This journal is intended to record, discuss and archive a collection of personal projects that were done by myself. It will contain photographs and scans of paintings, books, documents, research work, and several others that were done by me. These can be found by links that go directly to the "DAPHA Projects" Facebook group. I hope that you find the content in the group enjoyable.
Date for Entry: (Friday 1st – Saturday 2nd November 2019)
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 22nd March 2022)
Dear Diary,
The dance department at DCFA had their “Festival of Movement” concert. It was a two-day event from seven in the night. Everything was done twice on both nights. The Indian Classical Ensemble was supposed to perform our piece of “Aigiri Nandini” but I saw on the program that they had labeled the piece as “Ardhannarishvara”.
Only on Saturday night, I was able to go into one of the dance studios to see them dance to the composition I had done called “Dance of Nature”. In one of the dance rehearsals, I got to meet Ms. Paul who was the teacher for the class I did the music for. She had realized who I was when I gave her a copy of the “Aigiri Nandini” that I had done for the Ensemble. Also, another group I am playing music with for another of her classes. We were given an extra assignment as an option to write something for the dancers and I did it. Since I was the only person to complete the full song, it was taken immediately. There was one student attempting music for the earth dance.
The coordinator Mrs. Olivier did not want us to enter. I snuck in to hear the music of my own composition that night. I was not pleased with the ‘collage’ effect they did with recorded dances. It felt like all the hard work was in vain because I had sat down and calculated each step. The others in the Indian Classical Ensemble found the crowd took forever to enter the room so they left and went back downstairs before I got in.
In composition class, Mr. Sharma would have said almost the same when he asked me how I found it to be. I was congratulated by Mr. Reid when he met me in school in the week leading up to the event. He said he had heard the composition I did. As I chose to ignore the visual and look down to the ground, I took in the sound. For me, it sounded like there was too much bowl gong in use. I did some adjustments to the piece over some time. This was a good experience hearing the piece on a loudspeaker for the first time.
The Indian classical ensemble performance was done after the Intermission. I met Mr. Sharma and Miss Karen on Saturday night after entering the dance studio and some of the others from the composition. Our performance was done first after the intermission. It did sound a bit weird as Miss Priyanka was telling Miss Paul after the first night. I agreed. The rest of the show went well on both nights. Mr. Maharaj was not there. I think he was out of the country for that weekend.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 22nd March 2022)
Dear Diary,
Mr. Maharaj was the teacher for my individual harmonium class. I decided to follow in the footsteps of Mrs. Neaves and Mrs. Ramlal, who were allowed to do a new instrument in their final year.
My chosen instrument was the harmonium because it was one that papa always wanted to learn and it was an instrument I liked from small. Unfortunately, papa passed in the same 2015 summer before I got into UWI but if he could see me, he would be able to see what happens in the classes. Possible Monday Indian Classical Ensemble too.
This semester I was given a few pieces of music to do along with some alaankars (exercises) of scales. I was asked by Mr. Maharaj which scales I would feel comfortable playing so for a while guess, I chose C as the tonic for the scales. I would have had to stop to pencil in the pitches to help me understand the music throughout the classes until the next when I would score out the music and include his Sargam for both of us to understand it.
HARMONIUM ALAANKARS.
* Unknown Date *
There were three exercises given to me to practice very early at the beginning of the individual harmonium classes. Since C was my scale of choice, that would be the tonic for all three. They were like technical patterns from the steelpan book I had to use from Mr. Sharma’s class.
I had no need to amend these scores. The moment Sir gave me two or three measures of the exercises, I knew what I had to write out. They followed the same thing we had to do in Monday night class but just different patterns now.
This was the first piece of the semester to be given to study. I was shocked when Mr. Maharaj picked a piece using one of the three most difficult scales of Bhatkhande’s ten thaats (scales). I still went along because I wanted to learn as much as he could teach me and I felt strongly that I might never find another teacher to guide me on this path of music. There was no need for amendments. It was
This piece also did not need amending. It was used the same way it is for assessment. There was not much difficulty with it. I needed some time to get accustomed to the finer placements on the keys of the instruments. I was still wondering how come sir was going on the harder scales with me. On the other hand, I still appreciated it.
This one required a few amendments. We had missed some classes in between. There was one class. The date inserted above for this piece was the date when Mr. Maharaj had given me the entire song straight. I did not mind at all. I wished all the classes were like that so I could transcribe them when I got home. This piece was used for the end-of-term recital also.
