St. Mary's College (SONG)

 Date for Entry: (Saturday 4th February 2023)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 4th February 2023)

Dear Diary,

    The following section below is an account of my attempts to create a steelpan version of the St. Mary’s College Song.

 

ACQUAINTANCE TO MELODY.

** Saturday 4th February 2023 **

This morning I woke up and as I began to scroll through Facebook, I saw an image of a brown and ancient sheet of paper with music notation on it. It immediately caught my attention and I slowly realised that it was the music for a school’s song (St. Mary’s College).

    It was nice to see that a school had musical notation to their school song. I began to sign sing the melody using ‘fixed Doh’. I thought that maybe God had sent it to me to find a sixth school to work on a steelpan arrangement for their song. (The previous School songs worked on were Hillview College, Vessigny Sec., St. George’s College, and Tunapuna Sec.)

    Luckily, in the comments section of the Facebook post, someone left a link to the same song and students were singing it. That night, I began laying out the document and formatting it on the Musescore Programme for working the next day after steelband practice in the church.

Link(s):

• Facebook Post.
• College Song – YouTube Recording.

MUSESCORE FILE.

** Sunday 5th February 2023 **

**Score Setup

After returning from church practice this morning, I began working on re-transcribing the melody found on Facebook. I had an image of the score saved to work on while staying at Home #1 for a while. A majority of the song was completed at home in Tunapuna. I had to do my personal research via the internet because I did not know the song personally as a student should.

    The search for information consisted of sourcing the name of the composer of the lyrics, melody composer, and name of the song and finding a good image of the school’s logo.

    The lyrics were composed by Father Tom Kennedy in 1933. An existing melody entitled “Le Reve Passe” by Charles H. Helmer and G. Krier was recycled for the melody of this school’s song. I was able to find the school’s logo online. Some minor adjustments were done to it before inserting it into the Musescore file.

    Sadly, when I looked at the notation I found, “The College Song” was written to the top; meaning that it could have been left as a name for the college song. When I saw 1933 as the year for the lyrics composition, I thought it might be impossible for the same person to find us a name for the song. I thought that maybe the person might have died by now. 

Link(s):

• St. Mary’s College – Website. 
• St. Mary's College - Student's Handbook.

 

EMAIL FOR REQUEST OF INFORMATION.

** Tuesday 7th February 2023 **

On this day at 7:10 the night, I had an email sent out to different parts of the school. Was not sure from whom I could source more information on the college song. Having difficulty with determining the chords for the melody, I wondered if there was an existing piano version of the song like with Tunapuna that I could take and determine myself.

    I was also wondering if the score contained the full song since there are indications of a ‘verse’ and a ‘chorus’. I was also wondering if there was a name for the song apart from “The College Song” or if in the student’s Handbook, they had “St. Mary’s College Song”. A name was needed from me and would be needed at the end of the arrangement’s work. I hope that someone would be able to answer the email at some time. 

CHORDS FINALISED.

** Sunday 12th February 2023 **

For the entire week of having the melody written out, it was a very hard one to work with. There were not many chords to work within the key of G major.

    I did not continue work on chords until the key was transposed to B Flat Major. I wanted to make sure that the tenor pan was able to ‘sing’ the melody comfortably and carried easily sticking for the steelpannist.

    Somehow today as I shifted it to B Flat Major it became easier to listen to the melody and work with it better. For my re-transcription of this melody, I did not write it in the six-eight meter shown in the brown image (in the first section above).

    I decided that it would be better for the notation to be done in a two-four meter. It was then changed to the four-four meter where I got more understanding of the chord placements done previously. Listening and inserting the final chords was even easier, thank God.

    At this current time, I am not sure if I will continue with the four-four meter or re-set back to two-four meter. Even though I may be satisfied with what I had done, I feel the need for the opinions of more musicians before proceeding just in case.

COMPLETION OF STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT.

