Aim: To Perform an adequate DJ set mixing tracks together of a certain genre. To please the audience.

objectives: Using music technology equipment I must successfully beat match each song to one another to create the affect of seamless mixing. Choosing the right type of music after the other is an important task in achieving the latter whilst pleasing the audience.

I was offered a set by Sean Catchpol (Vermin), a renowned UK Dubstep DJ. The night was held at, The Strand, Bude, United Kingdom on July 16th 2010. I was exited when I was given this opportunity because gig’s like these are what I aspire to do on a full time basis. I was offered £60 plus travel fees. The gig being so far away also works to my advantage because I need experience within travelling, as successful DJ’s usually travel across the UK and sometimes abroad when in demand.
I was chosen to DJ for 3 hours because of my production skills. My compositions are in demand by the Dubstep scene. It is vital that I get sets because of being in demand not just from networking. Composing music that will be in demand will push my DJ’ing career forward.
The above screenshot shows how the event was advertized. It shows the dates and destination along with the DJ’s taking place within the description. My DJ name is DJ Gnome so they included this alias within the description. At first I wondered why there was not much promotion of the night. If I was hosting, I would of printed flyers etc but on arrival I realized they did not need to promote the night professionally because so many people in Cornwall favor Dubstep but have nowhere to go to listen to the music. So, when these nights are on the customers flock to the venue.
The night was a success, and I even recorded my set for future reference. It is important I recognize any faults and learn during the experience. I am proud of how well I did and how many people were entertained and chose to dance when I was playing.

Key experience gained

• The importance of good monitoring of the music to enable me to mix music accurately.
• How to read the audience and play music to suit there needs.
• How to plan travel and get to the venue’s on time
• The importance of bringing back up music apart from the music you have chose to play in order to give the audience what they want.
• How to use industry standard mixing hardware (Pioneer CDJ’s).
• Learned how volume is affected by the noise of the crowd and the venue playing at.
• How to co-operate with other DJ’s when changing sets.

Conclusion

This experience was a key moment within my progression. This gig has landed me my first resident spot as they have asked for me to come back every month. This will promote me to the other DJs and hopefully build up my contacts which in turn could lead to more frequent gigs. Out of all the diverse work I have experienced nothing has compared to this opportunity. I finally have my feet on the first step of my dream career.

Hours worked: 3 Hours

Stewarding for jeremy's Symposium Project

Aim: To aid in the movement of equipment, safety of the performance space and organisation of the audience.

Objectives: Overlook the performance to insure everything goes according to plan. We need to monitor the doorways and floors for object obstruction and understand what to do in case of a fire or other hazard, e.g. disabled people last out within a fire evacuation as they could cause obstruction. We also need to monitor the audience and help with any problems they may encounter. Recording the performance was also one of our objectives.

The 1st year of my course has come to an end. All the hard working has payed off with good results. I have managed to organize myself and keep a working routine. Now there is time for rest and summer fun but I don't want to have too much fun and slip out of my working pace. Jeremy (Lecturer) has helped me and other students stay on track by asking if we were interested in some work experience for his Symposium project.

Jeremy needed a few students to Steward for his project held at the Dartington College of Arts on the 21st of July 2010. The speakers attending were diverse and had a variety of skills and knowledge to share with the audience. The symposium started at 10am and ended at 4am. Jeremy asked for the stewards to be at the working space for 8am to help set up the technical equipment and to be trained within the health and safety involved within the job role of stewarding.

The training was very useful as we could apply what we had learnt to other jobs in the future. We learnt what was in order if there was a fire. Evacuating people from the building, The difference between fire extinguishers and what to do in case of an accident. We also were trained to spot obstructions and how to deal with problems that could potentially make a fire evacuation harder or unsafe to deal with. These skills will always come in handy within any type of performance.

The image above shows roughly what we our jobs involved within the workplace and the names of the different speakers we got to meet. The microphone roving was quite interesting as some people were shy to speak on the microphone within the audience. The moving of the equipment before the speeches was very basic. I enjoyed the role of doorman, greeting the guests and speakers. Each guest had to sign in using a simple form at the entrance to the building. The best part of the experience for me was using the camera to film. Jeremy specifically asked that we paused the camera after each speech to limit the need for editing. Using the camera was interesting because i learnt how panning the camera helped keep view of the speakers whilst they were walking around the stage.

Overall i enjoyed the whole experience. I gained some valuable skills within stewarding and also got to learn about different projects going on within Devon. There was lots of information on a variety of different subjects ranging from Arts to the awareness of disabilities such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism etc. I would like to find some more work within stewarding as it could potentially be a career to look into within the future.

Hours worked: 8 hours