This piece took only two sessions to complete by both transcription and playing. At the end of the second session, Mr. Maharaj suggested the way the piece should end. This piece was also played at the Indian Classical Recital at the end of the semester.
The video recording was recorded on Saturday 6th August 2022 and became a DAPHA Project.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 21st March 2022)
Dear Diary,
I had been looking forward to this course for several semesters since my first year of the certificate program. It was finally here and I happily took my first-row seat as usual. There were several pieces of homework to be done as assignments for marks and a lot of other activities that had made this semester SUPER interesting.
The first assignment was presented in class tonight. We were asked to find a partner and play one of their ideas for the class. The person I teamed up with was Tinesha. We got a tenor pan to the empty Pan Theatre to try out the ideas. Hers was simple to sight-read out but she seemed surprised when I got them correct.
When I gave her some of mine, she couldn’t manage so in class I ended up playing all the ideas instead. It took a lot of time to go through the assignment. I might say the whole class when feedback had to be given too. I apologize for the condition of the document. It was chipped up into pieces to save on paper to archive.
We were asked to develop at least one idea (from assignment 1) and one of his partner’s ideas. Instead, I took one of my idea for assignment one and created another of my own.
It was very late in the night before class was over. I was not that well. Mr. Sharma and two other students tried the piece out when I could not make it to play it. It seemed as if the assignment itself was not good enough. My idea was to make something simple. I was thinking of a preliminary piece that might be done for an exam. In the portfolio will be a further discussion on this failed attempt.
I took about four days doing over something from scratch to meet the requirements of assignments two and three to use it as required in assignment four. I was able to make an introduction, the first section, and a second section.
Section C was not ready because the time was spent/expired and the class was about to begin. That night, only Mr. Sharma, Brandon, Milano, and I were there in class. Not many were present. Everyone else was not there. They seemed to appreciate and support the long runs in the song. Mr. Sharma supported the piano part and commented on the 'slim' use of writing in it to "make it real easy". This gave me the confidence to continue with the rest of the piece.
This piece was presented to the class on another date later in the semester. At that time the entire class was present. I was able to get some comments from Anton mentioning the key changes and the pauses at the end of a section. He compared this piece to the "Dance of Nature" piece for the same comment. It seemed as if all the runs in the piece had made everyone speechless? No one else commented again.
ASSIGNMENT #5: MUSIC WITH TEXT – “LOVE IS ALL I NEED”.
* Thursday 17 October 2019 *
**pick of score
There was an assignment that asked us to use a poem and create music for it. During the summer vacation that went, it was a Friday evening after the second ‘Law and Gov’ class that I heard to sound of a different lady singing in my mind. The music given to me was Rehearsal Section A. I did not have a manuscript paper with me in the car, so I took a copybook and wrote out the lyrics before typing to figure out the correct rhythm. I had a lot of hard trials trying to connect back with that lady in my mind for the rest of the music. It was not so easy.
I did not know what Ella Fitzgerald looked like in real but the sound of the lady in the light silk blue coat sounded like her standing on the club’s stage. The setting for me seeing the woman was in a dark club with a music band. I could not see the woman’s face but from the five seconds I got from hearing Ella’s voice on YouTube, it matched. It seemed scary but I continued to see if I could get help.
My experience playing the piece in class was a silent one. I did not have many words. I was hoping that Anton would have been able to teach me something. Mr. Sharma had met up with me after a thesis meeting on a Friday evening to help me change measures 78-79. I added it to my journal and did the entry for it.
Link(s):
“Love is all I Need” - Score.**
“Love is all I Need” - (Recording).**
ASSIGNMENT #6: “DANCE OF NATURE”.
* Unknown/Forgotten Date *
Mr. Sharma told us about a collaboration composition that the DCFA dance department wanted to do with the composition class. He began to explain that the dance was divided into three sections to represent the elements of Earth, Water, and Fire. We were allowed to work in groups of three doing one element each or to attempt composing the entire piece individually.
Just by the options being given to us, I knew immediately a group attempt would not work. I knew if I had to come up with this composition (or if I chose to), I had to do it all on my own and work out the obstacles. Because it was now a piece of music to be done for a dance. I was not sure if the dance was a group performance or a solo.
