Well, having flirted with fame at the beginning of the week, I was due to leave for Isle of Wight Festival on the Friday. However, this didn't quite happen.
Friday afternoon happened to be the time set for my first A Level exam, A2 Music Technology. I won't lie to you, it was horrible. These papers are usually pretty simple, a walk in the park even. Apparently they chose this year to change things up a little bit.
The thing about the music tech specification is that it doesn't tell you EXACTLY what can come up for the 16 mark essay topics. It just says "History of Music Technology". That could be anything from how synthesisers work to the Nyquist theorem to the ins-and-outs of how A/D converters work. This means that teachers have to guess which topics are actually examinable. My teachers guessed wrong. They asked us about the history of reverb or how microphones work. That was a horrible panic moment in the exam. I had a rough idea of what to write, but having not covered it, confidence levels plummeted.
Then there was also this section where you had to note down the levels of certain MIDI parameters that had been programmed by the exam board. Luckily, us candi students had these BLOCKED on our exam logins on the Macs, so we couldn't actually answer the question properly. We mentioned it to invigilators for them to tell us we aren't allowed any help. Great.
All in all, it was a horrible exam when it was actually supposed to be a really nice way to start the exam period. No. I need an A from Music Technology to take up my place at the University of Surrey in September. Looks like I'm taking a gap year!
After that disaster and change in life plans, I really didn't feel like departing for the Isle of Wight festival. Luckily, my cousin was on hand to take the tickets so they didn't go to waste. Otherwise I would have worn the wristbands as glorified bracelets, but you know. It's not the same.
The other exams weren't as bad as music technology, just so you know.
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