Vessigny Secondary School (SONG)

Date for Entry: (Unknown/Forgotten; JULY 2012)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 28 July 2025)

Dear Diary,

    The following relates to the works associated with achieving accomplishment on works to the works of Vessigny Secondary School. Compilation of information for this journal entry began in 2025, and many dates from 2011 to the present may not have been recorded/recalled. Not all work (either used or outdated versions) may have been saved or video recorded for the presentation.

 

MUSIC REQUEST.

**  July 2012 **

This afternoon, there was a special visit from my Uncle Ram and Aunty Annmarie. At this point in my life, I was in Form Two at Hillview College. There was a request from Uncle Ram. He has asked to “do the music for this song”. I was given a sheet of lyrics and a disc. I learned from him that this was his school’s song.

    The challenge was accepted in my mind. I hoped at the time that I would be able to fulfil the task. Just before leaving, he managed to sing me a few parts of the song he could recall. The rest of the song would come by exploring the disc’s recording provided to me. The project became a ‘Universal Challenge’. This term did not exist at the time (probably until 2018 or earlier).

 

SONG’S TRANSCRIPTION.

** Unknown/Forgotten **

The recording provided to me by Uncle Ram was a vocal piece with piano accompaniment. The voice was sung by a female. I admired the depth that she went to in the chorus. Since my main task was to play the song on the Tenor pan, I worked on transcribing the melody alone. I made sure to insert the lyrics. I used the same recording to practice the music and follow the score I created. It was ready, but I was not sure when the time was to play it.

LINK(S):

• Recording from Disc. [Disc Lost]

 

PERFORMANCE.

** Sunday 20 October 2013 **

This afternoon, Aunty and Uncle came up from Princess Town in the cooler part of the evening. It was nice to see Joshua also. Daddy had to rush me home to meet them. I was helping mommy and her coworkers set up the polling station for the Local Government elections that will be conducted tomorrow. They were situated in the Curepe Community Centre.

    I got to share with Uncle the music that I did. Mommy suggested that I go through the song first. He was only interested in getting the steelpan music. Luckily, I had the idea to use headphones to hear the recording and play the pan.

    The first two attempts to record the pan playing were still quiet. On the third attempt, Uncle sat beside the pan and held his phone just below its belly. This time, the recording was clear enough. We learned that this recording would be used for a teacher’s retirement event. He also mentioned that the teacher was very fond of steelpan music.

 

PIANO SCORE.

** Unknown/Forgotten **

From 2013 to 2018, there were about five attempts to transcribe the piano part of the school song. It was my wish to have a complete score of the work for archival purposes and for the school to keep. The final attempt was the best that I possibly could, but sadly, it remained a nightmare. I’m not sure when the next attempt will be made.

STEELBAND ARRANGEMENT.

** May 2017 **

During the summer of 2017, I completed my Certificate in music. The final semester ended with a course in the Fundamentals of Steelpan Arranging. I decided to take the knowledge gained from the course and begin a trial of transforming my previous work into a steelpan arrangement.

    Just like the attempts of the piano score, the same occurrences occurred. I would not have known how many trials there would have been needed to get to where it is today. In total, there were eight attempts made, and they were finally accomplished.

    The final attempt that brought the completion was done after my degree in music at the University of the West Indies (UWI-DCFA). There were two more steelpan arranging courses in that programme, which had me return to the song for another review. 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V1).

    Towards the early beginning of the Summer Vacation, after the completion of my Certificate program at UWI, I decided to visit the piano and voice score that I made and attempted to do a steelband version. I thought that if the school had a Steelband, maybe they might have wanted that too. The idea came after I had finally been able to get Hillview College's anthem written out for Steelpan in 2015. 

    In the case of Hillview, even though I knew the steelpan tutor said "nobody wants to have that," I saw the necessity to have it. I also received appreciation from the boys in the band when I made copies for them.

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V2).

    I think that at the end of my Steelpan Arranging 1 course (in the degree programme), I decided to revise and fix the entire score I did in version one. The second version brought a huge improvement. The song still remained incomplete in my view. I found it not pleasing enough to be shared. 

    I was still satisfied to some small percentage, knowing that the song was one step closer to completion. I was not going to give up that easily. I knew that someday it would be reviewed again. 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V4).

