15 a week….£60 a month…£720 a year! Okay maybe you won’t be buying lunch every weekday of the year but think how much you could save by getting up 15 minutes earlier and make your own lunch!

5. Start essays and revision earlier than you think you should! Okay I know this is a boring one and it’s probably one we all tell ourselves anyway but in all seriousness it’s important. Maybe you could get away with doing an essay the night before the deadline for A-levels but I would advice STRONGLY against that at uni!! You will need to spend lots of time reading up and researching your topic thoroughly to have lots of great references for a good essay. Don’t submit several papers before realising the importance of good researching and planning for your essays. As for exam revision – after a lecture, write up your notes neatly into something that you can easily revise from in the future. Doing it a second time after learning it will help when you come back to it later and it stops you from looking at your scribbled notes later on and realising you can’t read your own handwriting! If you’re a performer don’t leave your practice late do it as you go along – regular practice really does make perfect! I know all this because I didn’t follow my own advice in the beginning but once I started to do it it made a huge difference. I actually don’t know how I would have met my deadlines if I hadn’t begun starting sooner than I thought I needed to (the time flew). Obviously don’t skip lectures, it’s easy to do but you’ll find it’s easy to fall behind and ends up being more work to catch back up rather than just go to the lecture in the first place. Another extremely important piece of advice is back up ALL your work! I had a big scare when I thought I lost my memory stick and realised I didn’t have the work backed up – luckily I found it but it taught me a big lesson – ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR WORK!!

6. Uni work! You don’t need to go get a part time job in a supermarket. There are loads of opportunities for work right at uni! Also when you hit that crazy deadline patch if you’re picking up uni work you can be more flexible, taking on as much or as little as you want unlike jobs with weekly shifts that are tricky to rearrange or get cover for and can give you a lot of extra stress. City has loads of work opportunities –look out for student ambassador work at the Fresher’s Fair – it’s great pay, great for your CV and you may even make some friends along the way. – http://www.city.ac.uk/current-students/careers-and-work-experience/student-ambassador-scheme. (I’ve loved being an ambassador)!

You can also find out about lots of part time/one off job opportunities if you sign up to unitemps – just ask at the careers office and they’ll give you all the info you need to know.

7. Student discount! Make the most of it while you have it!! Loads of shops offer student discount especially if you sign up for an NUS card – http://www.nus.org.uk/en/nus-extra/. Make sure you sign up for a student oyster card if you’re traveling around London a lot as it can work out cheaper to buy a weekly or monthly travel card as you can get up to a third off with an 18+ oyster card. In general keep an eye out for any student discount, and remember if your buying sheet music plenty of music shops give student discount – I didn’t realise this until my second year!

8. Work experience! Make the most of any work experience type opportunities that come along – uni isn’t just about getting a degree. It’s also all the opportunities that not only give you things to write about on your CV but will also give you great transferrable skills.

9. Eat healthy! It may be cheap and tempting to buy that 24 multipack bag of Walkers but 1- it won’t fill you up and 2- your health won’t thank you! If you don’t eat properly and you’re like me your blood sugar will be all over the place resulting in some not so pleasant mood swings – which won’t help you or your flat mates! So try and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and try and keep eating fruit and veg, it’ll stop you feeling to stodgy and sluggish.

– check out this site – http://www.studential.com/university/student-cooking. It’s got tips on budgeting, healthy eating and recipes.

10. Enjoy yourself! Above everything make sure you really enjoy your time at uni because it’s great! It goes by so quickly. I can’t believe how fast my 3 years have flown by. It’s your chance to make loads of new friends who you can make great memories with because even though it sounds cheesy at the end of the day that’s going to be the best thing to take away from your time at uni!

I can’t believe it’s the end of my three years at Uni. It’s gone by pretty quickly. I’ll be really sad to leave. It’s been a really busy last term. I’ve had so much on.

There have been a few big milestones this term including finishing my dissertation. It was really hard work and has taken so much time so it was very strange to finally finish it and hand it in! Since you can choose to write your dissertation on whatever you want I decided to go for something a bit unusual and unexpected and most importantly something I was really passionate about. In the end I wrote mine on the significance the voice plays in helping to develop anthropomorphic characters in Disney animations. It was really interesting to look at the way the human voice can be used as a musical tool in order to build characters so even though it was a really big piece of work I was constantly finding out interesting things!

Another big milestone this term was my final recital for my third year performance. Performance is always the last module to be assessed. Requirements vary depending on what year you’re in as the higher you take performance the more that is expected of you. The Performance module for the third year includes a 20 minute lunchtime concert, a lecture recital which consists of a talk accompanied with some playing of your instrument and a final recital which is 25-35 minutes! It can be a bit pressured but as well as having the opportunity to invite family and friends to see you perform it is also a great chance to go and hear all of your fellow students too. For my final recital I had to choose a variety of pieces – including at least one piece from the last 30 years. I played Handel’s Flute Sonata in B Minor, the first two movements from the Benjamin Godard, Suite de Trois Morceaux, Sylvia Eichenwald’s Recitativo and InTime from one of Claude Bolling’s Jazz suite for flute. The great thing about performance is it’s up to you to choose your own repertoire so you can be creative and really showcase what you’re capable of doing.

In third year you have to do at least one major project from performance, composition and dissertation. I did two as I did performance and dissertation. One of the things I have really loved about my course is the fact that after first year your choice of modules is completely up to you, so you can choose the areas you want to specialise in, or if you’re like me you can do a mix of everything, which I found really worked for me.

– to see an example of the modules on offer check out this page -http://www.city.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/music#course-detail=1

All in all our course really lets you discover who you are as a musician. When I started my course three years ago I thought I had a pretty good idea of the sorts of things I was into musically but now three years on two weeks before my graduation I realise how much that has changed! My eyes have been opened to so many new types of music, ways of playing and studying, and just completely developed me as a musician and a person!