My First Festival

In the middle of last week I received a message saying someone had dropped out and could I step in to perform at Kaya Music Festival on the weekend. Since it's been far too long since I last played live I jumped at the chance and after googling the festival and seeing how exciting it looked I realised just how great this opportunity was for me.

I absolutely loved performing at Kaya Festival and would do it again in a heartbeat. The people there were all fantastic, interesting and kind people and a few of them even came up to me after my set to tell me how much they enjoyed it which is honestly one of my favourite things in the world. My parents played paparazzi for the day and we got a few good photos out of it so I thought it might be nice to share them with you on here.

So here are the photos from the first music festival I played at, lets hope there are many more photos of me in a flower crown playing festivals in the future!

All That I Needed

Two years ago I made a video to a song I'd written about leaving school with a collection of videos and photos from over my five years in that school. The two years since that video have quite honestly been the best two years of my life and I decided to do exactly the same to remember this time.

In two years I have met the most incredible people I could ever wish to meet and I now find it difficult to remember what it was like before I knew them. I have felt more at home with them than I ever thought possible and even the thought of having known them for as little as two years is crazy to me. I wrote a blog post recently about how I think my time in sixth form will quite possibly be 'the good old days' for me and what better way to remember the good old days than having a video like this to look back on. 

While I'm a massive fan of taking photos to capture moments, there's something special about videos.  They give a far better sense of what that moment was really like and I find when I watch videos that I'm in or I've taken I often feel a far greater sense of nostalgia than I get from photos. I also find that, as a songwriter, my songs are like little time capsules and often when I hear them I can remember the exact emotion I felt writing it. Because of this, a song written by me combined with photos and videos of the incredible people the song was written about is something I know I will look back on for years to come.

On close inspection you may notice that the song is slightly bittersweet. I mention in it that I think I'm only able to fully appreciate how things are for me now because of having experienced the opposite. The title of the song is a reference to this in a way, as the people I've met in the last 2 years were exactly what I needed to show me that feeling miserable within friendships is not normal and it's not something I, or anyone else, should feel like they have to put up with. They are everything I could have ever hoped to have in terms of friends plus so much more. I honestly don't quite know what I did right to be able to call such wonderful people my friends, but I couldn't be happier that I do.

So friends, thank you so very much for the last two years, and for being all that I needed.

Lucy x

Why I Love Rusty Clanton's Music

A few years ago I stumbled across a video on YouTube by a guy called Rusty Clanton and thought 'wow, he's amazing and this song is beautiful' and didn't think much more of it. A few weeks later I found myself back on the same video and decided to subscribe. Today I listened to his new song 'Where Do I Belong' and realised just how much my appreciation for him has grown since then.

As a song writer, my ultimate aim is to be a musical story teller. I want my songs to share emotions and stories and I want to make people feel something through the words and melodies I write. Rusty Clanton does that so beautifully. One of the things I love the most about his songs is the way you can listen to it once and think how beautiful his voice is or how lovely the music itself is, and then the more you listen to it, and I mean really listen to the lyrics and try and think about what they mean, the more you pick up from it. Rusty tells stories in the most subtle, beautiful way and it's such a rare thing to find. 

There is something about his songs that feels so relatable. His songs, to borrow a metaphor from ThisBeDottie, are like blank screens to project your own situations on to. He draws the outline, you are the detail.

I know this post was a bit different, but I loved his new video more than a YouTube comment box could convey and needed to share why.

Rusty, if you're reading this, thank you. Thank you for being so talented, so committed to writing beautiful songs and for being such a good inspiration to fellow songwriters.

Lucy x

New Years Resolutions?

To start this blog post, I'd like to wish a very happy belated New Year to you all. I know I've been a little rubbish with posting on here recently but, as always, school and life and everything else has just got in the way a little. 

