Day 2 is always a very busy time with key tutor groups working hard along with two taster sessions for everyone. Here is a flavour of what has taken place in each of the tutor groups today.

World Music

The World Music Group musicians have demonstrated their instruments including pitched Tabla, Nyckelharpa, Marimba and Clarinet. Pupils have composed rhythmic cycles and 16 solo pieces which have all been been recorded and performed.

Throughout the day the group were regularly filmed by Darren, photographed by Martin and fallen around laughing about a million times.

Everyone is getting on with their Bronze arts award well and we expect to have 16 recipients of this prestigious award at the end of the week.

Unfortunately they have also had some sad news . We are all very upset our Nigerian international tutor David Osewa was not granted a visa to help support our pupils. This also means he is unable to return to Nigeria with the experience he would have gained from the summer school.

Jazz Group

The Jazz group have been studying pieces by great Jazz composers such as Mike Gibbs, Mark Lockheart, Art Blakey and Joe Locke. By looking at these composers they hope to  to analyse a variety of different compositional approaches before pupils started their compositions in the afternoon.

In the Jazz tasters pupils were introduced to different modes. Mixolydian, Lydian, Phrygian all modes of the major scale. They then used these to create new pieces.

Advanced Instrumental Composition

David gave a presentation on harmony using musical examples from Bach all the way through to Arvo Part, before getting the students to experiment with different textures and combinations with the professional instrumentalists before trying out their initial compositional ideas which were later performed to the group before the students were set free to explore their own compositions working individually and with the professional musicians.

They will continue to develop these ideas over the coming week before the final performance at the end of the week.

Film Music

The film music group spent much of the day getting to grips with the basic techniques involved with the course, starting with a session where each of the musicians demonstrated and explored the sounds that their instruments are able to produce. Aidan had produced a really interesting demonstration which used Ravel’s string quartet to help show the range of sonorities which can be created with the acoustic instruments available. Following this Pascha introduced the basics of the editing software we are using – Logic.

As is always the case, we end day 2 with the pupils excited about their projects and eager to learn how to write effectively for the acoustic instruments and also how to use logic, but perhaps a little nervous about the new experiences with the software. Tomorrow will be the day that they really start getting to grips with it and using the powerful tools available to them.