Week 1 - The beginning of the final chapter

Hello everyone!

Thank you so much for choosing to click on my website and read my blog. As you might have seen already I'm going to be doing a weekly blog posts on what I've been up to, and this is the first. Incase you haven't, I'm going to be doing two different kinds of posts every week. One will be articles on whatever I'm finding interesting within the industry, and the one will be weekly updates on what I've been up to that week, including any photos, videos, or audio.

So the first week of the final semester of uni is over. It’s a bitter-sweet feeling, this is the last stretch and I’ve worked so hard for the last few years, I can’t wait to get on with life after uni but I’ve had such a good time so far this year, it’ll be sad to finish studying and to not see some of my favourite people almost every day.

When I had originally planned my project I didn’t take into consideration what was coming. At the beginning of January I had a laparoscopy, which meant that I was pretty much housebound and very tired for the best part of two weeks. (It went really well and needed to be done for a really long time. Honestly, if you feel like something’s wrong with your body, trust yourself and go to the doctors! You know best, always remember that).

However, this meant that a lot of the work that I was planning to do over the christmas break was delayed, but I’m now back in Leeds and trying to get back into the full swing of it as I have a lot of work to do I’m planning on doing this semester.

The stress of third year is well and truly here, it’s really hit home this week. Everything counts. Everything counts so much. I’m trying to be as prepared and organised as early as I can and to be able to work hard consistently. So this week I was planning to write some songs that I was happy with, start working with ALLORA and post both my first blog post and first article.

I only came back to Leeds on the monday of last week, after 4 days in Amsterdam, which was super fun, but it meant that I missed my first studio lesson of this year, but it was only an introductory one so it was quite easy to catch up on.

I tried to get back into songwriting last week. I started writing a few songs, both on my own and with some friends. I was struggling quite a bit to write on my own, even though I have lots of ideas, I like bouncing ideas off other people. I also doubt myself a lot, get frustrated and impatient because I can struggle to think of the right lyric or melody when I’m on my own. But I find songwriting much more fun when I’m writing with friends that I trust and that I’m comfortable around. I can’t wait to write and produce more songs with them.

I’ve got some songs in progress, nothing is recorded yet but hopefully I'll have something for you all next week. Everything’s very early stage at the moment. I’m currently trying to work on the lyrics and making the melodies better.

I didn’t manage to meet up with ALLORA last semester due to conflicting schedules and deadlines, which meant that the start of our marketing and promotion work has been delayed unfortunately. However, I met up with them on the Sunday last week and it was a very good meeting, they are super lovely and have such a clear direction, I’m super excited to work with them more. The meeting was really good, we discussed a lot and it’s given me lots to research to help build a good marketing and promotional campaign.

I’ve also spent a lot of time this week trying to build my website, which I’m then hoping to make cohesive with my social media channels, and starting my own social media marketing campaigns. It’s a work in progress, I’m also going to take pictures for it soon.

There’s lots going on next week, so check here next Monday to see what I’ve been up to!

Sabrina Hines