Blogs, chatrooms and comment pages are the perfect cyberspace locations for those who wish to demean, harrass, and humiliate. OU philosopher Nigel Warburton (pictured) explores what we can or should do to control them on the Index on Censorship's Free Speech blog. 

A new Music course takes you through basic principles of harmony and form to enable you to compose your own songs. 

Inside Music (A224) will carry on the great tradition of Understanding Music (A214), but will differ in important ways. Students begin by learning some of the basic principles underlying music across a wide range of periods and cultures including Western classical, jazz, popular music and music from across the world. A new feature is creative song-writing, culminating in the writing of a complete song with instrumental accompaniment. 

Inside Music is a 60 point course starting in October 2011. Find out more about the course and hear an audio introduction here.

Find out about studying Music at the OU.

Find out about Music research at the OU.

Platform asked you, members of the OU community, to submit your questions to British painter and honorary graduate of The Open University Jack Vettriano. We received hundreds of questions and whittled them down to these. Here are his responses:

I know nothing about art... where do I start?
(submitted by Richard Harrison)
 
I’m assuming that you wish to find out about art and I cannot recommend anything more highly than visiting as many art galleries as possible – especially the national collections. By introducing yourself to as much work as possible, you’ll begin to awake your senses to what attracts your eye and you’ll home in on certain techniques or effects that you will want to try yourself. Make notes, go in your lunch breaks and don’t just limit yourself to the big national galleries, visit the collections in your local area. I spent hours and hours at the Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery, which has a fantastic collection of Scottish art and was on my doorstep. Once you begin to discover what you personally like or a style that you wish to know more about, there will be books and, of course, the internet to search.
 
 
How important is the title of a painting?
(submitted by Elaine Garrett)
 
For a narrative painter like myself, it’s very important. You can build a painting with backgrounds, objects or even the style of clothing that your models are wearing but, for me, words are just as important. If you are aware of my work, you will know that I like to use lyrics as titles for my work. To me, nothing tells me more about what I am trying to achieve than by the title. Often I’ll hear a song, and pick up on a certain lyric which will trigger an image that I would like to paint. An example of this would be the Leonard Cohen lyric, “Dance Me to the End of Love” where I wondered, what would that look like? I’ve recently finished reading a biography of Elvis Presley, called Careless Love which I thought would make a great title for a painting. What happens when your affections become careless and you just don’t work as hard at your relationship as perhaps you should? What could that look like? So for me, the title of a painting is very important.
 
 
You paint mostly brunette or dark haired women. Why?
(submitted by Ed)

Quite simply, because I paint what personally moves me, and I’m mostly attracted to brunettes.
 
 
Was the large price-tag on your art always your intention?
(submitted by Fiona Coles)

Never my intention and I don’t think it is any artist’s intention when they start out, that they will achieve as you say, “a large price-tag”. For me, I was just thrilled that people liked my work and wanted to hang the work in their homes. I just had a strong desire to paint and the feeling I had when I discovered that my first solo exhibition had sold out, was indescribable. It was a real turning point for me and motivated me to keep going and work harder. I have been very lucky.
 
 
Is there such a thing as an original idea left?
(submitted by Lloyd)
 
I think and hope that there has to be. I think that there are many opportunities out there, just waiting to be discovered.
 

As a lad from Fife what do you REALLY think of the art world?
(submitted by Alan Carlam)

I think that the art world is a business like any other industry but for me, it’s magical as it allowed me to convert my hobby into a full-time job. I’m often drawn into the debate about the art world and I think it’s best to let others do the talking.
 
 
If a person lacks natural talent, can they be formally taught?
(submitted by Louise Howell)

I think everyone can be taught the techniques – light and shade, form and structure but I think what you cannot teach people is imagination and creativity. So that is the difference between learning to put paint on a canvas and painting a subject that sparks yours and other people’s imagination. I would like to be a great ballroom dancer and I’ve started taking lessons to learn the techniques, but it doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a world champion (although that would be fantastic!)
 
 
Who (alive or dead) would you like to dine with?
(submitted by Louise Wright)
 
Has to be Leonard Cohen because I’ve admired him for years and I’m a huge fan. He’s a wonderful poet and songwriter and his work moves and inspires me.
 
 
Does modern art still have the capacity to surpriseshock?
(submitted by Philip Hayden)

Yes.
 
 
If you had never sold a painting, would you still paint?
(submitted by Didi Philips)

I would like to think I would be as when I was starting out, my painting was a hobby that gave me great pleasure. My motivation was the enjoyment I achieved through painting and yes, if my work had never sold, it would be disheartening but I don’t think it would have stopped me.
 
