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.
Showing posts with label Music Transcriptions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music Transcriptions. Show all posts
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.
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.
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.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Wednesday 23rd March 2022)
Dear Diary,
My friend Brandon Poonwassie from DCFA degree program was getting married around this time. He made a YouTube video playing the song “Agar Tum Na Hote” on the keyboard and was accompanied by two other gentlemen. One of the two men played drums in the studio.
I decided that I would listen to the recording and notate it for steelpan like I usually would for the Indian Classical Ensemble on Monday nights. It came up to three pages and a portion of one day to complete this exercise. It was emailed and I hope it is useful.
Unfortunately, when looking for the video on YouTube I was not sure I it was set as a private or unlisted one. I can only provide a recording of the score from Musescore.
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)
[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: (Monday 14th March 2022)
RAAG BHIMPALASI.
* Monday 4thFebruary 2019 *
This was the first class of being experienced in the piece called Raag Bhimplasi. The chorus and the verse were given and it seemed to be quite catchy and attractive. We were given all of the music to learn because I had all of the music written out by the second version. The piece was used at the Music of the Diaspora concert’.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 10th March 2022)
Dear Diary,
This class began on the second week of the semester. A series of transcriptions were done for it also and will be presented in all of their surviving versions.
CHOOKAR MERE MANN KO.
This was the starting piece for the semester. Sections A and B were given to the class in Sargam (Bhatkhandi style) and the others were given by the second week. It took three classes to complete this piece. I did have to do corrections until the fourth version was made as to the final recital version.
This piece was given to us only the chorus and the verse. There was a recording sent to us from Mr. Maharaj for the entire piece. He sang the entire piece.
For me, I had a feeling that we were not going to do the entire piece and it ended up being that way. There was a shortstop in the class and we got off-track. We were only doing the first two sections but in deciding on the sage of proper notation, I decided to write out all that he sang in the recording. In some of the solos that Sir had us do, I decided to use some of the rest of the music we were not doing.
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