My name is Tim McVicar and I am studying Music at Newcastle University.
I did Performing Arts for A-Level, but I don’t have any grades at all, as I am completely self taught. I thought this would be a problem, but I told them in my interview, and it has turned out fine! When I went to my interview I was told that the course is quite classically based, which at first I wasn’t sure about but now I am really enjoying learning and studying aspects of music which I probably wouldn’t have studied otherwise. When you reach the second year you get to choose what you want to do on your course, so it really will end up being the course that suits me down to the ground. The tutors are all not only dead clever, but they are really supportive too, and the lectures are also very interesting and engaging.
I play bass guitar mainly, also a bit of drums and clarinet. I am into almost all types of music, but mainly funk, soul and jazz at the moment. I have been playing in a band called Man Bites Dog for a couple of years now, and we are hoping that moving to Newcastle will mean that we can get more gigs and more experience. I have joined the Salsa band at University as well as the choir; there is something every night to get involved in.
I live in a shared house with 6 other people. My room is very spacious, the kitchen is nice and I get on with all my housemates really well.
Newcastle is an amazing city; there is live music on somewhere every night; with venues like The Sage and the Metro Arena as well as hundreds of pubs and small nights that are a bit like Plug and Play in Penrith. I’ll give anything a listen but at the moment I am mainly going to see a lot of funk and jazz – you can’t really go wrong with lovely live funk!
I would highly recommend Newcastle as an amazing place to come and study, especially if you think that you will find yourself pining after the lush green countryside of Cumbria, as Newcastle is a very green city and the fells are still almost on your doorstep. It’s exciting, vibrant, full of lovely and interesting people and almost always tropical in climate!*
*Climate may differ at time of arrival
A day in the life of Tim Mcvicar:
Drag myself out of bed at around 10am
Get to uni for 11, for first lecture of the day, which is History Of Music
1pm; leave lecture, get some food, back into uni for 2pm
Performance Studies: Playing music with a group of 9 other musicians for 2 hours!
4pm – home time; go home, get some food, off to Salsa band at 7pm
8pm – off out into town/to the cinema/to a gig
?pm/am – bedtime!
UPDATE MAY 08
I’ve been at Newcastle University for 7 months now and will be finished my first year on the 6th June. I’ve settled in now and met a myriad of brilliant and interesting people.
Now that I have got to know the city better, I know the best places to go for music, theatre, art, food, drinks and general fun. There are plenty of places for each of these, and various open mic nights which I will soon be participating in once I get my band sorted. Being at university has become helpful for my band too, as not only can we play with other musicians and widen our sound, but we can also take advantage of all the brilliant practice and recording facilities for free.
The course has got better and better as the year has gone on. My favourite module so far has been Performance Studies; where I was put into a group with 8 other musicians and asked to create a piece from scratch. This was very interesting because most of the people in the group, although they had a better and more detailed knowledge of theory than I did, they lacked the experience of creating as a group, something I have plenty of! That’s the great thing about the course – everybody comes from a different musical background and everybody can learn from each other and improve. I feel that I’ve become a much more confident musician since I started here.
Me and a friend are starting our own night soon, which is exciting; living in the city gives you the scope to do such things and being on a music course here helps too, as venue owners assume that you’ll know what you’re doing.
My 1st year finishes on 6th June, and then I will be moving into a house of my own, with 3 friends. This will be brilliant, as although my halls are really nice, it will be exciting to have the freedom and independence that living in your own house affords.