William Howard School, Brampton
I play guitar. I haven't done any practical exams but I have passed Grade 5 theory. I like theory!
I did music A level, but not GCSE. I got a C. I took music at A level because I had been playing guitar for a while and I decided I would like a career based on music. It was a very classically based course and at the time I wasn't interested in classical music, so I found it quite a rigid course. If I did it now it would be different! I couldn't read music very well, so I learned quickly! You were expected to know about the history of classical music already so that made it difficult. It didn't include things like improvisation and other genres including blues, jazz, except for a bit of listening.
I left after 6th form. All of the teachers encourage you to go to university, they give you lots of information, but I decided to take a gap year. I started working at the bakery in Alston, started driving and got a lot of work with my band, Sods Law. The band goes through phases - at the moment it is good because everyone is doing their own things but the band still comes together to rehearse and perform.
I
left school in 2005. At the moment I have decided not to go to college.
What do you think you might have missed by not going to college?
I don't know really. You get to play with a lot of other musicians. I can't think of anything they could show me that I am not trying to learn now. I am trying my best to learn as much as I can on my own. I have practised all my scales and modes in every key, jazz chord voicings, arpeggios, technique, jazz chord substitutions.
Where do you learn these?
At home on the internet - Wikipedia, sites......
So you are very motivated! How many hours do you play a week?
Probably 25 if you include band practices. I have found teaching guitar to be very helpful as I have to have the right technique if I am teaching someone else, and I need to know what I am talking about. For example, I have one pupil who plays with his fingers, so I have gone away and worked on my fingerpicking technique.
I have decided to concentrate purely on music. I have 8 guitar pupils, I work for BlueJam and SoundWave and want to develop a solo playing career playing classical guitar. I have recorded a CD of classical guitar pieces with some jazz and Spanish tracks. I am going to do a press release, write a formal letter and send it with a copy of the CD to hotels and restaurants to try and get function gigs.
At college you would have been surrounded by excellent musicians and learnt from them as well as the lecturers. Do you think you get enough stimulus like that?
There are a lot of musicians in Alston who are excellent players, but not really anyone I've met who is as theory-based as I am. It would be useful to meet other musicians who were as interested in the theory of music as I am and be able to learn from them.
UPDATE MAY 08
My myspace address is www.myspace.com/tommacmillanclassicalguitar, and sods law's is www.myspace.com/sodslawmusic
These are some of the sites I use for my music-
http://dirk.meineke.free.fr/ - this site is called "Dirk's GuitarPage". It has a lot of classical guitar transcriptions, and includes both the notes and the guitar tab.
http://wikipedia.org/ -Wikipedia has vasts amounts of info on modes, harmony, and music theory in general.
http://www.jazzguitar.be/jazzguitar_lessons.html - this site is great for learning jazz guitar. However, I think a basic theory knowledge is possibly required first.
http://www.power-tab.net/guitar.php - powertab is a program that you can download for free from the net. It gives you the sheet music for a particular song, and you can hear what the piece sounds like. You can also write your own compositions. Most popular music has a powertab file - you just need to type in to google "sweet home alabama powertab", for example. Then just download the powertab file, and open it. 