** Monday 11th October 2021. **

At this period in my life, I completed with Degree program at UWI. It was on Thursday 3rd of June 2021 that a plan was made to review the Vessigny Song again for the fourth time. My mind was not so focused on the project, and the ideas for tackling this fourth review were unfortunately not so numerous as I had hoped, resulting in a longer completion date. 

    One morning, I sat down from 12:00 AM until 5:00 AM and got the entire fourth version completed. I must admit Sections C and E were super challenging. I was now proud of myself for being able to accomplish them, along with the entire arrangement. 

    There were still a few insecurities (about less than five), which may have left me feeling as the first version. However, it was good to share with aunty Anmarie and Uncle Ram.

    On the Wednesday of that same week, I was able to send an email to Uncle copies of the separate parts. Getting pitch names levelled was a challenge. It was my first time using the inspector feature in Musescore to do this. Thanks to the kind people in the Musescore Facebook group for their assistance.

    In case the school chooses to use this arrangement, I hope that it brings them enjoyment and the proud, amazing feeling that I would have gotten when singing Hillview's anthem at the school. Version four was the same as version three. Minor changes were made to the ending.

STEELPAN ARANGEMENT (V5).

** Thursday 8th December 2022 **

A matter with the school’s logo was difficult. We did not have an electronic logo to work with. I was only able to find one on their school’s website and use it. This created the steelband arrangement and all of its accompanying parts to become version five.

    I saw that the shape of the ‘shield’ was not shown properly, but was darkened out to the lower portion. It was inserted and sent over by email. For some reason, I still found myself not feeling satisfied with the work. 

 

STEELPAN ARANGEMENT (V6).

** Monday 19th December 2022 **

    I saw another version of the same Vessigny logo given to me by Aunty. It was pixelated lightly, but I believed it was workable. However, the image was stained with a grey colour. The shape of the symbol in the lower portion had to be edited.

    It took about two and a half hours in total to clean the image and fix the shape of the ‘shield’. My biggest insecurity was spoiling the image in the process of trying to fix it. Because of this new change to the score, all separate parts had to be regenerated and relabelled.

 

SONG BOOKLETS.

** Thursday 16 December 2021 **

At that time, the COVID-19 pandemic was causing terror around the world. It may have been nearing its end around the date mentioned. On that day, I was visited again by Aunty Annmarie and Uncle Ram during the Christmas holiday from their trip up north. I had already prepared copies of the song booklets to bring to the school.

    There were twelve copies in total: one for myself and another for my aunty and uncle. The remaining booklets were copies that would be shared around the school’s compound. It was sad that I could not go with them to meet the Principal, and also to play the music myself at the school. I hope that in time these gifts from me will become useful to the students.

    Just as my working on anthems for other schools, the song needed a title. This was the only time that a person who was credited for creating a song was still alive. I was able to ask Miss County-Henry, through Uncle, to provide a name for the song. Within a few days, she named it “Our Very Own”. I was pleased that I did not have to decide on naming the song myself, as with all the other songs I previously worked on.

YOUTUBE VIDEO.

** Monday 28 July 2025 **

A few years of waiting had passed after the completion of the steelpan arrangement. I was requested by Miss County-Henry to wait until certain arrangements could be achieved before the video could be uploaded to YouTube.

    After waiting three years, I decided to move ahead with the YouTube video, which would then complete the work and finally bring an end to this project. The only difficulty at first was sourcing a workable logo and editing.

    Usually, at the end of the video, I liked inserting a picture of the school and its name printed clearly, but it was not provided. Instead of that image, the logo with a white background was used. I pray that after all these years of work, the video will be a beneficial teaching resource to the school and its students.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Class Party Day & Forms

 Date for Entry: (Thursday 8th December 2022)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 10th December 2022)

Dear Diary,

    Today was the students’ final day for their class parties and report sheets. I personally found it was better for report books to avoid the printing and last-minute everything that usually occurs. It did happen that way too and the office was crowded with teachers waiting for reports to be printed on legal-sized sheets. I could recall there was one of the students that did not get a music grade and Miss Roberts had to go and insert it.

    I had on my red shirt and long black pants on that day. I did not dress up like some of the other students and teachers. My entire morning was spent in a classroom working on the teachers’ attendance sheets, and subject registers, and creating a new temporary mark sheet for plenty of coursework. Those mark sheets were literally labelled “plenty coursework” on the top.