Some weeks after, some of us in the class were introduced to Ms. Paul who was the teacher for the dance group for this composition project. This was the first time experience for me where music and dance were done. She had three ladies in the dance studio. Each one of them did an individual element. Some of the class students were recording the dances. I took the time to look at the dancers one after the other and special attention to Ms. Paul when she counted in the dancers and the instructions or corrections to the dancers.
There was a dark and rainy Sunday after coming back from steelpan practice at church, I began working on the composition. I could not rely on anything but what came to my mind and my own discoveries in composing. After three and a half hours of starting, I had thirteen instruments in use. This work continued for some more time, about less than three weeks. After completing the water, I had a medical challenge that became worst and I had to go to the doctor. I could not walk well for two weeks but had to force the pain in school for those weeks.
Sometime after I was better, I was able to complete the piece. I went to Isa to get two copies of the full score. One was for Mr. Sharma and the other was mine to keep for personal archives. We had a short hour meeting in the office to review the composition with Sir. He had the composition played on the loudspeakers in the office and told me that there is a big difference between hearing the music from the computer and in a large area. The music was then emailed as an MP3 to Mr. Sharma and he sent it off to Ms. Paul since she had already left for the day.
The piece was also presented in class by Mr. Sharma on the next class we all had to meet. Something about the composition happened but it was fixed and ready for the dancers to use. We had the idea to have the composition done as a live performance but it did not work out. I had all of the parts created and even an Indian music notation score for the sitar in case Mr. Maharaj was to join us. Challenge arose in the process of that score since the key changed so many times. Also, I had to face the occurrences of empty measures. I recalled Mr. Maharaj telling us in class that Indian music is not intended to have any rest for long in between. At some points notating rests was a challenge since sustained pitches also used a dashed line and different rhythmic patterns brought up several challenges.
The class listened and someone else from class had done music for the earth element. He had shared his creation two weeks before but the other two from his group didn't start. Mr. Sharma told us after playing my composition that he had decided to use my composition because the time was "getting close to the "Festival of Dance" concert and [it] was the only completed piece."
The Indian Classical Ensemble had to perform for the same concert on both nights (Friday and Saturday). Only on Saturday night, did I get to see the performance with the composition. It was not done exactly as expected. I saw that they had taken the MP3 and made a 'dance collage'.
The three elements were videotaped and then scrambled into pieces while the music ran in the recording. I felt cheated in a way because I had calculated each step that the dancers moved in the studio on the day of our in-class recording. Every turn, every move, every step or articulation done by the dancer was timed accordingly so that it would suit the dancers one after the next. In class the week after the concert Mr. Sharma shared a similar comment based on what he was expecting after asking me in front of the class how I found it was. I am still very grateful for the opportunity.
There were five different exercises given to use by Mr. Sharma and it was labeled as Extra Assignments on the UWI's My-E-Learning platform. He said that we could do all five to replace one of the assignments.
I personally did them all because I wanted to have the extra fun. However, it was a lot of hard work involved. I also needed to have a good strategy. I decided that since there were five different worksheets to complete for this assignment, I would complete one worksheet a week.
Each worksheet per week would be worked on each night on the piano. By each Saturday, the pieces would be reviewed in their entirety and then scored out on Musescore by the Sunday evening. I knew it would work and I felt very proud that all five worksheets were completed by the sixth week of class. Presentations for these worksheets could have been done in class at any time.
Link(s):
Extra Assignments: Worksheets.** [Request By Email Only.]
Extra Assignments: Scores.** [See Final Portfolio.]
Extra Assignments - (Recording).
FINAL PORTFOLIO.
* Unknown/Forgotten Date *
At the end of the semester, a portfolio was required to be submitted. This project would be marked in place of a final examination. In the completion of the assignment, I was proud of all the accomplishments throughout this course.
My "Dance of Nature" composition was taken by the DCFA dancers for their "Festival of Dance" concert. I was also happy that I was able to break the page record in portfolios. Mr. Sharma said that the most amount of pages he had to grade was 80 pages. I presented 126 pages for marking. All pieces were introduced with a short description and a reflection.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 21st March 2022)
[WRITTEN AS REPORT]
RAAG MALKAUNS.
* Monday 9 September 2019 *
The course began with a classical piece called Raag Malkauns. Mr. Maharaj showed us a recording of an Indian Classical class in the degree program playing the piece for a Music of the Diaspora Concert. If I had been able to get a copy of that recording, I would have been able to write out the entire song.
