How To: Not Completely Ruin Your Life (#Wattys2015)

The Comfort Zone

The day had come for my "audition" at my new college which I assumed was only for the music students not the music technology kids because why would I need to audition showing you how to play a track using an intimidating piece of equipment? Naturally, I was more anxious than Taylor Swift collecting an award at the VMAs but that's only because I'm a total train wreck of emotions, this wasn't made any better by being taken into a big theatre with kids who had prepared performances with lyrics in hand and guitars in solid cases. Shit. I'm going to have to rap infront of all of these dancers and musicians who are clearly professionally trained and ride ponies every Wednesday evening around suburban England.

We were soon greeted by one of the dance teachers who told us we wouldn't die of embarrassment by performing infront of each other, instead we'd be separated into our course subjects and we'd audition die of embarrassment there. At this point I was still in denial about the whole audition thing.

We got to our music studio and we were set a task to mix down a country song our tutor had recorded. Basically, change the volume of individual instruments and change their harmonic content (the way they sound). After maybe 45 minutes of working on the track I was done and my tutor called me through for my "audition", I grabbed the CD from my bag with tracks I'd produced at my last college and loaded them up, he asked me a bunch of generic questions and listened to my tracks which were a mix of 1940's New York jazz and 90's hip hop. He approved.

After more small talk he asked me the (kind of) unexpected question "Are you ok to rap accapella for me?" Oh no. Please Lord no. "yeah sure let me just grab my phone" so I can call my mom and tell her this was the end and also remind her to tell people to cry at my funeral, I'm worth a tear it two. My tutor is possibly... No wait.. DEFINITELY the most socially awkward person to be walking the earth at this very moment, for some reason this made me feel completely normal and comfortable and dare I say it...confident. I pulled up a beat and adjusted the volume and rapped for him, I didn't worry or get short of breath I just did it and it felt amazing. To do something I've always wanted to do but always been too anxious about people judging or not liking what I put all my time and effort into, this was a milestone guys!

As I'm now several weeks into my college I have found myself outside of my comfort zone a bunch of times, being put into a band and being told we'll be assessed on how well our performance to 100 students goes. First of all, if you hadn't grasped performance is a no-no for me so 100 people with their eyes on me makes me shatter inside just thinking about it. Secondly, I can't play an instrument and to add salt to the wound I am the only member of my class unable to play an instrument, this is what most would consider to be vital in a band. I know what you're thinking "Just rap then!" well there isnt much rap involved in 1960's pop music which is what we had to focus on.

Guess who's started to learn how to play the piano? It's me idiot. Although I'm no where near the standard of my classmates I can proudly say I've stepped outside of my comfort zone to learn something which will eventually be an important part of my music career. Either that or I'll throw it out of the window once the year is done, you know, like in the cartoons.

Staying within your comfort zone of following the same routine everyday can make you feel safe and it really works for some people. For me, I like a challenge, I like to be spontaneous and say yes to most things (not like that) and just enjoy the adventure. Do I want a job that is stable and is long term? Yes. Do I want that to come in the way of my adventures? No. Can I have it both ways? I have no idea, but I'm gonna try!