A day in the life of an ACM Guitar Degree Student

I start bright and early today with a 9am lecture in the main Music Week lecture theatre. This morning’s lecture is for the Music Industry Overview module and focused on the music industry and digital platforms. This is a subject I find really interesting, as I’m a keen user of the internet to showcase my music. We spent the lecture identifying how the music industry has adopted the internet and mobile phones to showcase artists and distribute music.

This information will be really useful for my end of term essay for this module, as I am planning on writing about the different types of music retail and distribution.

After the two hour lecture, I make my way to one of ACM’s practice rooms (all the rooms are packed out today – it looks like everyone is really keen to get to get as much practice time in as possible!) The way I approach my personal practice is by spending a little time each day on each aspect of my playing. I’d rather do this than do a long session once a week that incorporates everything, but I guess it’s all down to personal preference.

First thing I always try and run through is my sight reading work, as it’s a big aspect of guitar playing, and being able to read can get you a lot of work as a player. I like to read a new song every day. I only spend about half an hour on the piece, but in that time, I try to read it in a position on the guitar that I know best, usually around the 5th fret, and then I would try to read the same piece, but in an area of the neck that I am unfamiliar with, usually higher up, around the 9th fret. After sight reading, I go through some scales and chords that I have difficulty playing. I like to tackle things I can’t play or have difficulty executing to push myself to become better. I don’t want to get complacent and only ever practice the things I can already do well! I go through everything firstly on my own, then with a metronome and then I will play over a selection of tracks so I can put what I have practiced into a musical context.

After practice, I grab some lunch and then meet up with my band mates to do some songwriting. This can last 5 to 6 hours, or 5 to 6 minutes – it just depends how inspired we are all feeling! If the inspiration is flowing then we can get a lot of stuff down on paper, but we don’t like to force it – we don’t want the final result to be an average song! My approach to song writing is by layering. I like to get an idea, something like a chord progression or a lead guitar hook, and then build on it. We then record the idea, program drums around it, get a bass line and then finish by getting the structure of the song down. Then we work on the vocal line or lyrics. When I am writing I like to incorporate things I have been learning in lessons, such as new chords and melodic phrases built around new scales.

I’d normally have a break at this time of day, but today I’ve booked a place on a guitar masterclass with blues guitarist Stephen Dale Petit. I have to be honest and say that I didn’t know that much about him, but he has worked with loads of the amazing musicians such as Robert King, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Dave Gilmour. It was a really interesting class as he gave us a comprehensive history of the blues, as well as giving us lots examples of blues playing in contemporary music. It was also really good to see him give some demonstrations of his blues playing and you could see he was so passionate about it.

I finish off the day by making my way over across town to Haydon Place, another ACM building with lots of additional practice space. We’ve got one of the practice rooms booked out for band rehearsals. The covers band I’m in is off on a tour of the Alps soon, so we’re running through our set list. Band rehearsals are a great to incorporate everything you learn as a musician and it’s a great way to let off steam too! I also play in an originals band, but when it comes to my covers band I like to work with my own guitar sounds and mess about with pedals and amps, so I can try and emulate the guitar sounds from the records we cover.

Adam Fawcett, ACM Guitar Degree