    The Teachers’ Attendance Sheet would enable the Vice Principal to take attendance for an entire month as opposed to a single week. The subject register was a complete remake of the outdated sheet they had. I heard some of the teachers comment on their dissatisfaction with the sheet. The plenty coursework mark sheet was made to accommodate marks for fifteen assignments. I had plans to make an excel version but it is still difficult to lay out the entire document on legal-sized paper.

    From lunchtime to the end of school, I was in Form 1 Leacock with Miss Gittens’ form class. She had invited me to lunch with the class. I had to carry a chair from one of the classrooms to theirs. Lunch was lovely. They had a gift exchange and I remembered getting the Christmas card the students signed and gave to me. I stayed back, helped Mr Bains pack up his Christmas tree to carry home, and sent the remainder of the cake to security by the road.

    I packed up my bag and went to wait for the bus shuttle. The pictures of the subject registers from Miss Gittens were too small to read and enter in my excel forms.

Link(s):

• Pictures and Videos of the Class Party. **
• Teachers’ Attendance Sheets. ** [File Confidential]
• Teachers’ Subject Registers.
• Temporary Mark Sheet (V3)– Plenty Coursework.

 

UPDATE.

** Monday 31 October 2022 **

During the weekend of the date above, a temporary mark sheet was created to record marks in coursework done by the Form 1 students. I had the feeling that I would not be allowed to use a mark book so this was my substitute. 

Link(s):

• Temporary Mark Sheet (V3) - Little Bit.
• Journal Entry: "St. George's College (Week 7) - Day #25".

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Religious Unity Walk Banner

Date for Entry: (Thursday 1st December 2022)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 10th December 2022)

FIRST DAY OF WORKING.

[St. George’s College (WEEK 11) – Day #47]

** Thursday 1st December 2022.**

    At my entrance to the gate, it was nice to see one of the security that greeted me but their supervisor wanted me to be rough. I just let her yell to finish it out. I could now understand how the parent earlier this week felt when he complained about the security yelling at him and it had to be her. The only issue in her comments was that some of us were taking the bus and not reporting. I felt THAT she decided to pick on me because I was the only OJT that did not sign out that day on the bus.

    It was Day 5 in school today. I spent the whole morning and lunchtime in the art room. I saw that Miss Gittens had gotten a piece of red fabric and she drew the outline of a shield to her church’s logo on it. A lot of o time was spent on making the white in the shield thick and full. Someone else and Miss worked on the white and yellow for the flame.

    Not many of the students wanted to help. Before lunchtime ended, I took a white colour pencil and draw out the words and was only able to colour the word “army” in white paint. I saw that the students drawing below did not look at the mathematical aspect. We had to leave out a gold line in the shield. The vile with oil I saw also needed doing over because of the shape and the mathematical positioning.

    In the evening, I had the in-class written exam with Form 1L. They were quiet during the exam. I could not believe the children when they said they were not ready after all of the preparation.

Link(s):

• Images of the “Five-Fold Army of God” banner.
• Exams Drawings from Form 1L. **

 

FIRST DAY OF WORKING.

[St. George’s College (WEEK 11) – Day #48]

** Friday 2nd December 2022.**

    Today I was in the art room working hard on the banner for Miss Gittens’ walk tomorrow. I showed her the words that I did and as I got to the table to work on it, I saw that someone had thickened up the word “army” that I did and someone else tried the first layer of white on the word “the”. By the time lunchtime was completed, all the words were covered in white. We had some students working on their neatness of them.

    They had a talent show during lunchtime and it took some of the students a while to get back to class. I stayed with them for some time to do the exam. I also took up the papers twenty minutes earlier before school started. I could tell that they did not study their work. I went back to the art room to work as much as I could to get the oil to vie drawn over and base it in white. There were two intersecting swords to the top right that were not even one. I felt like I might have spoiled them.

DAY OF UNITY WALK.

** Friday 2nd December 2022.**

    The Saturday came and it was only me going down to Barataria to meet Miss Gittens. Everyone else had cancelled last minute. Daddy got a car to carry me to meet her. It took a very long time for the car to also get us. I had the opportunity to read a sermon that she wrote and another essay. I knew that by the time I worked on it the driver would come and so it occurred.