A new year always comes with thousands of blog posts and YouTube videos from people sharing their New Years Resolutions and since I've been struggling with ideas of what to write about recently (another contributing factor to my lack of blog posts), I thought it was a pretty good idea to steal. I've already written a similar post on my book blog about my reading resolutions which you can see here.

I've not set myself any specific resolutions this year, but I do have a couple of things that I'm going attempt to do in 2015. I know that if I call something a resolution and set it in stone I will probably never do it, so instead I've decided to have a few ideas that I'm going to try and pursue, without any pressure on myself to keep them going throughout the year. The reading resolutions in the other blog post are examples of this. I've decided to not put any emphasis on how much I read, but more putting emphasis on reading what I want to, not just things that I feel I should read.

I'm also going to try and worry less this year. This is an on-going aim of mine and anyone who knows me probably knows I can be quite an anxious person, although I am very slowly starting to manage the anxiety. Most days I find that I feel anxious or worried about something at some point and I'm going to try and find ways to prevent this throughout 2015. It may or may work, but it never hurts to try.

Another aim I have is something that may or may not stick, but I'm hoping it does. Inspired by Danny Gruff's #ontaw (one new tune a week) that he's doing this year, I'm going to attempt to write 50 songs in 2015. I wrote 46 songs last year so it's definitely an achievable goal but this year I'm going to attempt to share more of them on my YouTube channel. Normally I write a song and it stays in my little songwriting book and only gets heard by a few close friends but this year I want to share more. I love letting people hear my music and there isn't a reason I don't upload to YouTube more so I'm going to stop trying to make excuses and just do it. I've decided to aim for 50 songs in the year rather than one a week because I find I go through phases of writing something every day and then not writing for a while and that's absolutely okay. I don't want to force myself to write when it'd not the right time but I do want to encourage myself to finish things I start, which aiming for a certain number of songs in the year should do.

I've started off well with this one as I've written 2 songs in the first 9 days of 2015 and have uploaded one of the songs I wrote at the end of last year to YouTube and the feedback has been positive on it so far! You can watch it here if you think it might be your cup of tea or you're just interested.

Here's to a great 2015.

Lucy x

The Big Music Project And Musical Confidence

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you may have seen that I got a very exciting email earlier this week informing me that I have been selected for the semi finals of The Big Music Project competition and I felt like I just needed to write about it. This may become a bit rambly so feel free to grab a cuppa and get comfy.

When I first got the email I was excited. My immediate thoughts were 'the judges actually like me, this is crazy'. It then developed into excitement to perform for the judges later this month. That evening I went to a party and told a few of my closest friends and everyone was all very excited for me and I was reminded of how I'm surrounded by the loveliest, most supportive people I could ever wish for these days.

A few days after getting the email I decided to check the line up for the Cardiff semi final, the one I will be attending, and this was probably a bad idea. After watching a minute or so of all the other competitors I immediately felt intimidated. After seeing how incredible all the other people who I will be performing alongside are I couldn't help but feel inadequate. It is going to be little old me performing alongside people with much better voices and much more experience. Their melodies are more catchy and their lyrics are more coherent. I know that I should be thinking 'if the others are all incredible and you are put in the same category as them, that is a good thing' but I just can't make myself think like that for some reason. Immediately after watching the other videos I thought that there must've been a mistake. The email I got was probably intended for someone else. Then I reminded myself that I was listed and linked to on the line up too so it's unlikely that it's a mistake.

