Musician & Independent Label MD
I was fortunate enough to enroll on the popular music course a few weeks before it started following the breaking up of my previous band. The course interested me because unlike other music courses it offered a wide range of challenges and deep insight into all aspects of the industry.
It became apparent early on that my main focus for the course was to learn as much as possible about music as a business, not only from a musicians point of view but as I had aspirations of working in a label - spending much of my time researching into their various practices and developing a knowledge of contractual agreements and the threats posed to a musicians creativity by conglomerate major labels.
The social science aspect of the course also became increasingly important to my degree, I became fascinated with the ways in which particular genres have formed through various occurrences and how members of these subcultures have made such an impact on mainstream society.
Throughout the course I have also taken the opportunity to develop my own performance skills and hone a song-writing skill that I feel has benefited from a strong supportive network of student musicians.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the pop music lecturers at Pittville for their continued support and for making me realise that the career I’ve dreamed of could be just around the corner.
Jim has since released his debut album “Atlases” which was produced by Grammy-nominated engineer James Towler and released on his own label, istartedthefire Records.
Jim Lockey on MySpace