    The walk had already finished by the time we got to Independence Square. We spent seven hours on our feet. The rain came down on us three times but did not stop anything. I was given a reading and something else that a lady predicted. My one out of many was a bit special. She opened up the entire gathering like God had opened up the ocean for the Israelites to cross the sea and she said, “Come… Slowly!” It was very scary for me. I met Daddy and Andrew in Curepe that night.

Link(s):

• Exams Drawings from Form 1F. **

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Nah Change Up

Date for Entry: (Tuesday 29th November 2022)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 10th December 2022)

[St. George’s College (WEEK 11) – Day #45]

Dear Diary,

    Yesterday was no school because of the flooding and the closure of schools. I was able to complete the transcription of the rap song “Nah Change Up” for Miss Harris. It was a very challenging piece to do because of the rap and also because of the last-minute request. I still did not trust it to the moment when she asked me and the less rush in the corridor today. She wanted me to write in the letter as if it was too much to ask Miss Roberts.

    This morning’s transportation was another story because there were only two maxis there and no taxis. Both of the maxis were stopping at the roundabout and going down onto the highway. I decided to take the maxi and walk in because it seemed to be the only way to get to school. I had a long way to go and the sun was very hot for the morning. All day the sun was hotter than usual.  

    The attendance for the Form 1 Leacock was too little for the exam today. I did not want to do it with a short number. Instead, I had the students open their Grade 1 book and I questioned them on topics they had homework on. A lot of the questions were others from outside of the book. I also had a lot of students participating in writing answers on the board. Some of them love to draw the staff.

    Ten out of seventeen students submitted books and they were returned during lunchtime. Their class was empty somehow when I got there. The same review was done with Form 1 Farrell but I had forgotten to take up their workbooks. I did not even feel ill towards the end of lunch I only went to 1 Farrell during the last ten minutes of the seventh period.

    There were no exams needed for Miss Roberts’ Form 3 class because of the small number of participants. They were told that it would be held tomorrow at 12:20 during lunchtime. I appreciated the assembly this morning when I got to ask Miss Chote to play the national anthem on the tenor pan. I made one short mistake in the playing after playing it in Hillview. I had thirty copies of my attendance receipt forms in legal sheets. I had cut the sheets in halves. Thirty of them were for me and the other thirty I had put in the born cabinet for other teachers to use.

    On my way home, the highway had too much traffic as if some major accident took place. The bus driver took the main road up and tried to come out by WASA in Mount Hope but had to turn back. He ended up taking the back roads and allowed some of us to exit opposite Yang’s Wuk. I had to cross the bus route and the main road. I walked up to the back road in line with Vashti and walked down to McLeod Street. It was only at 4:45 that daddy met me at the junction.

Link(s):

• “Nah Change Up” – YouTube Recording.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:20 am – 2:55 pm)

Teacher's Individual Class Log

 Date for Entry: (Friday 18^th November 2022)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 19th December 2022)

Dear Diary,

    The following divisions below will detail and discuss the events that took place for creating my "Teachers' Individual Class Log" form. You are welcome to keep a download of the document and use it if this may be useful to you.

Link(s):

• Teacher's Individual Class Log.

ENTRY 1.

** Friday 18^th November 2022 **

[St. George’s College (WEEK 9) – Day #39]

Today I woke at 4:30 again and I got ready. A while before lunchtime I was in the library typing out a teacher’s class log. I did not have my flash drives, so I had to do something new from scratch. Miss Phillips gave me one that Miss Patel made and I transformed it into a longer one that caters for twenty classes in a term. 

    I hope that Miss Phillips appreciates this and makes it easier for her to do her class logs. I did not finish this form until I got home. Suddenly I began to feel too sleepy. I went back to my desk in the administrative office and fell asleep for the rest of periods four and five.

ENTRY 2.

** Monday 21st November 2022 **

[St. George’s College (WEEK 10) – Day #40]

The morning sky was dark as night. I did not get to the UTT site until 7:15 while sheltering on the main road and having my pants lightly went from cars dashing water on me and the others. I did not make a run for it with the umbrella as many did. I knew the strength of the rain was not good to personally make it.

