Caribbean Lab Presentations (No. 2) - Andre Dillion

 Date for Entry: (Friday 30th October, 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 7th September, 2021)

Dear Diary,

    Today I was able to finish three-quarters of Section B in the Grade 2 Study Guide. I couldn’t finish the entire document because I had to go to Class down in "the big UWI" down at CLL for Caribbean Lab. 

    I took my poetry folder to do some sonnet writing while I waited for some of the presentations to finish and to help me pass the time. This afternoon my group (number seven) had to do a presentation as well. The other members chose to present on someone named Andre Dillion. 

    I was extremely grateful that I was not called on to speak or answer a question. Somehow in the class, it made me feel like I was always put on the spot and it would lay with my words to mess me up. A short interview was done with the individual by another group member and we had a sheet created with the questions asked and answers provided to us.

Link(s):

1. Interview questions and answers - Andre Dillion.

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Quest to Grade 2 Handbook

 Date for Entry: (Thursday 29th October 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 7th September 2021)

Dear Diary,

    Today I got up early-ish and began to gather topics from my ABRSM and Trinity Booklets as content for a Grade 2 Study Guide. This time I made it easier for myself by using a whiteboard I hadn’t used since CXC. There was a question about completing the square on it. It was a topic I liked but would always get wrong. Thank God, I passed my Maths, lolz. 

    I coloured the written areas with a whiteboard marker to get the stained ink out and then passed a wet napkin over the surface. It was long but fun to do. The only music topic that produced difficulty was finding a place for intervals. I know that it is the same thing as Grade 1 and questioned if it was really necessary. This book was completed later over the weekend. No idea about printing was done.

 **Unfortunately, this project was discontinued and late discarded.**

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Revised Grade 1 Book

 Date for Entry: (Tuesday 27th October, 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 7th September, 2021)

Dear Diary,

    This morning I hurried down to Isa again to make another copy of the Grade 1 Study Guide from my flash drive. This time the MLA was incomplete because I didn’t bother to follow the rules involving spacing. The printing machine took longer this time. 

    I couldn’t wait for Isa to return to the store because I had to get to class. Dad couldn’t believe me when I left a copy there and looking through the book as we waited, he said, “Buh Dar, you are nuh ah teacha.” I know I was not one because I’m not certified and I have no experience but I hope to one day. It did not matter to me it was not a teacher. I knew how to put the book together and so I did.

    Onward from there, we had to go to the Stationary store at the back of Massy’s to get the other document bound. The other place didn’t punch the paper properly. Then when I reached school and sat down, Ms Neaves told me that she got my text on her phone for being late. But then she said, “You picked a good day to be late.” Apparently, some of the class members from another performance group went on a field trip. 

    At the end of class, I left the book with Mrs. Neaves. I had asked her if she can take a look through it for me until the next Tuesday, just in case she thought that I can add something or change it in a way to suit.

    I rush myself home because none of the group members in my English class had submitted our second credit assignment to Ms. Jesshop for marking and the time had already come to pass the deadline. Many others were in the same situation.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

The Last of Classes with Mr. Nurse

 Date for Entry: (Wednesday 21st October, 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Wednesday 8th September, 2021)

 

Dear Diary,

    Today in Pan Lessons with Mr. Sharma and intermediate ensemble was better. With Mr. Sharma, he took me to the outside office passed the Pan Theatre and showed me a sheet of paper hanging from the door. It was for the registration of the final exam, where “I would be in front of a jury just like in the audition” and had to play the two-piece we were working on for the whole semester.

   We went back to Practice Room 4 for our classes and then when he asked me how classes were going I told him about the Group work for Caribbean Lab and how stressful it really is. He told me that “in groups, there might be either one or two people who don’t do their part and then you would have to tell them to do it.”

    We went on to the two pieces for the jury which was “With a wink and a smile” and “My cool tune”. I "didn’t do so bad," he said but to me I did. I wanted to get it out perfect since it was his song. The one Dr. Remy did was “My Cool Tune” and while some of the rhythms were challenging for me I was glad to work out some. This I got out from the one and a half practice in front of the computer with the pan after I came home at eleven o’clock in the night from my Caribbean Lab Group Practice.

    For Intermediate Pan Ensemble, Mr Nurse came a bit late and the majority of the class wasn’t there. He then told us that he would be leaving the school soon because he has to "work full time at [his] business". He then told us that sometimes “when we have a problem, there is always something good to come out of it.” This class when well except for the “Perpetuum Mobile”. I didn’t practice so well but the “Oye Mi Canto” I managed to finish out through the end, thank God. 

