Tune in, tune out: finding my happy place at university through music

To work hard, you have to play hard. During my undergraduate studies, this mantra stuck with me like an earworm, thanks to positive encouragement I received from my academic tutors at Warwick. During this formative part of my life, I channelled my happy play into stepping into a portfolio career, where by day, I was a languages student, and by night, an emerging artist and singer-songwriter.

I have learnt to cope by channelling my rivers of emotion into music, my happy place. So far, I know I can always count on music and my relationship with it is stable. If I can’t find the words to express how I felt, I search for a song that frames or mirrors that moment or feeling. If I can’t find a song in my ever-growing playlist of Western pop, Bollywood and Latin mix, then I pick up my pen and journal, sit down at a piano and write my own song. Since graduating, I have needed music more than ever to navigate the identity shift from Warwick student to Warwick graduate.

In this article, I will be walking you through a couple of summer music workshops that helped me find creative closure to my chapter as a university student and harness hope for the next.

The first workshop I took part in was Bit’n’ Mix Music Production. It was led by a team of executive producers, musicians and academics at Coventry University, who walked us through the process of using DAWs.

I, always being a lyrics-first musician and hard-core Swiftie, played first with sound for a change. This was orchestrated through my chosen DAW, LogicPro. My track, Finding My Way reflects the journey of the fusion between British culture and Indian culture. It originated as a Western pop song and transformed into a Bollywood-style soundtrack, during the workshop.

The second workshop was based on songwriting, specifically lyric writing. It was run by an extremely talented local songwriter from the Midlands. By the end of the course, I found myself with a full folk/pop song Beat her Wings and Fly. This song plays around with the concept of a butterfly exploring the unknown, with the naivety and wonder youth brings, becoming entrapped in the challenges of new adulthood, and finally breaking free of resistance. The butterfly acts as a metaphor for my heart.

The Music Centre at Warwick has provided both fuel and refuge for my academic mind, allowing me to ultimately find my way, beat my wings and fly. Many people think of Warwick being purely academic, and though it is plentiful of academic treasures and intelligence, innovation lies at its core. Under the sea of books, research papers and innovations emerges a blooming lotus, Warwick Arts Centre, bringing light to everything.