    I met Miss Phillips again this morning. I showed her the teacher’s log that I made. Her only issue was that she preferred the session boxes to be left to right instead of a vertical setting. She still took it. I made the change later that night to see what she might say the next day.

ENTRY 3.

** Tuesday 22nd November 2022 **

[St. George’s College (WEEK 10) – Day #41]

More work was done on the form. The idea had to be cancelled and an entirely new design had to be created. Not much progress was done afterwards, sadly.

ENTRY 4.

** Wednesday 23rd November 2022 **

[St. George’s College (WEEK 10) – Day #42]

    The school was closed early because of the heavy rain at lunchtime but the sun came out in full right after. I saw Miss Philips sitting with Miss Roberts in the lobby area and I handed her the teacher’s log with amendments. She seemed happy about it.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Bus Shuttle Attendance Forms

Date for Entry: (Monday 31st October 2022)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 5th November 2022)

[St. George’s College (WEEK 7) – Day #25]

Dear Diary,

    Today was the first working day for St. George’s College at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) campus in Valsayn. The rain caused a lot of flooding that morning and the maxis were not there in the stand. Daddy and I walked back to the taxi stand in Curepe and we got a car. A lady told me in the car that she ran back to tell us that the maxis came but she took the car with me. Going down they spoke about Halloween and I remembered it was the last day of October.

    When I got to the gates of the UTT compound, the security wrote my name in their book. It was different information than in Barataria. I had to ask the guard for the time to transfer into the OJT attendance log. I wrote the time into my orange diary first before the OJT log as usual.

    Sitting at my desk in the administration office, the noise was the first thing to go through with teachers and others coming in and out of the heavy glass door. It was day six so I did not have classes as well as the rest of the school. I did not understand why we were asked to come out to the campus so quickly when it did not seem prepared for classes.

    Miss Roberts came into the office late to sign. We walked around the campus to find the second staffroom in Block K and later we went to the music room to see the layout. When we got there, people were still working in the room and they had placed some tables and chairs in the room. It took up space and we wondered how the steelpan instruments would fit in the space to the back. All of the tables and chairs were cramped up to the front and we didn’t know what to do with the rest of the room.

    Some long minutes after, the principal came into the room with another lady to check the music room. I soon found out without asking that the lady was the school’s supervisor. I had never met a school supervisor before but the conversation was nice. I walked Miss Roberts back to her desk and got my bags to go back to the administration office. She said she had a meeting and I asked to see her later for some help.

    I went and started to have lunch and started to work on a bus shuttle form. Miss Gittens had messaged me minutes going to five in the morning to help her make a list to check the students go on the bus. We had spoken about this earlier this morning before school started. As we spoke about it, the teachers’ subject register I had made over was coming to mind. I Miss Gittens that I could make a form for the entire month with large columns and they will have spaces for the five days of the week. I saw the smile come to her and she said she liked the idea.

    I got the laptop turned on and opened up the teachers’ subject register and used the Forms 4 to Upper 6 version. I was glad that it did not take long to do but I did not know how many students needed to be filled into the tables. It was no longer two tables for boys and girls but just a continuous table. I was able to get a list of the names from Miss Patel and Miss Sawh when they saw what I made for them.

    It was only the night after working hours, I had made two sets of lists. I was not sure which one they would have preferred to use. The first set was two documents that had a lot of rows in case there were more students to add in. The second set of two lists was concise and used less paper. There were two emails sent to the three teachers for both sets. Miss Gittens had liked them. For the two of us, the concise one might not have been so visually appealing.

    In the last thirty minutes before school finished, I got my way back to Block K to work on the melody for the college song. The ‘children’ in the staffroom were noisy as usual. Miss Roberts and I tried really hard to listen to the video with the children in the video singing the St. George’s College song. The second verse had a change in only one measure. I was glad that the review went by in that short space of time.

    I got a ride with Miss Libert up to Curepe and I got to create thirteen multiple-choice questions as we waited twelve minutes in traffic getting out of the UTT compound. Some more waiting on the main road to get there I shared with her the Temporary Mark Sheet that I had made for myself. She said that she would love to use it so I sent a PDF copy to her later after doing the two sets of forms for the Bus Shuttles. We also spoke about the time at St. George’s and Google classroom before getting out.