For as long as I've been writing songs I've been very aware of the fact I am not and will never be the best songwriter in the world, although I am still more confident with my songwriting than I am with my singing. Growing up, I was never a particularly good singer and, believe it or not, dance was more my thing. I was surrounded by some incredibly pessimistic people for a long time and if I ever decided to sing for a performance or later when I started uploading YouTube videos, they were never far away, ready to remind me of how incredibly average (or below average) my voice is. It's taken far more people encouraging me than ever told me I couldn't sing to make myself believe that actually this is maybe something I can do and I am okay at. I will never be Beyonce and I will never have a voice that is anything like hers, but I do have a voice like Lucy and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The problem is, no matter how many people compliment you, you're always going to remember the insults more. It's the insults that stick in your mind and rear their ugly heads when you find yourself searching for a source of confidence. I still have very vivid memories of people insulting me about music about 7 years ago and I can't remember a single compliment from that time. I'm aware that there probably were some, they just don't stay in my mind.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, last year I moved schools and was the new girl for the first time in my life. When I met new people, I didn't mention my music or YouTube channel as I had no idea how people would react but it didn't take long for my new friends to find it as I have it linked up to all of my social media sites. I was expecting a reaction like I had experienced in my old school, of 'why would you bother, nothing will ever come from it, you will never be famous' (they completely missed the point, clearly) but instead I was met with 'oh my goodness I had no idea you're a singer songwriter, you're amazing!'. Even teachers found out due to people talking to me about it during lessons and by the time we were a few months in it was not unusual for my Business Studies teacher and I to be sat around playing ukulele duets during lunchtimes. Even now, people are still excited by it and I have a friend who knows all the words to all the songs I have put on my YouTube channel and constantly asks me to upload more. I have another who helps me with any graphic design type things (you can thank her for the banner at the top of this blog!) and has offered to help me film some videos/take photos for anything I may need photos for. 

In addition to that, the last year for me has seen me attending a songwriting bootcamp run by the wonderful Amy Wadge (her brain combined with Ed Sheeran's produced the beautiful Thinking Out Loud). I worked with lots of other local musicians who were all incredibly talented and although I had so much fun and would go back in an instant, I felt intimidated by how good they all were on more than one occasion. One particular afternoon I was feeling incredibly intimidated and confided in the incredible musician I was working with when he asked why I sang quietly that I had been told so often that I can't sing that I often find it hard to sing loudly when other people are around. His wonderful words of encouragement (he is honestly one of the kindest people I have met in a very long time) definitely helped a little, as did the same from Amy Wadge, but those other voices remained in my head. Even support from other musicians I admire online (looking at you Dave Giles) hasn't silenced those voices, although they have certainly contributed to turning the volume down.

My point is, even though I'm surrounded by incredible people who are as supportive as is possible to be, those voices from my past are still in the back of my mind reminding me of how average I am. I'm not sure that they will ever go away. Slowly they are becoming quieter, but they are still there and they still make an appearance when I have a big event or am uploading a new YouTube video. Although I know it is probably a good thing to have faced criticism before I even really properly got into this whole music thing, it's still difficult and if I wasn't so stubborn and determined to prove them wrong, it would've been very easy for me to stop because of what they'd said. I considered giving up on YouTube a lot before last year. Although I now very rarely consider giving up, because the only opinions I hear are positive ones with the occasional piece of constructive feedback I can't help but wonder what the pessimists are thinking.

This slightly went off topic as late night blog posts often do but the point is still there. You could have hundreds of people complimenting you and all it takes is one insult to knock your confidence to the ground. I know now that the times I was told straight up that I can't sing were nothing more than them being mean because they could be, but that doesn't make them easy to forget.

Always make sure to be careful what you say to people. You never know what it is they will remember for years and once it has been said, it can't be unsaid.

Despite feeling intimidated and slightly inadequate, I am massively excited to be performing at the regional semi final of The Big Music Project. Even being able to say I am a semi finalist and one of 14 people they want to see there sort of blows my mind. 

If you are one of the people who has been supportive of me, there are no words to describe how grateful I am. Something as simple as saying 'I loved your latest YouTube video' may seem stupid and insignificant to you, but those comments whether online or in person absolutely make my day and it makes me more happy than I can say that I have been lucky enough to have encountered such lovely people.

