ABOUT ME
Beyond the Music
Behind my passion for music, sound design and everything else I do is a journey shaped by hard work, determination and, most importantly, the people who've supported and inspired me along the way.
My Mum and Dad have had an enormous influence on the person I am today, and I genuinely wouldn't be the guitarist I am without my Uncle Craig, who gave me guitar lessons every Saturday morning from the age of five. I've also been incredibly fortunate to learn from some outstanding guitar teachers, alongside the encouragement I received from Mr McCorkindale and the music department at Denny High School.
Above all, none of what I do would be possible without the love, patience and continued support of my family, particularly my wife Michelle and our children, Liam, Ashleigh and Zach.
For anyone who's interested in finding out a little more about my journey, the experiences I've had and the people who've helped shape who I am today, I've shared my story below.
WHO I AM
Musician | Sound Designer | Producer | Educator | Author
My name is Barry Frame, and music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember.
I started playing guitar at the age of five and, over the years, studied with six different guitar teachers, including tuition in classical guitar. What began as a childhood interest quickly became a lifelong passion, eventually leading me into performing, recording, music production, sound design, teaching and writing.
However, my journey into the creative industries wasn't exactly straightforward.
In fact, some of the most valuable lessons I've learned didn't happen in a classroom or recording studio.
They happened in pubs!
My Real Apprenticeship
When I was just 11 years old, I joined my dad's pub band, Stressed Out. This was Scotland in the 1990s, when apparently nobody thought too much about an 11 year-old spending his weekends playing guitar in pubs! But I wasn't simply turning up to play guitar. My job started long before the first song. I helped carry in the PA equipment, learned how everything connected and assisted with setting up the sound system. Eventually, I reached the point where I could set everything up myself, before picking up my guitar and playing the gig. Looking back, I consider those years my real apprenticeship. Long before I understood terms such as signal flow, audio engineering or live sound production, I was learning these things through practical experience. I was discovering how sound systems worked, how musicians interacted on stage, how to troubleshoot problems and, perhaps most importantly, how to entertain an audience. Those early experiences gave me a foundation that no qualification could ever replace. I genuinely believe that without those years playing alongside my dad, I wouldn't be doing what I do today.
School, Music and One Very Important Teacher
Music continued to play a huge role throughout my school years. I performed in various bands and regularly helped organise and perform at events at Denny High School, particularly the Christmas shows and end-of-term performances before the summer holidays. By the age of 14, I was already performing at town halls and other venues. Academically, however, school wasn't somewhere I naturally thrived. I enjoyed music, practical subjects and anything creative, but traditional classroom learning didn't always appeal to me. One teacher who made an enormous difference was Mr Robert McCorkindale. Mr McCorkindale taught Religious and Moral Education and took me under his wing during my time at Denny High School. He recognised my interest in music and encouraged me to become involved with the school's RME band. His encouragement and support had a lasting impact on me, particularly at a time when I wasn't especially enthusiastic about education. I remained friends with several teachers long after leaving school. Sadly, Mr McCorkindale passed away some years ago, but I've never forgotten the difference he made. There's something rather fitting about the fact that a pupil who wasn't particularly interested in school would eventually become a college lecturer himself.
From Buses to Sound
At 15, I left school and joined my father's bus and coach business. I trained as an HGV mechanic, eventually gaining my City & Guilds Level 3 qualification in Heavy Vehicle Maintenance and Electronic Systems. I also obtained my bus driving licence at just 19, making me one of the youngest bus drivers in Scotland at the time. It might seem a world away from music and sound production, but working in the family business shaped much of the person I am today. My dad taught me the importance of hard work, responsibility, problem-solving and getting things done properly. Those values have remained with me throughout my professional life. Music, however, never disappeared. I continued playing guitar, performing in bands, writing songs and experimenting with recording alongside my work in the family business. Then came the financial crash of 2008. Like many businesses, ours was affected by the economic downturn. It became a turning point in my life and made me reconsider what I wanted to do professionally. Music had always been my passion, and I decided it was time to explore whether I could turn that passion into a career. That decision would completely change my life.