Link(s):

• Bus Shuttle Form (V1, Long) – Form 1 to 3. 
• Bus Shuttle Form (V1, Long) – Form 4 to Upper 6B.
• Bus Shuttle Form (V2, Concise) – Form 1 to 3.
• Bus Shuttle Form (V2, Concise) – Form 4 to Upper 6B.
• Temporary Mark Sheet. **

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

(7:35 am – 2:33 pm)

Tunapuna Secondary School (SONG)

Date for Entry: (Monday 17th October 2022)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 18th December 2022)

Dear Diary,

The following sectioned entries below will detail the occurrences and activities relating to the creation of the Tunapuna Secondary School’s Song.

 

FIRST TIME MEETING MR J. RAMASAR.

** Monday 17th October 2022. **

[St. George’s College (Week 5) – Day #17]

This morning I was supposed to go to join the teachers in the staffroom for a meeting about the concerns of the school’s danger to everyone. It was a long day with the morning meeting for heads to go to the University of the Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) site and the continuation site in the evening.

    Sitting at my desk in the staffroom at around ten o’clock, I got a Messenger text from a new Facebook friend name John. He was someone I did not know. After the long and tiring day, we did not speak for much until later that night.

    During our conversation via text from 6:43 to 7:06 pm, he had asked for assistance in music notation. It was to score the Tunapuna Secondary School song. I learned that there were no music notations for the song. It reminded me of when I first heard the anthems for Hillview, Vessigny and St. George’s.

    I was told that there was something done that he met there when starting to work at the school. It was a recording of the song with a lady singing and someone playing a keyboard. While listening to it, I knew that a lead sheet would have been necessary before beginning to transcribe that entire song. I was surprised that the length and wondered how the students would learn it. I suppose it is the same as Vessigny. I just at the time hoped it would not have taken forever like the Vessigny steelpan version.

    As soon as John was approving the lead sheet, I asked him for the name of the persons responsible for the text/lyrics (Amanda Jagassar), melody (Juliet Robin) and the name of the school song. I was told that the name of the song was “Our School Song”. I recalled seeing that in their school’s anniversary magazine in the newspapers some months ago. I did not agree with it as a name for the song but didn’t comment.

    I was given a snapshot of the school song’s lyrics. That would have been helpful to me in creating the lead sheet. Before our conversation concluded, I learned that Dr Mohammed had referred him to me about notating the music.

Link(s):

• Full Entry: St. George’s College (Week 5) – Day #17.
• Text/Lyrics. **
• Vocal Recording. **

 

ZOOM MEETING FOR VOCAL & PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT.

** Saturday 22nd October 2022. **

This evening was kind of my first face-to-face meeting with John on Zoom. We did not chat much at first but got straight into the music topic of the evening. I was the one that created the link so I shared my screen and showed him the lead sheet first.

    I mentioned that the text was difficult during the chorus section. I did not know if all of the chorus sections were “thy light HAS come” or “thy light IS come” since they were not exact. The melody with piano accompaniment version was five pages in length. The playing was done and we spoke some more about it. As I did for St. George's and Hillview, I also had to ask for a copy of the school’s logo that will decorate the score.

    As part of the conversation, I also added a share of what I had done for St. George’s anthem and Vessigny’s anthem. Then I moved the attention from the three to Hillview’s College song on YouTube. I did offer John to make a YouTube video of their school song but had mentioned that if the principal had given his or her approval, I would continue to work on that.

    A little before my presentations for that one meeting were over, I shared with John a short view of the results from a new software I downloaded called Anthem Score on Thursday 20th October 2022. As I had expected, there would have been a huge mess created. I was consulting with John during the week about the chords used in the piano part and he too found them to be very confusing.

    While I was busy trying to strictly notate what was being done in the music, I had forgotten about listening to the music and allowing it to tell me what it wanted. I found it to be much easier as I used it this way. I’m glad that the music spoke to me. I was also forced to make some negotiations as expected and sooner than expected too I was done with the piece.

    When my meeting ended with John with a long conversation (7:30 pm), I took the same lead sheet and began working on the steelpan version of the same school song. I left like it was too much work to do but I did not entertain the feeling. I continued because I know of the special importance it will serve later on. My work for the night ended at 9:00 pm.

