The Secret Plan
What should you do if everyone thinks you are an oblivious dreamer totally disconnected from reality? First of all, stop telling the world about your plans, develop a proper strategy, make a list of things you need to accomplish, and start from point A.
In this series of articles I will share my experience of moving to England in order to start a professional music career, which has always been my dream. I will discuss all the difficulties that young musicians face and share my opinion on how hard it is to adapt to the local music industry if you are a foreigner. This is a story about my exciting journey from a nice-looking girl with a guitar singing songs in weird English to an actual artist with a progressing career who has been performing at the most popular festivals in England.
Nevertheless, it all started with a secret plan that no soul knew about.
Rock-Vector, N5 (25) 09.02.2016
Let me tell you a story about how I convinced all my family that it was absolutely essential for me to go to England, where I was planning to become an incredible solicitor who would fight for human rights until the very end. I am sure if they knew my actual plan, this story would not really be continued.
In September 2014 I moved to the very vibrant and beautiful Bristol, where, as agreed, I started my Masters in Law at the University of Bristol. However, on the very first day after my introductory lectures I went to my very first open mic; an event where anyone can take the stage and sing a few songs in front of the audience. Bristol is the second music capital of the country with a number of open mics hosted within a week which vastly exceeds the number of open mics in Moscow hosted in a whole month. And regardless of the fact that I have been really enjoying jurisprudence, my real dream has always been to become a professional musician.
Music has been in my life since I was a little kid. I could start singing at any time and absolutely anywhere, to the embarrassment of my mum. When I turned seven, I started going to music school, and by the time I turned ten, I had been winning lots of piano competitions in Moscow. Up to fourteen I would only listen to classics, and at the age of fifteen, I was jumping on the stage singing songs of Avril Lavigne and representing my secondary school at a singing contest. I am still suspicious of how we managed to win! When the time to choose university came, I suddenly started thinking of moving abroad. Between doing Avril’s covers, singing at festivals in Germany, and practicing etudes by Czerny before my final examination at music school, I wrote a couple of songs. They were all typically dramatic, as could be expected from a teenager, a bit silly, and written in English. No matter how hard I tried, I could not write poetry in Russian; rhyming the words and keeping the meaning in the lyrics seemed too hard of a task. I bet I had the same difficulties in my English versions, but when you are sixteen the fine points of a foreign language are not that easy to catch. Slowly I started learning the ropes of the art of composition and poetry. However, I am not very eager to show you my first hits with such vivid titles as “What’s Wrong With You?” and “Mistake Of Youth”. I was getting more and more obsessed with English speaking artists, and developed a dislike for the Russian pop scene. Therefore, by the time I graduated from the secondary school, a very persistent idea had been occupying my mind: Mother Russia was a great powerful country, but I would never have the career of my dreams if I stuck around.
I was underage when I graduated and had to stay in Moscow regardless of my expectations – my parents strictly refused to let their delusional child go abroad without any supervision. All my arguments were rejected, shouting ignored, and here I was – a fresher of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO – University) studying international law with some mysterious inclination on energy policy and diplomacy. You might want to ask how I ended up there? Thanks to the great method of exclusion of all the subjects like Algebra and Chemistry with which I shared a mutual hostility. I was not very eager to go to a music conservatory, and my family was not fond of me going to other music institutions.
My first university gave me three important things: a really good grasp of English, a strong character, and some time to think. Those four years of studying shaped me into the person I am today, and helped me to realise exactly what my heart so badly desired and what I would need to make it reality. During that time I managed to accomplish lots of things: I travelled quite a lot, I got some life and music experience, I imagined myself as the next Emma Watson, got completely disappointed in the law field I had chosen, and learned how to play the guitar via YouTube. As always full of illusions, I started working on my glorious plan for world music domination. In a nutshell, the plan had a lot of stages which had to meet certain requirements:
My parents could not have a heart attack once they heard the details of my strategy during the family gathering;
I must not die from starvation in the attempt to pursue my dreams;
If all else fails, I must have a plan B, and that plan must be good enough, so at least I could set my mind on doing something new.
Bristol turned out to be an ideal place for the realisation of my evil plan. They say you cannot get everything at once. However, at that point it seemed that I was an exception to the rule. I enjoyed my new commercial law course to which I transferred from the human rights programme. I admired the new artsy atmosphere I was surrounded by, in which my own craft turned from just a hobby into an inseparable part of my personality. The transition went easy and caused no pain: I had been living exactly the way I always wanted to and I was doing things I always dreamt about. I had not felt so free and in the right place for a very long time. Very slowly, with lots of mistakes and embarrassing moments, I started building up my professional career in music. From a nice looking girl with a guitar, whose lyrics you could barely understand, I turned into a true artist with a defined music genre and good prospects for the future. Bristol is an incredible place for creative experiments. In contrast to London, it is not consuming young musicians who are just starting their careers, but gives enough space for their development. During my first year in England I was in for lots of learning and lots of reevaluation. Stay tuned for more details in the next issue.
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