 
If you had to paint James Bond how would you paint him? 1960s Bond or modern day?
(submitted by Stuart Gibbard)
 
It would have to be the 1960s Bond. His dress sense with the knitted ties and the fact that he had his cigarettes made, I remember harbouring this thought how nice it must be to order your own Turkish cigarettes and be just like James Bond. For a wee lad from Fife, he really was the bees knees. He was very suave and sophisticated.


For more information visit: www.jackvettriano.com

Picture credit: Fredi Marcarini

 
 
 

 

Carys Bray graduated from The Open University with a degree in Literature after three years of study and while raising four children. Now she’s putting her study to good use – she’s been named this year’s MA Creative Writing winner in the Edge Hill University Short Story Prize 2010 and is currently talking to agents…

After the hard slog of an OU degree course, Carys enjoyed the creative writing element so much she wanted to continue the learning process, with one eye on a career in teaching, so is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University in Lancashire.

“I enjoyed the creative writing parts of the Open University BA so much that I didn´t want it to end so I accepted a place at Edge Hill because of the theoretical component of the course. I was beginning to think about teaching and I knew that the Edge Hill course examined writers´ poetics - their writings about writing - something which it seemed important to understand if I was hoping to teach writing one day. Additionally, the Edge Hill staff reminded me of the Open University staff, they were friendly and approachable and while I was slightly intimidated by the idea of post-graduate study, I wasn´t at all intimidated by the people who were there to guide me through it.”

And she’s clearly breezing through the MA, having just been named winner of the MA Creative Writing section in the Edge Hill University Short Story Competition 2010. Carys, 34, from Southport, won with her short story Just In Case.

“I was very excited to find out that I´d won. When I received the phone call I tried to sound calm and sensible, but I did have a bit of a dance around the kitchen during the conversation,” she says.

“I got my idea for the story from a blog about a man who found a suitcase in his mother´s loft after she passed away. There was a baby´s skeleton in the suitcase. The blogger referred to it as a ´baby skeleton´ as if it might grow up into an ´adult skeleton.´ I wrote down my idea for the ´Just in Case´ story straight away.  Other stories develop out of funny things that people say, odd thoughts I have or things that my children do.”

I gave up television
After a decade of part-time work and consumed with motherhood, Carys wasn’t too confident about returning to study and started with the 10-point ´start writing fiction´ course. But she enjoyed it so much she decided to pursue a degree in Literature and was chuffed to discover she could study creative writing as part of it, graduating in 2009.

 “I really enjoyed studying with the OU. I had very supportive tutors on every course and I very much wanted a degree. It was important to me to prove that I could achieve it, so I worked hard and made it a priority.

“Apart from some flexible and sporadic work for my husband, I wasn´t working during my studies with the OU. My four children were between the ages of eight and two in 2006 so they required regular attention but my life was my own every evening after 7pm when the children went to bed.

“I gave up television. I learned to cook the dinner while holding a book, which was actually easier than cooking the dinner while holding a child! I stopped caring if the house was a bit untidy. I ignored finger prints on the glass doors. On Saturday nights I made my husband watch OU DVDs and in September 2008 my youngest child started school and that meant I had a significant amount of extra study time.”

PhD or write a novel?
Carys’ hard work paid off as she achieved grade one passes for all her assignments. What’s her secret?
 
“It´s something I´m very proud of. I regretted not doing my degree when I was 18. I think the force of that regret ensured that I took study with the OU seriously. There wasn´t really a secret to it as such, it just became a priority for me and I always did my best.”

What’s next for Carys is the end of her MA course and the prospect of a publishing deal should agents fall in love with her short stories. Beyond that, she has to choose between a PhD or writing a novel but would one day like to teach for The Open University.

“I´m currently completing my collection of short stories. As a result of winning the prize I´ve had some agents read my work. I´ve had positive feedback and promises to read a novel should I write one; it´s difficult to be successful with short stories because they aren´t commercially attractive to publishers.
 
“After I hand in my MA manuscript I´ll send each of the stories off and hopefully some of them will be published. Then I´ll have to decide if I´m going to forge ahead with a PhD proposal or begin a novel.

“Eventually, I would like to teach for the Open University. I think of myself four years ago, a harried mum embarking on a 10 point writing course, and I feel immeasurably grateful to the OU for introducing me to the pleasure of writing. It would be fabulous to be a part of providing new OU students with the same life-changing experience.”

Update to Carys' story (December 2012) - find out what she's up to and about her debut collection of short stories.