I would not have minded if we were going to play the full thing but I would have loved to have this for my archives. The transcription for this piece did not need any amendments. Only two to three classes were taken to complete the song.
On this day Mr. Maharaj gave us a new piece of music to do. It sounded like another classical piece and I was excited. Only the verse and chorus were given for that first part and it was notated on the Sunday before the next class. There was a class where a dance lecturer came to class that night and we learned that this piece was going to be played for her dance group at one of their performances
Version 2 was done and that was used upstairs in the Cheeseman Building on a Tuesday afternoon at 1 PM in the dance studio. I took my tenor pan and went there to play the music. Mr. Maharaj did not have our individual harmonium class again so I waited to play with the dancer. Not many people were there for that first rehearsal. It was only me and then Brandon came late. I met Anil with the harmonium lady (Miss Priyanka) who sang so beautifully.
When I took my first play with them, I did not know all the things I had to wait for and no one told me exactly what to do. It felt as I they would expect me to know those things and improvise if needed as if it was like in some of the performances on YouTube. It was a very long piece of music. I did not even look at the dancers yet because I was trying to get what the lady was singing and playing. Apparently, there were some different things that Mr. Maharaj gave us that she was not doing. So, I took out my pencil and began to make notes and corrections to my score.
I knew that by the night came I would have plenty, plenty of things to do over, and I was right. I got Anil to send me a recording of the whole piece. It took me from 7 PM to 3:30 AM straight to write out the entire song as a melodic line. I was so tired I wanted to fall down. I had to wake up early on Wednesday and get the music printed.
Version 3. A bigger number of students were there present today. Everyone got the score from me by email. I did not want to do that yet because I wanted to make sure that it was suitable and corrected. I knew all that hour of work the night before was too much and that I WAS going to miss out on things. I let happy with version three.
The pages were filled with systems and it was better for me. I did a run-through of the piece on the Tenor pan. Anil was playing at the table and Miss Priyanka was on her harmonium. Some of the others were behind me looking into the score. Sir came in later with his violin to join us. We were not in the brighter studio but the darker one. Mr. Maharaj didn’t take any look into the score versions this time but I was glad to have something like this being able to work out. Versions four and five came and the fifth one was then used for the “Festival of Movement” concert.
Link(s):
Versions 1-3 [Including Sargam]. ** [For Request by Email].
Not much time was spent on this piece. It was learned faster and we were able to move to another piece. I cannot remember why I did not write in the Sargam to the Western notation score.
The nice thing about this piece was that it was fun and only took two classes to put together. I liked how Mr. Maharaj added the African Drum. The sound of the instrument made it even better.
During the vacation time, I met up with Mr. Maharaj in Studio Four to help him transcript a piece of music. He had the whole piece written out. I did ask him to play it out on the piano and recorded it on the phone. It did not take me more than half an hour to work out on Musescore. The piece was used at the Recital for this semester. Unfortunately, Sir did not remember to do this piece all semester long and had then asked me to play it as a solo and I took the offer.
This piece began as a transcription that Mr. Maharaj shared with the class. I got a copy online but had to write it over for some other reason. This piece was completed within one class session because the notation was already done and everyone was reading the online description from the projector. It was just a matter of arrangement based on what Sir would have liked repeated from the music and how the class would end.
In the last two classes before the ensemble's recital, we were given a listen to another piece done by Ms. Mahadeo from the "Aigiri Nandini" piece. I was not sure if the entire class was going to have to learn it so, I took a recording of the song and tried my best to have a score done for the other students.
These two pieces of music done by Ms. Mahadeo provided the opportunity to be creative in producing 'score guides', which was an adoption of the listening map lesson from a teaching course in the Music Certificate. The notation will not be one hundred percent accurate but gives the reader an idea of what is to come in further sections.
This was the end-of-semester recital for the first semester of the academic year. All pieces done and uploaded via a link in the entry were performed. There were also individual pieces done by myself were also done from my Individual Harmonium class. Other available recordings from this event would be presented in their special section above.
This was my first time playing Harmonium in front of a live audience. It was scary because I had to prepare an introduction to "Yaad Kiya Dil" and I did not remember to do it. Instead, I started with the verse and continued with the rest of the piece. Other accompaniments for this piece were done by Anil on Tabla and Brandon on his keyboard. From the recording, I saw there was a nice little drummer helping too.