Sleeper Train and the Original Music Scene
Although much of my performing career has involved cover bands, one of my biggest ventures into original music came with a band called Sleeper Train. Around 2010, we wrote, recorded and released an EP titled If the Angels Were True, which received some fantastic feedback. The band gave me opportunities to perform alongside some well-known musicians and groups. We supported Bonehead from Oasis, who was performing with his band The Vortex at the time. That particular gig even resulted in me having dinner with Bonehead himself! We also supported Chris Helme, formerly of The Seahorses, and the band Dodgy. One of my favourite memories from those days is sharing chicken pakora with Dodgy's drummer. Not exactly the glamorous rock 'n' roll lifestyle you might imagine, but a great memory nonetheless! Unfortunately, like many original bands, musical and personal differences eventually brought Sleeper Train to an end. Nevertheless, If the Angels Were True remains one of the recordings I'm proudest of. Being involved in the original music scene also introduced me to something I found particularly strange: pay-to-play. Coming from a background in cover and function bands, where musicians were hired and paid to entertain audiences, the idea of an original band having to pay a venue or promoter for the privilege of performing seemed completely backwards to me. It reinforced something I've always believed: creativity has value, and musicians should recognise the value of their work.
Discovering a World I Didn't Know Existed
When I returned to education to study Sound Production at Falkirk College, now part of Forth Valley College, I went in with a fairly straightforward idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to record bands, produce music and work in recording studios. At that point, I didn't even really know what audio post-production was. Then I attended my first post-production class. And everything changed. We were given our first project and approximately six weeks to complete it. I became so absorbed in the work that I finished the project in around a day and a half! The feedback from my lecturers was extremely encouraging, and I quickly realised that I'd discovered something I absolutely loved. Some aspects of the course were challenging, while others felt familiar because I'd already spent years performing, recording and experimenting with sound. The difference was that I was now learning the technical principles and theory behind things I'd previously been doing through experience. Rather wonderfully, some of those lecturers who encouraged me during my studies are now my managers and colleagues. That first post-production class changed the direction of my career and introduced me to an entirely new creative world.
An Unexpected Academic Journey
If somebody had told me at 15 that I would eventually attend university, complete a Master's degree and become a college lecturer, I probably would have laughed. University simply wasn't something I'd ever imagined myself doing. But when I returned to education, something changed. I discovered that I genuinely loved learning. More than that, I thrived on it. After completing my HND in Sound Production at Forth Valley College, I progressed to the University of the West of Scotland, where I studied for a Bachelor of Arts in Commercial Sound Production. I graduated with Distinction and received multiple awards during my time at the university. By this point, my fascination with post-production had developed into a particular passion for sound design for film and moving image. This led me to the Glasgow School of Art, where I was awarded a full scholarship to study for a Master of Design in Sound for the Moving Image. Once again, I graduated with Distinction. My Master's research explored a question that still interests me today:
How much can you achieve creatively without an enormous budget?
Using the Haggis Western film The Last Love Letter, I explored the challenges of creating a professional-quality soundtrack and sound design for a film with extremely limited financial resources. The project brought together many of the things I enjoyed most: recording, editing, sound design, composition, storytelling and creative problem-solving. It also reinforced my belief that having the most expensive equipment doesn't necessarily produce the best results. Understanding your tools, developing your skills and thinking creatively are often far more important.
Becoming a Lecturer
Interestingly, teaching wasn't originally part of my career plan either. The first suggestion that I might make a good lecturer came while I was studying at Forth Valley College. Because I'd already spent years playing, recording and experimenting with music, there were certain subjects where I progressed through the work relatively quickly. My lecturers would occasionally ask me to help other students who were struggling with particular topics. I discovered that I really enjoyed helping people understand things. More importantly, I enjoyed finding different ways to explain complicated ideas until something finally clicked. Several lecturers suggested that teaching might be something I should seriously consider. After completing my Master's degree, I continued my studies at the University of Stirling, gaining a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching in Further Education. Eventually, I returned to Forth Valley College, this time on the other side of the classroom. Today, I lecture in Sound Production and Creative Industries, teaching subjects that include music production, recording, audio post-production, sound design and creative technologies. I particularly enjoy combining academic learning with practical industry experience. After all, there's a difference between understanding how something works in theory and having to make it work in a professional environment. Teaching has become one of the most rewarding parts of my career. I also recognise how important encouragement can be, particularly for students who perhaps don't see themselves as traditionally academic. Looking back at the support I received from Mr McCorkindale and the lecturers who encouraged me during my own studies, I understand just how much difference a good teacher can make. Sometimes all somebody needs is another person to recognise what they're capable of.
