h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just been on your site and I like your moosic. Very listenable to.

I've been slacking a bit on the recording front - spending too much time with the acoustic stuff, though that's really no bad thing - I'm getting into proper songwriting again. And banjo perversity.

I'm writing songs for my music qualifications at the moment, just finished one that was for a special occasion. Waiting for my next assignment, can hardly wait. And I like accousticcy stuff. And the perversity. Its all good.

Ah, three months in and your fitting in nicely! What music qualifications are you doing?

I'm still studying for my B.perv hons in m musical arrangement can't wait to get the old PC up and going in the office with teh recording software on it I've not re orded nought for about five years

I'm doing GCSE music and got my assignment today: to write a popular song with a vocal tag in the chorus.

I'm also studying towards doing my grade 4 flute exam at easter.

You can do a B. Perv (hons) in music? Where can I study towards my B. Perv (hons)? I've aspired to having one for aaaages!

To get a B.Perv (hons) you have to demonstrate pervesity to RF. This is probably best done in the safety of his PS. U232535 Just ask him for a B.Perv (hons) and I'm sure he'll be along for the exam. Ahem.

This is Bovril King's exam: F131637?thread=1925754 I was somewhat shocked.

As music GCSE assignments go that sounds like a good one! I passed mine through balls rather than talent. Two of us played an AC/DC song (Livewire if I remember correctly). My mate played bass & the bass drum, I played guitar & the hi-hat. We both sang. Badly. It must have been the audacity that got us the pass!

What do they mean by a 'vocal tag'?

I hated music exams - got to piano grade 5 before my guitar said 'Oi, knock that on the head and rock out, baby!' Having said that, the musical grounding you get going through the grades is invaluable, and flute's a pretty cool instrument (whistfully thinks of Ozric Tentacles at Glastonbury '93 & feels very old). How did you do at grade 3?

I got a merit at grade 3 I think, I skipped out on grade 2, and I got a merit at grade 1. I would have taken my grade 4 before but I got tonsilitis. And then my flute teacher changed and was reluctant to let me do an exam until he was used to me, so I had to wait over a year before he would let me even think about it.

A vocal tag is a line or phrase that repeats and gets stuck in people's heads.

Hmmm. Asking GCSE students to write a vocal line that gets stuck in people's heads? Bit of a tall order that - if it wasn't, we'd all be doing it! (and probably writing songs for Girls Aloud & Westlife instead of strumming guitars in our bedrooms/bedsits/flats/living rooms over a spliff and a lager).

Some people are going down the one word at the start of each line (like the beatles Help) and some are doing the james blunt style write one line and repeat ad infinitum for your chorus. I'm doing the second one, and writing a song about drugs cause everyone else in my group is writing about love.

Don't land yourself in any trouble...

Are you writing lyrics or the whole song? If you're writing the whole lot, which instrument are you writing it on? Or is it being written with pen & paper (which I could never do - I've never been able to express a 'groove' in manuscript)?