The second was a tenor pan item to play "Backpan Ki Mohobatta Ko". This was a piece that Mr. Maharaj had to meet up with me in the summer in DCFA to write out. We did not get to that piece for the ensemble to play so he gave it to me as a solo for the recital. Mr. Maharaj joined the three of us on another Harmonium for the tenor pan song.
The Ensemble also played the "Aigiri Nandini" that Ms. Paul's dancers did for the "Festival of Movement" concert earlier in the semester. They started off the recital. The 'Hey Shiva Shankar" piece was performed in the second half of the recital. I did not go to play the tenor pan part after working so hard on the transcription because I did not find myself confident enough. I still gave Ms. Mahadeo a copy of the music that I made for her.
We did not have an official programme for the recital but I kept a copy of the list that Mr. Maharaj wrote out before it started. On this Night Nadara and Dad came to the show. They said that they enjoyed it and Mr. Maharaj told me that the tenor pan piece went really good.
The video recordings were recorded on Saturday 6th August 2022 and became a DAPHA Project.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 13th August 2022)
Dear Diary,
I was asked by a very special
friend, Nella to create a Grand Staff chart for her classroom. This was done
during the week leading up to our Indian Classical Music final examination on Friday.
The Diaspora concert ‘exam’ had already taken place and concluded.
This project required several
cutting and sticking because of the note-heads for each line and space. I also decided
to craft text on the chart for the student’s use and to point out important
tips. Doing this same activity gave me ideas for the same grand staff topic in
my steelpan book.
On this day, I was able to complete the “Our Father” song for the steelband. I see that Mr. Sharma really liked this and had asked me to start working on it for Sunday School. I started the evenings in Curepe trying to work it out and then I went up to Tunapuna to print out the parts for the members on my way to practice the Sunday.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 15th March 2022)
Dear Diary,
This piece was a random selection for the Sunday School band in church. I don’t remember if it was one that Mr. Sharma had asked me to the door I had chosen it myself. I was glad that the introduction worked out. However, my intention for the ending was to have a grand symphonic sound. It did not work and it blew up in the middle of a rehearsal.
This piece was presented in church after the Sunday practice that it was put together. Sir was not there in church but we had a final rehearsal on a Saturday evening and I had decided to recycle the introduction to end the piece.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 15th March 2022)
Dear Diary,
Another examination event came and I was involved in three groups: the Indian Classical Ensemble, the Indian Classical Music class, and the Intermediate Ensemble. As customary, the two Indian Music classes and Ensemble went in the first act of the show. The Ensemble did three pieces and the class did two pieces we were working on for the whole semester. There is a copy of the programme saved for public viewing.
During the early parts of the semester, I had left the Intermediate Ensemble. I was not doing it for credit and just like Youth Group, I did not want it to take up time that was only going to suffer me. However, I was still invited to come back and play with the band for the show and I took the offer. There would be other students brought back on the final night to pay for more support. The songs played for this ensemble were Bailando, Diamonds, Iron Love, Allez, Smile Jamaica, Pegate, Obeah Wedding, Redemption Song, All Aboard and Bacchanalis.
There was a lot that went occurred this day. Mommy was sick and I had to be wakened to rush out in the road to stop the ambulance for her. Sometime after, I had to get ready and go down to DCFA to help with the instruments and then down to Dagga for the rest of the evening. I had to go home to change into Indian wear and come back down to the "Big UWI" (Main Campus) with my book bag and a separate bag of other clothing to change for the groups. I did walk with other clothing to change when returning to school for the packing.
I had to sit with Mr. Maharaj after he had consulted with his certificate students for us to see who was present and absent. That was part of the awarding for the final marks. Got verbally stabbed in my back twice for the night before going onto the stage and then someone I called a friend sent a verbal sword through my heart that night while trying not to scream through the pain in my legs. There are still other hurtful things that would be left anonymous in the Indian Classical Music course. I thank God that I was able to make it through another torturing night for the Music of the Diaspora exam’.
The edited video recording was created Friday 5th August 2022 and became a DAPHA Project.
.jpg)
%20-%20Mon%2025th%20Nov.jpg)
.jpg)
%20%E2%80%93%20Day%20%23311%20(B).jpg)
%20%E2%80%93%20Day%20%23337%20(A).jpg)