A day in the life of a music student

10am: 'Music Production' workshop 

To start the day, I had a three-hour workshop in the recording studio for my 'Music Production' module with lecturer Simon Paterson.

For this module, we have been tasked with working as a team to arrange, record and mix our own version of the song Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers.

This was our first workshop for this module, so we spent a lot of the time discussing our ideas for what we might do. In the last hour, we started playing through a rough version of the song in the recording studio. I am a singer, so I was miked up and tasked with singing the vocals in an original way, which was quite tricky but very fun! 

1pm: Portland Coffee and a walk around the lake 

After a long workshop I went to meet a group of my friends to get a drink from Portland Coffee. I got myself a lovely iced chai latte – much to the disappointment of my coffee loving friends!

We took our drinks on a walk around the lake, stopping for a selfie at the Trent Building. My favourite part of the walk is the stepping stones at the top of the lake by the waterfall, especially in the spring when there are loads of ducklings.

2pm: Dissertation tutorial 

Today I had a one-to-one check in with lecturer Hannah Robbins, who is my supervisor for my dissertation. We meet about once a fortnight and discuss any ideas I have been having and look over drafts for my chapters.

I have between 8,000 and 12,000 words to write about anything I want. I am writing about musical theatre for my dissertation which Hannah specialises in, meaning that she is very knowledgeable and passionate on the subject. This makes our meetings fun and engaging and I always leave with lots more ideas for what to write about next.

3pm: Library session in the Denis Arnold music library 

My favourite library to work in is the music library, because no matter what time of day, there will always be a seat and some peace and quiet for you.

I have a part-time job in this library some evenings too, which has been a great way to earn some money while being able to get on with my uni work!

However, today I wasn’t working so I took a seat with my laptop and MIDI keyboard and worked on my compositions. I am taking the third-year composition portfolio project, which means I have all year to come up with 15 minutes of original compositions. Currently, I am composing for the lobby shootout scene from The Matrix.

5.30pm: Artistic swimming training  

This year, I am the president of the artistic swimming team. I joined artistic swimming in my first year, having never done it before, and it has been such a great way to make friends.

Our session today consisted of 45 minutes of stamina (normal lengths of the pool and some artistic swimming specific skills), followed by 45 minutes of working on our routines for our upcoming regional competition.

7.30pm: Relax! 

I went back to my house, a short walk from campus, and made myself some well-deserved pasta for dinner.

Then me and my housemates had a chilled evening chatting and eating together and watching the newest episode of The Apprentice, to support the recent UoN grad who is on the show this year!