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BIMM stands for the brighton institute of modern music. this is a prestigious university, often attended by people who want to specialise in performance over production

as someone who wants to be in a band in the future, and as someone who is focusing on band work as a college project for this year, bimm seems suited to needs and wants from a university programme.

The entry requirements for bimm university, on the bass course is only 64 ucas points, however there is also an audition process that requires you to go through a plethora of technical skills, to show your ability both as a musician for your specific instrument.

at bimm, they teach technical musicianship, alongside songwriting, composing, arrangement and much more. they also have industry connections with national festivals, which would help you to reach that next level as a solo artist or as a band. bimm also teaches optional units, which can also help to further you as an artist. these are in a range of subjects, from the psychology of music, to lyricism and aesthetics.

bimm also does not offer any student accomodation, however due to being in a city centre, getting cheap student accomodation would be quite easy. BIMM is also in manchester, which could be considered a sort of cultural hub in the sense that there will be a lot of local live music venues, and opportunities with local venues for student nights, or for student bands to play in the local area.

overall, BIMM currently is my 1st choice for a uni, as i think it suits my interests and my desires for the future quite well. it would make me a better musician, performer, and it would help to further me into being both a muscian in hopefully a full time sense, whilst giving me enough scope in the industry to be able to branch out into side careers, to help me survive as a modern day musician.

side notes-

the BIMM lecturers are versed in a variety of styles, and they will push you to find your niche. as a musician in a relatively niche genre, this is perfect for me, as it will help

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over this time period i am going to strive to achieve at least 3 of these goals, aiming for more if manage to complete a full BIMM auditions. the starting 3 i will work on are

major and minor scales

major and minor pentatonic scales

slap bass technique

starting with major scales as my first goal

my next goal will be learning about pentatonic scales

i am doing this in order to achieve the entry requirements for BIMM, as i feel like these are a good core set of skills to develop as a newer bassist. coming from a prestigious, performance uni like BIMM, it also helps to set a sort of standard to which new bassists should achieve in order to reach that next level of your musicianship career.

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the major and minor scales are a sequence of notes, that divide up an octave. a major scale goes

W-W-H-W-W-W-H with W meaning a whole step, or two frets, and H meaning half, or the next fret down. major scales typically will sound quite happy and energetic

A minor scale goes

W-H-W-W-H-W-W. minor scales typically sound much more melancholic, or sadder.

for an example, if we start on A as our root note, or the first and final notes in the sequence to complete the octave, the scale will go

MJ- A-B-C sharp-D-E-F sharp-G sharp -A

whereas in minor, this will go

MN- A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A

in the minor, we remove the sharp from the third, sixth and seventh notes. the scale will change depending on the root, however the formula will always remain the same

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on bass, a whole step will be a two fret gap, so from first fret to third, and a half step will be a one fret gap, so first to second.

on a bass, a major scale starting on an E major scale will go (in standard tuning)

Open-2-4-5-7-8-11-12.

an e minor scale will be incredibly similar, however you just minus 1 from the third, sixth and seventh notes.

however, due to the length of the fretboard, it may be more beneficial to change to a higher string when playing a major or minor scale, as you wont be moving all the way down the freboard on one string.

in that scenario, the third note would move us up to the open A string, and then continue on from that string. this would change the sequence to

open-2-4-open A string- 2nd fret A-4th fret-first fret D string-second fret to finalise the octave.

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Bass Scales for Beginners (5 Stupidly Simple Steps)

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in the video, his actual description of a scale wasnt that useful, as i had researched this previously. however, he shows the hand shape to use to play an octave, and gives a lot of techniques for how to play an octave. this was quite a useful resource from this video, as it shows me how to actually play the octave, rather than just relying on theory knowledge in order to play this.

another useful tip this video gives is showing you songs that actually use these scales, as it helps you to mentally paint a picture of how these scales could be used in your own compositional works.

