Written by Pasha Mansurov
Pasha is the flautist on the film music course

It’s all happening now! Today was the first day of recording material for the films and I was genuinely overwhelmed by the musical ideas from the pupils. Having now taught at this course for 6 years (I consider myself a veteran) it always amazes me how much brilliant musical material is composed here. My part is varied as I am a performer and help out on the technical side with the software and guiding the students on their compositions. This doesn’t mean completely deleting their work but helping them augment their material or helping them to fit it more ideally to a real life (non-sibelius) instrument. Another large part of my role is to help the students write better for the flute. We look at how the flute works and explore it’s range before explaining and demonstrating extended techniques. Such as flutter tonguing, multiphonics, harmonics, tongue stops, beat boxing etc. All of this helps them to alter the tension in their works, guiding them to lower the tension can be just as important as raising it!

I am really looking forward to the final product and playing in the final concert. This year will be the second year when we do a live performance along with electronics with the films and we have new ideas for it, which will make this concert a truly unique experience. I urge everyone who can – to come. I’m sure pictures and audio examples will follow on this blog after the concert, but being there will be an experience. I am now looking forward to day 4 and recording more of the student’s work, which I know will be absolutely fantastic.

Pasha demonstrated his extended techniques yesterday and we caught a small part on our twitter feed: