Scoring "She'll Be Called Blessed"

 Date for Entry: (Thursday 2nd July, 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 2nd July, 2021)

Dear Diary,

    Tonight, while digging up in an old library in Aunty Vangy room too many things fell over on me to get to the table in the corner. I was going to score out some of the old music I had on my Musescore program I found. Then I found a sheet of letters I remembered playing for Mother’s Day in Church with the Sunday School. The only one Aunty Joy gave us with the words and letters.

    Poor little me at that time didn’t know how to write music or even read it properly. In fact, that was the first time I was ever experienced playing a song on the Low C Tenor pan. One idea that mommy had, she pointed out a picture of the Tenor Pan. She got the name of the pan from Aunty Joy. We stuck it on the back of a Styrofoam plate. It was at that same time too that I did not even own my very first pair of pan sticks. I took two pencils and held them just before the point while I used the other side with the erasers to practice hitting and rolling on the note.

    The only difference was that this did not give out sound but it was a very good idea. I sat on the other side of mommy’s bed while she lay there and watched me learn the song with the letters on the yellow paper she wrote out for me on the opposite side before she fell asleep. 

(Update)

    Only after a while did mommy fall asleep, I noticed that the music wasn’t so hard. It repeated itself and the only difference was that in the fourth and eighth lines, a slight change was done. The rhythm was the same and the notes only descended each time. At that point in my life, I did not know about sequences.

    There were nine of us playing tenor pan at the time. Me and two others used the church's tenor pans. I think that Joshua had some cousins that joined us as well and they brought their pans. They were part of the nine. 

    Oh, how I admired all of them with their pans and pan sticks that I wished I could be able to play the instrument good as them. I thought that even though I was into music all this time that they would have known more than me. Time showed me that I progressed and had less to worry about back then.

    As time moved on I wondered what had happened to all of them. Are they still playing music and if they were able to play professionally. Not many of them stayed with the Sunday School as I left over the years in my short stay with Sunday School.

    There were about two to three practices with this song alone before the Sunday service that it was performed. I for one knew that I was most confident. Practising on that printout had ensured I had everything covered. I am certain that I  knew it by heart as I was practising on the printout and following the letter pitches on the yellow Bristol board sheet that mommy did for me. 

    During the performance, I had the tiny sheet with the same letter stuck inside the pan and I had the Bristol board sheet on a book stand. Being aware of the music and everything required for the piece, I did not need the letters. All that I did was just play the song. The rest of the Sunday School children had to meet aunty Joy Sampath at the back of the church by the beautiful stained glass to learn the words last-minute. This was the only way I was able to find out the words for the song. I had no idea of this song before.

    I did not know that during my private practising at home (Tunapuna; home #3) I was doing something called audiation. It was led heavily on what I had heard from class and then repeated at home. This term was taught to me by Mr. Sharma during Music Education 1 class during the third and final year of the Music Degree program.

Link(s):

1. "She'll be called Blessed" Score.

Daryl Zion M. Ali