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weeks 1-2, researching scales and learning about how to use them in a theory sense.

weeks 3-4, learning the practical playing skills neccessary, and being able to apply that across the fretboard

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The university of Derby is a university with specific faculties for the creative arts, with music production and performance having specialised studios and rooms built for music. they have rooms for anything, and everything including synths, 7.1 audio, and 360 band recordings.

as someone who would like to swap over to performance in the future, derby uni is not a bad choice. they teach many units, such as industry, spatial audio, and innovations in modern music. they also, as previously mentioned, have lots of specialised rooms and studios to practice and refine these skills.

the entry requirement for the popular music course at derby, is a CCC, or around 96 ucas points. this is signifigantly higher than BIMM, however there is no audition process, which is likely why they have higher standards in terms of grades.

in terms of accomodation, derby uni does have student halls that you can live in. and derby is somewhat of a musical centre also, so there will be a lot of night life and local acts on to enjoy off campus. one downside of derby however is its decently far from any major cities like birmingham, manchester or london.

overall, currently derby is my third choice of unis. whilst i think the facilities are great, the course doesnt have the specificity to cater to what i want to do and work on, so i feel like it might not be the best choice. although, if i do want to go onto production, it seems like a good choice, as the facilities are amazing.

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Link to video of me playing various scales

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Link to video of me playing various scales

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i think overall i have achieved what i was hoping for the first 4 weeks of this assignment. i can play a major or minor scale anywhere on the fretboard, with relative ease. however, admittedly i think i did not approach this with the mindset of working every week, and instead sort of rushed it toward the end of the first deadline. this lead to me achieving the things i wanted to, however i could have used the time more effectively and possibly couldve learnt pentatonic scales too. for the next weeks, i will endevour to learn more proactively, and will hopefully be able to develop pentatonic scales over the first week or two, and then move on to developing my slap bass technique afterwards. i also think my writeup of this is not as good as it could be, so over the remainder of the week, i will be endevouring to improve my write up, as well as provide some research into job positions, as i have no research currently.

things that went well-

completed the section

plenty of research

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I unfortunately cannot put the videos of me playing these scales on the padlet, however I will submit these seperately.

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some of my short term goals are-

improving my technical skill and my knowledge of bass and sound design, as these are the two main skills i will need for my aspirations moving forwards

creating a university application, so if i do want to go onto a university course, i can do this, this year. however, i am thinking about possibly taking a gap year.

working on my own working skills, such as focus and trying not to procrastinate. with some self reflection, i have realised i do this quite regularly, so i am hoping to break these habits now, rather than later.

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some of my medium term goals are-

getting into university on a sound design degree, so i can go out and use top of the line foley studios and develop those industry connections neccessary for a sound design career

start developing my own home studio, with a good speaker system, DAW, mics and lots of foley equipment to use in projects

developing my band project to the point where we can confidently go public, and start gigging in the stoke local area, and perhaps beyond that

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some of my long term goals are-

persuing a successful band project, and getting to a point where i can hopefully be making good money from that

having a career in the sound design industry working with big games design companies, as either a member of their main sound design team, or as a freelance composer.

developing my sound design skills to the point where i can confidently find work in the industry, and having my own home set up to do this

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for this skills audit, i would like to focus on the bass playing side of my personal development.

in terms of my strengths, i think i have a strong foundation in terms of actually playing the instrument, and my fret movement is good. i am also able to identify the notes based on tuning and the frets adjacent to them respectfully. although this comes easiest to me in E standard, as that is what i learnt the fretboard in.

in terms of improvements, i really need to improve my theory side of my playing. i do not know scales, or any theory really, as i never spent time learning theory whilst starting off, instead opting to a ''learning as i go'' approach to this. this has lead to me not carrying many quintissential skills you may need for a band project, such as being unable to really write progressions. i also am only really in the finger style technique at playing, meaning in some more fast paced genres, like metal, i do not have the neccessary speed. likewise, for genres like jazz, i cannot recreate the sound the slap bass technique would give you.

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how a development plan will help with these

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how a development plan will help with these

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a development plan will help me with these goals, mainly in the short term, for a few reasons. i am going to break these down into bass and sound design skills.

BASS-

doing a development plan on bass will help me refine these theory skills, so i can improve both technically and improve my theory work. doing bass as a part of my development plan will also give me chance to experiment with

SOUND DESIGN-