Sound Design, Film and Immersive Audio
Alongside lecturing, I've continued working professionally across music production, recording, composition, audio post-production and sound design. My film work has included projects such as Setting Rainbow, When the Tide Comes In, James and the Urn, The Running Man, The Last Love Letter, Please Come Home, Anderson, Urinal Cake and Crackpot. I've particularly enjoyed my collaborations with Haggis Western Films, including Setting Rainbow and The Last Love Letter. I'm also involved in their latest production, An Honest Working Man, which is currently paused, with plans to resume production. Over the years, my work has expanded into location-based sound design and immersive audio experiences. One of my most significant ongoing projects is Stirling's Old Town Jail. Having previously worked on sound design for the attraction, I'm now creating the sound for a new immersive visitor experience. This involves recording performances, editing dialogue, creating sound effects, building atmospheric environments and mixing the entire production in Dolby Atmos before delivering a binaural version designed specifically for headphone listening. It's exactly the kind of work I love. It combines storytelling, technology, creativity and sound design to create an experience that hopefully transports listeners into another world. I've also worked on sound design for The Bastion Dungeon at Stirling's Thistle Shopping Centre. Much of my professional production work now takes place in my own home studio, which has developed considerably from the small bedroom recording setup where I first started experimenting with sound. Despite all the technology available today, the fundamental principles remain the same: listen carefully, understand what you're trying to achieve and use the tools available to tell the story.
I'm Still a Guitarist
Despite everything else I've gone on to do, I still consider myself a guitarist first. I've been playing since I was five years old, and performing live remains one of my greatest passions. Over the years, I've played in everything from my dad's pub band and school performances to original bands, function bands and wedding bands. I previously performed with Grand Central and currently play lead guitar with The Dirty Martinis, a Scottish wedding and events band performing throughout Scotland. Performing live has taught me lessons that no classroom or qualification ever could. How to read an audience. How to work with other musicians. How to react when something goes wrong. How to adapt a performance and understand what connects with people. And, perhaps most importantly, how to enjoy what you're doing. Even after decades of performing, there's still something special about stepping onto a stage, picking up a guitar and playing music with other musicians. I also continue to write and record my own music. Although I've only released a small amount of material under my own name so far, songwriting and composition remain important creative outlets, and I hope to release more original music in the future.
Guitar Teaching
Alongside lecturing, I've taught guitar privately for many years, working with students of different ages, abilities and musical interests. My approach to teaching has developed considerably over time. One thing I've become increasingly passionate about is helping people understand not simply what they're playing, but why they're playing it. Throughout my own musical education, I was taught by six different guitar teachers, each of whom contributed something different to my development. However, I also discovered that guitarists are often taught to memorise shapes, patterns and techniques without necessarily understanding how everything connects. Here's a chord. Here's a scale. Put your fingers here. Practise it. But why? Why does that chord work? Why are those notes in that scale? Why can the same shape move around the fretboard? Why do certain notes work over particular chords? And how does understanding all of this make somebody a better musician? Those questions eventually became the inspiration for my first book:
The Why Behind the Strings: Helping You Play Smarter.
The book brings together decades of guitar playing, performing and teaching, alongside my experience as a professional educator. I've been fortunate to learn from some outstanding guitar teachers throughout my life, and their knowledge and guidance have played an enormous part in making me the musician I am today.
However, one thing I've noticed over the years is that guitarists can become very good at playing something without necessarily understanding why it works. A traditional guitar book might show you a riff, a chord progression or a scale, but it doesn't always explain why those particular notes and chords work together, what gives them their distinctive sound or how that knowledge can be applied elsewhere.
I often compare it to my background as a mechanic. Given enough time and the right tools, almost anyone could probably dismantle a car engine. After all, you're essentially removing nuts, bolts, wires and components. But could you put it all back together again, in the correct order, and understand why every part needs to be there? That's an entirely different matter. You need to understand what each component does, how it connects to everything else and how the whole system works together.
For me, learning guitar can be much the same. It's one thing to memorise a chord shape or copy a guitar solo. It's another to understand why those notes work, how they relate to the underlying chords and how you can use that knowledge to create something of your own.
But I also want to make something absolutely clear. There is nothing wrong with picking up a guitar, learning a few chords and playing your favourite songs. If that's what you enjoy and what you want to achieve, that's fantastic. Music should be something that brings people enjoyment, and you certainly don't need an extensive understanding of music theory to be a good guitarist or to get enormous satisfaction from playing.
The Why Behind the Strings isn't about telling people there's a right or wrong way to learn guitar. It's about sharing the knowledge, experiences and lessons I've gathered throughout my own musical journey, and hopefully filling in some of the gaps that other players might have encountered along the way.
For beginners, I hope it provides a solid foundation and helps them understand how the instrument works from the outset. For more experienced players, perhaps it will explain something they've been playing for years but never quite understood. Sometimes all it takes is somebody explaining a familiar idea from a different perspective for everything to suddenly click.