Thank you so very much,

Lucy x

The It's Not Me, It's You Tour by Dave Giles

*This was written late last night - please ignore any grammar/spelling mistakes

Tonight I went to the Cardiff date of the It's Not Me, It's You tour with the lovely Dave Giles headlining and Danny Gruff, Robbie Coles and Matthias Harris all making appearances. I have seen Dave Giles live a grand total of 4 times (I learned tonight that I have attended all of the gigs he's played in Cardiff) and I would still go again tomorrow. Unfortunately, this is going to be Dave's last headlining tour due to it not being nearly as successful as it deserves to be and because of this I felt like I needed to share my opinion on it.

The gig itself was everything an intimate gig should be. The downstairs room of Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff,  while not full, had enough people for it to be a decent audience and the audience that was there were respectful of the artists while still knowing when to make a bit of noise. The four singers and Dave Giles' band were sat in the audience when they weren't on stage and then whole evening had a really relaxed atmosphere to it.

Matthias Harris, who kicked off the evening, is not someone who's music I was aware of before this evening. I can honestly say I was completely blown away by him straight away. He is far from your average singer-songwriter in that he takes to the stage armed not only with an acoustic guitar but also with a keyboard and section of an electric drum kit as well as a laptop to allow him to loop what he plays. He manages to make it sound like there is a full band on stage with him when in actual fact it is just him. Matthias Harris is truly an incredible musician and is obviously very talented at what he does.

Next up was Danny Gruff. I saw Danny Gruff live the last time I saw Dave Giles, at the most recent Upload Tour in Cardiff, so I was already aware of how talented he is but he did not disappoint tonight. It was great to hear him play with a full band rather than just hearing him and his acoustic guitar like it was the last time. Having bought his EP Saturday Nights, Sunday Mornings last time I was able to sing along to a few of the songs but it was nice to hear a few I wasn't familiar with as well. Danny Gruff has an incredibly unique voice that I believe is the kind of voice everyone enjoys listening to.

Robbie Coles followed Danny Gruff and as with Matthias Harris, I wasn't aware of Robbie or his music before tonight other than seeing him on the poster for the gig. I was definitely impressed with him. He has fantastic stage presence (although that may have been assisted by alcohol as it was his birthday and it's safe to say he was celebrating) and his songs are incredibly catchy. On the way home, I found I had one particular song of his in my head which is always a good sign. Robbie Coles is clearly a fantastic songwriter and performer and I would've happily watched him play a much longer set.

Finally we have Dave Giles. As any of you who have read my posts from the Upload Tour 2 or the Summer Warm Up Tour (2013) will know, Dave Giles is one of my favourite musicians for so many reasons. He is an incredible singer/songwriter and an incredibly skilled guitar player, but more than that he manages to build up an incredible relationship with fans of his while remaining professional. The first time I met him, friends of mine told him I had a YouTube channel and he told me to send him the link on Facebook which I did thinking nothing would come from it and he took the time to not only watch one of my videos but to comment and give me constructive advice alongside compliments. Since then, he has watched my cover of one of his songs and given me advice about music on Facebook on a few occasions. As I said to the friends I went to the gig with tonight, Dave Giles is what I hope I would be if I manage to pursue music as a career, not in terms of sound as my music is quite different to his, but in everything else. In his incredible organisational skills that allow these events to happen. In the way he manages to remember names and faces of fans and encourages them to do what they love to do, as he has with me. In his stage presence and the way he makes the audience feel that they are all friends of his, rather than complete strangers. 

I am absolutely gutted that more people don't see how incredible Dave Giles is and that he doesn't receive anywhere near as much recognition as he deserves. If you've not heard his music, please, please listen to it. Every song of his tells a story and his lyrics are beautiful. He honestly is a fantastic musician who has not only influenced me, but also encouraged me in what I do. I've never come across a musician like him and, from what I've seen, he honestly is a lovely person.

Dave, thank you.