Link(s):

• Lead Sheet. **
• Vocal Score with Piano Acc. **
• Anthem Score Results: Voice & Piano Acc. **

 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V1).

** Sunday 23rd October 2022. **

At 9:00 pm the last night, I was able to complete the introduction of the song which was four measures in four-four times. The verse was not difficult at all to create a strumming pattern. I ended up ignoring all that was given in the recording of the singing lady and the confusing piano part. Instead, I did what I wanted and chose to bring it to life like Vessigny’s anthem and St. George’s anthem.

    Additionally, I was very pleased that the same strumming patterns for the verse could have been reused for the chorus. It reduced more work to be done and they were copied and pasted in immediately.

    Verse three on the other hand presented more challenge because it was different from the other verses. A new strumming pattern had to be made for the double tenors and double seconds, and the Guitars and Cellos.

 

LOGO/CREST.

** Monday 24th October 2022. **

In my previous work with St. George’s, I felt that it was necessary and satisfactory to have the Tunapuna Secondary School logo inserted into the scores that I had created. Unfortunately, as time went by from the date above all the way to the end of the team, no logo was given to me. I had to source the same image from Google. This image was not a proper or official one.  

    On Tuesday 6th December 2022, I saved the image and edited and cleaned it myself. The file format was changed for the insertion of the image into the Musescore file.

 

SCHOOL’S SONG BOOKLETS.

** Tuesday 13th December 2022. **

Last night I had all the materials to make Tunapuna’s Song sent to print by ISA. I decided to make a book for them as I did for St. George’s with all the parts for the steelpan arrangement and the vocal piece with piano accompaniment previously completed.

    In addition, I decided that it would be good to insert copies of all the parts of the national anthem I had done for “PanChile” some weeks ago. I heard that they were starting a steelband trial for the first time and knew that as a steelband in Hillview, the college song and national anthem were the two most crucial pieces above all other repertoires.

 

FIRST MEETINGS & ACQUAINTANCES.

** Wednesday 14th December 2022. **

This morning was an early one. I had a nice surprise visit from Mr Ramasar (at 11:28) for a while until our conversation was then continued in the Tunapuna Secondary School’s compound. It was my first step into the compound. I was very excited. My view of the school was only the back entrance by my home.

    The environment was quite different but standing in the car park, gave me that same calm and welcoming feeling that St. George’s presented me all these years. I was asked to sign the guard’s book shortly after.

    It felt like I was definitely going to school. I carried my bookbag on my back with the booklets and another bag in my hand. We met the Principal and Vice Principal for the first time some minutes after setting up my laptop in the waiting area. I had the vocal piece with piano accompaniment opened first to play for them and explained that this was the work requested of me to do.

    Immediately after the vocal and piano version, I had the steelpan version waiting. None of the three had heard this one either. I explained my reason and the importance of it and then played it for them. I found a bigger, better feeling from the steelpan one after playing the vocal and piano one. Even though I have heard the steelpan version many times before the meeting, I think we were all surprised by the way the rhythmic introduction came in. The chorus was way nicer. We enjoyed it.

    Once the steelpan version was completed, I got my plastic bag with the booklets out. It was another surprise I had for them. They were already sorted so that I would distribute them. I mentioned that the books were gifts to the school via a particular area or office within the compound and not to a specific person. They understood.

    The last and eleventh book remaining in my bookbag was left with Principal for Miss Robin who composed the melody. One book was given to the Principal’s Office. One book was given to the Vice Principal’s office. Three books were sent to the Music Room. Three books were sent to the library for archival and safeguarding. The final two books were given to the Administration Office.

    In my view, as the Form One version as a Hillview student, I can now feel satisfied that notation in every necessary way for the school song is created and is available. It would be easily accessible throughout the school and no longer scarce.

YOUTUBE VIDEO.

** Monday 21 August 2023 **

    This afternoon I decided to put together the arrangement and photographs that I was given on my visit to the school into a YouTube video. There were six recordings done. Unfortunately, after six attempts, the quality of the visuals was still not pleasing. I am glad that this project is finally completed after an entire academic year of waiting. In addition, I hope that it provides a useful tool in assisting the students to learn their school song.

Link(s):

• Tunapuna Secondary School (TSS) Song.

Daryl Zion M. Ali