** Saturday 25 February 2023 **

On the mentioned date above was the completion of the St. Mary’s College Song steelpan arrangement. The dates for other progress were not recorded. Usually, on a steelpan arrangement, I would begin working from the introduction but listening to the song that the melody was taken, I realised that more time and hard creative work was needed to do that.

    Surprisingly, I worked on the entire arrangement in a retrograde motion. I began working with the part label “Chorus” (Bar 22) from the melody’s score provided on the St. Mary’s College Facebook page. That portion was the easiest for me to complete. There was also a bridge completing the “Verse” mentioned in the same melody score.

    This was another great challenge being able to fuse the “Verse” into the “Chorus” (Bars 17 to 22). I was glad that both ‘sections’ had comfortably fused over the multiple trials I did during working hours at St. George’s and evenings at home.

    The next challenge was finding something for the section labelled ‘Verse” from the melody score (Bars 7 to 33). I tried to have the strumming pattern very similar so that students learning it would have less work to do. Bar 9 in the Tenor section was an attempt at decoration from the brass recording of “Le Reve Passe” found on YouTube.

    Seeing that the feeling from the song was like men marching like scouts I tried to create the strumming pattern in that same manner. Thankfully, that helped me out a lot. However, getting closer to where the end of the “Verse” and “chorus” had fused well, I also had to fuse the beginning part going to the fashion already done so that they don’t clash.

    This created a compromise for me and the only way I could have solved the issue was to use rhythmic patterns from the ‘fushion point’ at beats three and four in each measure/bar before so that the audience would have been accustomed to that particular feeling. And, when the ‘fusion point’ into the “Chorus” should take place, it would be smooth thereafter.

    For the introduction, a very close study of the original composition was done. I decided that it would be best for extracts of a “Le Reve Passe” arrangement by George Pollen to be used. My concern was the repeat used but maybe if the school decides to use my arrangement, I thought that maybe the gentlemen might appreciate it in some way. 

    In addition, to the song, a title had to be given apart from "The College Song". As with the situation with Tunapuna Secondary and St. George's, I had to make the move on giving the song itself a name. After reviewing the lyrics of the song as I did with St. George's, I had chosen the words "Fearless & Strong" to be the title of their College Song.

Link(s):

• “Le Reve Passe” – Brass.

• “Le Reve Passe” – Arrangement by George Pollen.

CREATION OF SONG BOOKLETS.

** Wednesday 29 March 2023 **

**Books image

After a nice ride up to Curepe from Miss Santana, I met dad and we went to visit Isa. It was a very long two-hour stay to get everything printed. He said that a printer wasn’t working today and only the slow one was in use. I had some time to enter marks in my mark sheets for the end of the term. I took the time to individually place all the sheets together.

    There were 6 books made for St. Mary’s College as I have done with the other schools. One copy will be one for me. Since the school is connected to a church I decided that the church should be gifted with one. The other copies would go to the Library, Music Room (if any), Office of the Principal, and the Office of the Vice Principal.

    On Friday 31 March 2023, I found the number for St. Mary’s College and was able to speak with the Acting Principal. I hope that there would be a suitable time for a scheduled appointment to visit them.

(MORE COMING SOON!!!)

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Permission to Leave Classroom Form

Date for Entry: (Wednesday 18th January 2023)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Sunday 22nd January 2023)

St. George’s College (WEEK 15) – Day #64 [3/11]

Dear Diary,

    This afternoon I was called by Miss Chote in her office. She showed me a form that was used by another school for teachers to give students permission to leave the classroom during teaching time. Its image was a slip that I knew if I tried really hard, I could get four slips to fit on a legal-sized page.

    I got home a bit late in the night. It did not take me long (about ten minutes) to create this type of form. My only challenge was finding a font that was small enough to use less space on the paper but also one that look neat and easy for the eyes to look at.

    During our shout three-minute consultation over WhatsApp, there were only two easy amendments to do before it was sent to Dr Sookdeo for approval. It made the form become the third version. This form was now made a DAPHA Project and also a 'Universal Challenge'.

Link(s):

• Permission to Leave Classroom Form.

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