Lucy x

Taking Photos at Live Performances

A few months back Carrie Hope Fletcher uploaded a video to YouTube titled 'Instagram Generation' in which she discusses taking photos during live performances. Since then, I've been thinking about it a lot and I've sort of developed a little policy for myself. I definitely fall into the category of wanting to document everything and I like having photos of things I've seen and done to look back on at a later date. That being said, I've decided that from now on when I go to a live event where it is appropriate to take photos, I'm going to follow my new little rule for myself. That rule is that I only take a few photos and once I have one that is instagramable for me to post on the way home, I stop. 

One of the reasons I like to take photos of things, besides for myself to look back on, is that I like to share what I've done through instagram or on this here blog. This little rule for myself allows me to do that but stops me from seeing the whole live performance through the screen, something I could very easily fall into the trap of doing (and definitely have done in the past).

Upload 3: Dave Giles, Danny Gruff, Luke Cutforth, Emma Blackery, Bribry and Candice

That being said, notice I said above 'when I go to a live event where it is appropriate to take photos'. I would never, under any circumstances, take a photo during a theatre performance. Having grown up performing in plays and musicals and going to see them I know all too well what the rules are for photography in theatres. It's pretty much, don't. Taking photos during a performance where people are acting can make it incredibly hard for them to stay in character and it just inconveniences everyone involved. The likelihood is that you will then have a member of the theatre staff come up to you and they will ask you to delete the photo (often for the copyright reasons Carrie mentions in her video) and it just creates a lot of unnecessary hassle. So please, don't take photos in the theatre.

If you're at an area or stadium gig and you love taking photos of things like this and are happy to experience it through a tiny screen, by all means take as many photos as you like. Flashes going off in this size audience will make no difference at all to the performers. However, if you're at a smaller, more intimate gig, try and be respectful. Why not try out my instagram rule? Take a few photos but only enough to know you've got something to share with the internet. As a musician myself, I can tell you that if I was to play a gig in a small venue and everyone in there was more focused on a screen infront of them and taking photos it would be incredibly off-putting. In smaller venues, the acts can see almost everyone in the audience and they want to see you and see if you're enjoying it or not. They don't want to see what camera or phone you have. However if the act is a relatively unknown one, seeing photos online after a gig can be amazing because it shows you enjoyed it. If you do take a few photos, don't be scared to share them on twitter or instagram, I'm sure the act will be grateful.

Evan Gardner and me. Photo taken by Young Promoters Network

Obviously my thoughts here only apply for the average person attending a live event. If you're particularly into photography and have permission from the performers to take photos it's a whole different story. My instagram rule only applies to the average person.

What do you think? Are you like me and you like to have at least one photo to share online or does that not bother you? Or do you disagree completely and think taking photos of live performances is fine regardless of the circumstances? Let me know in the comments.

Lucy x

Blogging

For some random and unknown reason it would appear that recently my blog has been on my mind a lot. It would appear that with a break from school which means a break from writing essays every week my idle hands have turned to my blog in search of somewhere to write. I've always enjoyed writing my blog. As I've said before, I think of it as my own little slice of the internet where I can write and post what I want. As I said in my 'Numbers' post a few weeks back I know that there are very few, if any, people who follow my blog or even read more than one post so there is really no pressure for what I write to be good which really helps.

I don't write things on my blog for it to gain attention from other people. I write it because I like to have a place to write and share my thoughts on anything I feel like I have thoughts worth sharing. If other people enjoy reading it, that's fantastic. But it's not my primary reason for writing. I tend to turn to my blog if I don't feel I can write a song about a subject which would explain why my ideas for blog posts have gone up considerably recently. I've not written a full song in weeks.

My blog is different to most of my other social networking type sites because of it being just as much for me as everyone else. My YouTube and Twitter are both primarily to try and get my music heard by more people and most of the others are primarily to link people to my YouTube channel. Although I do mention my music and my YouTube channel on here quite a lot, I would never sit down to write a blog post and think 'I'm going to include a link to my YouTube channel in this', it's more 'adding here that I have a YouTube channel makes my opinion easier to explain' or something similar.