Useful links

• Read Carys’ blog
  
• More about Carys’ Short Story Award
• Study with the OU – BA in Literature
• Study with the OU – Start writing fiction
• Study with the OU – Creative writing
• Study with the OU – Advanced creative writing

Opera singer Lesley Garrett knows all about striving to achieve your goals and dusting yourself down when you stumble to get there. That’s why she was delighted to accept an honorary degree from The Open University – and feels she’s singing from the same song sheet as the OU when it comes to ideals.

Her parents, a huge inspiration in her life, started their working life on the railways of South Yorkshire and Lesley’s father decided that he wanted to be a teacher. Without any O Levels, he studied in his signal box (something that will resonate with any OU student), got a grant and went to teacher training college – a very risky strategy with a wife and three young daughters. His determination paid off, however, when he became a headmaster in just five years.

Lesley’s mum, following in her husband’s footsteps, became head of music in a middle school and her parents’ determination to improve themselves against the odds made a deep and lasting impression on her.

“No one in our family had done that, no one had ever been to college. I saw first-hand what education can do and if the OU had existed when my dad had been doing this, he would have been into it in a minute. In fact, my dad and my step-mum are both doing OU courses now – astronomy and French.”

The example set by her parents made Lesley very aware of what you can do if you put your mind to it and study hard. “I thought if my dad can become a headmaster why can’t I become an opera singer – because I have always been passionate about opera.

Premonition

“I didn’t decide to become a singer, I always was a singer; it’s what I am, it’s who I am, it’s the fabric that I’m made of. There was no way of denying it – I just had to recognise it. I was doing A Levels at school and my aunty took me to London and I saw Madame Butterfly at the ENO. It was almost a premonition. I thought ‘I have to do this and I have to do this on that stage. I had to go home and tell my school.’

“We had no money really, to go and see opera. All the opera music I knew we sang around the piano in South Yorkshire – this is where I consider myself to be privileged, in addition to the wonderful example set by my parents, – as the area was profoundly musical. There were choirs, brass bands and musical societies in every corner of every street. Everybody was involved in music in some way or another. You ate, you breathed and you made music.

“However, my parents were very sceptical, because we all did it. They wondered ‘how is she going to make a living out of it?’ My grandad’s the eldest of a family of miners and became a concert pianist – but that’s a whole other story - but I knew this is what I had to do.

“My school was brilliant and re-wrote the entire sixth form timetable so I could do a music A Level in a year. I did and I passed, and I got into the Royal Academy of Music and that was it, I was off on my journey. Again the power of education – the accessibility and the fact my school supported me – enabled me to get here now. I’m not sure that would happen now.

“But it can do through the OU. That’s why I was absolutely delighted when I was offered my honorary degree. I am offered degrees, but there’s only two I have accepted – the OU’s and Sheffield University because my Dad was a headmaster in Sheffield and my nephew got his degree in English from Sheffield so there’s a real family link.

Dream

“I am really proud of my OU honorary degree. I accepted it in a way because I felt my history was so representative of what the OU stands for – access to education and the idea that if you have a dream you can fulfil it if you get the right information and have the right guidance.”

Lesley lost her voice and had to battle hard to get it back – another testament to her determination to achieve her ambitions. “My body had gone. I was very physically and emotionally ill, as my marriage had broken down. I felt very unbalanced. I actually threw myself at the mercy of the Musicians Benevolent Fund and saw their doctor. It was his suggestion that I should try the Alexander technique and it enabled me to regain my balance. I had this conviction that if I could find physical balance I would find mental balance and emotional balance.

“Thanks to my singing teacher, Joy Mammer – who was my professor from the Royal Academy of Music and is my dearest, dearest friend 30 years on – I clawed my way back. I went to her house and I did her cleaning as payment for lessons. I had only two notes. She very gently, over a period of nearly a year, stretched my voice to its normal range. The experience had a profound effect because I never took for granted again that my voice would always be there. I also realised how incredibly important my body is in terms of my singing. It’s an athletic pursuit. If I’m not physically, mentally and emotionally fit I can’t do it. Whatever happens to me as a human being happens to my voice. But I was determined and I had no choice. I was a singer – I had to get back on form.

“God sent me a very strange job – just as I was recovering the Welsh National Opera asked me if I would play the role of Esmeralda (the tightrope walker) in The Bartered Bride. The director believed in total realism and would only work with a soprano who was prepared to learn to walk a tightrope, normally done by a double. So I said, ‘yes! - I’m not doing anything. Bring it on!’ So I learned to walk the tightrope. It supported my need to find my centre of balance and I grabbed the opportunity with both hands. And I loved it. In fact they invited me to join the circus! I could have had a whole different career!”

Lesley will be touring in the UK this coming autumn with the Manchester Camerata and English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Philip Ellis. See her website for details.