Writing the book has also given me an opportunity to reflect on the teachers, musicians and experiences that have shaped my own journey. And if there's one thing I've learned after all these years, it's that no matter how long you've been playing, there's always something new to discover.
Tell Me It Can't Be Done
If there's one thing that has remained consistent throughout my life, it's my work ethic. Much of that comes from my dad and from growing up around the family bus and coach business.
As a young apprentice mechanic, I worked alongside my dad and our foreman in what you'd probably describe as a very old-school workshop environment. Hard work, responsibility and finding solutions rather than excuses were simply expected. In fact, there was one word you were never allowed to use in that workshop: “canny”, which, for anyone unfamiliar with Scottish slang, is our way of saying “can't”.
If I ever said I couldn't do something, my dad's response was usually along the lines of:
“Don't you dare tell me you canny do it. Because if I come down there and do it, you're getting no wages!”
Now, that might sound a bit harsh by today's standards, but that was simply the environment I grew up in. The message was clear: don't give up on something just because it's difficult. Think about it, work through the problem and find a solution. That mentality has never left me. Tell me something is difficult and I'll probably agree with you. Tell me it's impossible and I'll immediately want to find out why.
Going Above and Beyond
It's an attitude I've carried into everything I do, from performing and teaching to music production and sound design. Even when it came to my Master's degree at Glasgow School of Art, I wanted to go above and beyond what was expected. I wasn't particularly interested in simply doing enough to pass. I wanted to push myself and see what I could achieve.
For my main Master's project, I decided to take on the complete sound design and soundtrack for a film, The Last Love Letter, exploring whether professional-quality film sound could be achieved with extremely limited financial resources. It was a huge undertaking, bringing together recording, editing, sound design, composition, storytelling and creative problem-solving.
One of my lecturers, Paul, still talks about that project to this day and how ambitious it was to take on something of that scale for a Master's dissertation. But for me, that was exactly the point. I didn't want to simply complete an academic exercise. I wanted to challenge myself and create something I could be genuinely proud of.
More Than a Nine-to-Five
I've never really been somebody who switches off at five o'clock and forgets about everything until the following morning. People sometimes wonder how I can spend a full day lecturing and then come home and head straight into my studio to work on another project, practise guitar, prepare teaching materials or write a book.
But that's just who I am. I genuinely enjoy being busy, learning new things and creating something from an idea. When I become interested in something, I tend to throw myself into it.
It's also something that influences how I approach teaching. One of my frustrations as a lecturer is seeing students underestimate what they're capable of, or convince themselves they don't have enough time to complete something before they've really tried. Sometimes a piece of work that seems like an enormous task might only take a couple of hours of focused effort.
I understand that everyone has different priorities and circumstances, and I certainly don't expect everyone to approach life the way I do. But I do believe in making an effort, taking responsibility and giving something a proper go before deciding it can't be done.
Of course, family life is equally important, and I always try to make time for the people who matter most. But for me, much of what I do doesn't always feel like work. I'm fortunate enough to spend a great deal of my time doing things I genuinely love.
Some people might call me a workaholic. I prefer to think of myself as ambitious.
Still Asking Why
That attitude has taken me from playing guitar at five and carrying PA speakers into pubs at 11, to working as an HGV mechanic, driving buses, returning to college in my twenties, discovering audio post-production almost by accident, graduating from university with Distinction, receiving a scholarship to Glasgow School of Art, becoming a lecturer, creating sound for films and immersive experiences, performing professionally and writing my first book.
None of it was particularly part of some grand master plan. I've simply continued following the things that interest me, working hard at them and trying to learn as much as I can along the way. And despite everything I've achieved, I still feel there's an enormous amount left to discover.
Whether I'm holding a guitar, sitting behind a mixing desk, teaching a class or working on my next creative project, there's one question that continues to drive me.
Why?
Education
2011 – 2013
Forth Valley College
HND Sound Production (A). Outstanding Achievement Award in Sound Production and class representative.
2013 – 2014
University of the West of Scotland
BA Commercial Sound Production, B1 with Distinction. University Court Medal, Post Production Award 2014 for best sound design piece, and an Outstanding Achievement Award.
2014 – 2015
Glasgow School of Art
Master of Design: Sound for the Moving Image — A3 with Distinction.
2016 – 2017
University of Stirling
PG Dip TQFE with Merit — the step into lecturing and teaching in further education.
RECOGNITION
Awards & Honours
University Court Medal Award for Commercial Sound Production
Outstanding Achievement Award for Commercial Sound Production
University Showcase Post Production Award 2014 — best sound design piece
Outstanding Achievement Award in Sound Production, Forth Valley College