The Day I Ran Away to Music School
Or: How a Failed Economics Student Found God in Bulgaria
Right, let’s talk about the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. Not performing. Not those first open mics.
Leaving home.
I was 18, absolutely bricking it, counting down days like a prisoner. Eighteen months of staring at Alton’s high street thinking get me the fuck out of here. Small town. Small minds. Same faces, same Friday nights, same everything.
Except when the day came? When September 8th actually arrived?
I wanted to disappear into my childhood bed and never come out.
The Great Economics Disaster of 2017
Here’s something I’ve never properly told you lot. I started sixth form studying Economics, Engineering, and Photography. Proper subjects. Safe subjects. The kind that get you a “real job.”
Ten weeks in, staring at algebraic equations that might as well have been ancient Sanskrit, my stomach properly turned. This wasn’t just “I don’t get it.” This was “I will literally die if I have to do this for two more years.”
Meanwhile, my new mate’s banging on about his Music Tech course. Eight students. Actual proper studio time. Making beats instead of calculating compound interest.
They’ll never let me switch ten weeks in, I thought.
But sometimes the universe has your back in ways you don’t expect.
When Teachers Actually Give a Shit
Those Music Tech teachers? Legends. Absolute legends.
They let me start ten weeks behind everyone else. Gave me after-hours studio access. Taught me Logic when everyone else had gone home. I’d be in there till security kicked me out, making absolute garbage, but my garbage.
First track? Unlistenable. Second? Somehow worse.
But that feeling of watching the waveforms build up, layering sounds, creating something from nothing?
Kid in a chocolate factory doesn’t even cover it.
Bulgaria and the Universe’s Sick Sense of Humour
Fast forward to that summer. Bulgaria with the lads. Standard British abroad behaviour - find other Brits, expand the group, pretend you’re more cultured than you are.
Meet this girl. She mentions ACM Guildford. My mate goes “That’s where Joe’s going!”
We chat for five minutes. Move on. Forget about it entirely.
Now here’s where it gets properly mental.
September 8th. Moving day. I’m unloading boxes at my new accommodation, trying not to have a complete meltdown about leaving everything I know.
Look up.
Same. Fucking. Girl.
Not just same uni. Not just same accommodation. The flat directly below mine.
The Overthinking Olympics
My brain immediately went into overdrive:
What if she doesn’t remember me?
Do I say hi?
What if I say hi and she thinks I’m weird?
What if I don’t say hi and she thinks I’m rude?
So naturally, I did what any rational person would do. Completely ignored her and pretended I hadn’t seen her.
Proper smooth, mate. Proper smooth.
What Leaving Actually Meant
Three years at ACM changed everything. Not just musically - though fuck me, being surrounded by people who got it, who’d rather make beats than go on the piss, that was revolutionary. Obviously we did plenty of nights out on top of that too. Even better.
But personally?
That anxious kid from Alton who couldn’t even say hi to someone he’d already met? He had to die for MYLWD to exist.
Seven years later (I’m 25 now, feels like several lifetimes), I look back at that move and think: imagine if I’d stayed. Imagine if I’d stuck with Economics. Imagine if those teachers hadn’t taken a chance on that desperate kid who just wanted to touch the faders.
That girl from Bulgaria? We became proper close. The universe wasn’t just giving me a friend that day. It was showing me that when you jump, sometimes there’s already someone there to catch you.
Even if you’re too awkward to say hello at first.
What leap absolutely terrified you but changed everything? When did you know there was no going back to who you were before? Drop it below - these stories matter.
I read this last night but was too sleepy to comment (I'm old and work early). I too am an athlete in the overthinking Olympics. I understood all too well that part of your story. I am super glad you went from economics to faders. I've enjoyed everything I've heard from you, you're one of my favorites in our feedback calls.
The terrifying leap that comes to mind for me was joining the Army. I was a guitarist in the Army band, so it was a great and stable way to both get a musical education and make a paycheck. And also get in shape. But going away to basic training and leaving home for the first time was fucking terrifying. I cried the night before I left. But it was one of the best things I've ever done.
I felt this. That same leap you describe is what pulled me out of the restaurant grind and back into music full time. Terrifying. But everything shifted after. Great article man.