Although I'm aware there aren't many eyes reading this right now, I would really love it if anyone who does read it could leave me a little comment below just letting me know you've read it. Tell me anything! Your name, where you're from, what you enjoy. Anything that you want to share that lets me know you're here. I'd love to hear from you.

Lucy x

If you do like what I write I have a few other blogs too! You can click on the banner here and it'll take you to them.

Dear Future Me

I've seen a few things like this (mainly YouTube videos) and I always think it's a good idea so I thought I'd give it a shot! I'd like to do more of these in the future but only when I feel like enough has changed for me to want to update my future self on it. Anyway, on to the actual content...

Dear Future Lucy,

You're 16 at the moment. The age when you're no longer a child but not yet an adult. Today is the 1st of September and you've chosen to leave behind the comprehensive school in your town where you never felt like you belonged for a private school in a city, a place you will go to for the first time as a student in 3 days. It is the school you wanted to go to in year 7 and your parents promised you could go for sixth form. You held them to that promise. A lot of thought went into the decision and although inside you're terrified because you've never been 'the new girl' before you're feeling VERY positive about it and can't wait to be back in school with your best friend after 5 years of being apart.

Books are something you seem to love more and more by the day. You've recently fallen in love with the Harry Potter stories (books, films, musicals, the lot!) and it currently means more to you than any other fictional story ever has before, more than you thought possible. You've recently got a kindle and although you thought you'd always chose a physical book over a digital one, that seems to change depending on your mood. You're also running two blogs consistently, both this one and a book one, and you love it, despite not having many people read what you write. You write it for you.

You've written a lot of songs in the summer that's just passed. Probably more than you have ever written in that amount of time before. Yes, a lot of them probably aren't very good and yes, 90% of them will probably never be put on the internet or played to people other than super close friends but you enjoyed writing them regardless. You're slowly getting better at guitar and ukulele, even if you don't practice flute or piano as much as you should. Your YouTube channel is slowly growing and you're now lucky enough to have 85 people see your face in their subscription box every time you upload a new video which is crazy.

Your cousins (currently aged 6 and 2) spent 6 weeks in the UK this summer from New Zealand. You spent more time with them than you normally do this time round which meant you got to know them more than in previous years. Although you loved spending time with them and love them so SO much it does mean that now they've gone back home you miss them even more.


You're pretty happy with life right now. Although there are days where you may feel like everything is rubbish you know that it's just something everyone feels from time to time and you know it will all be okay tomorrow. You're very aware of how lucky you are and you try very hard not to take it for granted. You're also feeling determined to work hard for the next 2 years no matter what it takes.

Lucy x

Music Mondays: Best Song Ever by One Direction REVIEW

Although the days in which I would identify myself as a 'One Direction fan' are behind me, I still can't quite summon the strength to unsubscribe to their YouTube channel or not click or not reblog the occasional adorable photo of them on tumblr. When I first heard their new song was called 'Best Song Ever' I have to admit, I was more than just skeptical. I couldn't see how they were going to pull this one out of the bag but I have to say, credit where credit is due, the song is unbelievably catchy and the music video is hilarious.

If you haven't seen the video yet you can click here to do so. I have to say, this is by far my favourite music video of theirs yet. I loved the fact they went a little out of their comfort zone and did pretty much turned the song into a comedy sketch and to see in the credits at the end that it was written by James Cordon and Ben Winston just made so much sense to me. Them joining forces with One Direction for a music video has to be a fantastic move for both and it really did make the music video stand out from the others the boys have made.

As for the song it's self, it's definitely a grower. The first time I heard it I thought it was okay but could be better and then before I knew it I'd be wandering round the house singing it under my breath.

I may not be a die-hard fan like some of those directioners out there but I do appreciate them as musicians and to me, that's the most important thing. The new song and video are great and I wish people who don't like them watch it because I honestly think it might sway them a little if they just gave it a chance.

Lucy x