 

Daryl Zion M. Ali

Vessigny Secondary School (SONG)

  Date for Entry: (Thursday 15th October 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Thursday 11th November 2021) 

Dear Diary,

    On Thursday 15th of October 2015, I was able to succeed in completing a music transcription of the Vessigny College Song. This was a music 'summer challenge' that came from Uncle Ram. He said that he wanted me to learn it and I was thinking that I would have to play the song back at some time. I did not know when exactly I would have been. I preferred to have written music for the playing with me so I took off to a LONG process of having that done personally. Uncle Ram gave me a recording of their college song on a disc and I tried my best to get everything I heard out on Musescore.

    My first thought of the score was that it should be a piano and melody one because of the lady singing with piano accompaniment. I wished that there was music for it so that the work would have been easier. This attempt in the eyes of a musician will not look appealing but somehow the trial sounded like something useable (see archives for Voice and Piano score).

    I recall there was a general election period when mommy was working for the season. Daddy and I had to go up home to Tunapuna because they were coming to get the recording. Uncle only wanted to get the pan music so I got headphones to play what I had on Musescore and uncle sat on the floor to get the sound from the instrument before. We did three separate recordings that evening. I learned that a teacher was leaving and that the person liked steelpan. 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V1).

    Towards the early beginning of Summer Vacation after the completion of my Certificate program at UWI, I decided to visit the piano and voice score that I made and create a score of the same song to 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's College anthem written out for Steelband. 

    Even though I knew in the case of Hillview the steelpan tutor said "nobody goes wants to have that," I still found that it was good to have. I could have seen that some of the boys in the group appreciated it when I made copies for them.

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V2).

    I think that at the end of my Steelpan Arranging 1 course, I decided to revise and fix the entire score I did in version one. I could see that from this second version that a huge improvement was seen but I had to leave it as it was when I revised it again (as seen in the provided PDF). 

    As the sound and the 'feeling' of the arrangement felt like it was coming along and I was satisfied to some small percentage, I still knew it was not good enough in my view. I felt that if a real arranger for steelpan was to take on this arrangement it would have needed more and been better than mine. 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT (V4).

** Monday 11th October 2021. **

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

    One time I had a change in sleeping pattern and I sat down from twelve in the morning all the way until five in the morning and got the whole thing completed. I must admit for the journal that Sections C and E were super challenging but I was now proud of myself for being able to accomplish it along with the entire arrangement. I was not most pleased with it that 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 Aunty for Uncle copies of the separate steelpan parts. Getting pitch names leveled was a challenge until I was taught how to make them in a straight line by someone on a Musescore Facebook group by inspecting. 

    In case the school chooses to use this arrangement that I have done in the future 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 done 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. I did not feel satisfied with it but took it since the writing was bolder and more legible than the others provided to me on the internet.

 

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 challenge presented was that it was stained with a grey colour that should have been white to give the particular shape.

    It took about two and a half hours in total to clean the image and ‘perfect’ the shape of the ‘shield’. My biggest insecurity was spoiling the image in the process of trying to fix it. The same thing occurred and I had to do the entire work to get it to how it stands today. I had all the score parts with the changed logo and they became version six.

 

SCHOOL SONG BOOKLETS.

** Tuesday 20th December 2022 **

Had a very late morning today in getting to Isa. I had all the parts for the school song and the national anthem sent over to print yesterday. It took me three hours in waiting on my legs to sort the pages of all twelve booklets. It was surprising to see that it was smaller in size compared to Tunapuna Secondary’s School Song.

    The back and front covers were inserted last. The moment I had seen the front over, I was very pleased with the work done on the school’s logo. It seems to feel like it is how it is intended to be. I should have been a white border around the edges to make it more effective.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

General Musicianship 1 - Assessment #1

 Date for Entry: (Tuesday 13th October, 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 6th September, 2021)

Dear Diary,

    Today was my first coursework exam for General Musicianship and I was extremely happy but nervous on the side because I had to sing a piece of music on the spot using SOLFEG. I was going to be the last one since Ms. Neaves was going with surnames from Z-A. 

    Before miss began, I gave her a copy of the National Anthem I made on Sunday which was arranged for Voice in Acapella. I also gave her separate parts of the song in case anyone wanted to get it to practice.

    My parts for the performance aspect of the exam was kind of easy but I panicked in the sight-singing piece. I was given a piece in G Major and it was not so easy but I remembered Mr. Sharma told me, “In performing from sight-reading, we want to see that you can play a piece and don’t stop even if you made a little mistake.” So, I just sang to the direction (contour) of the music notation and add in the SOLFEG. I hope it was correct. 

    Once this exercise was completed, I was asked to call everyone inside from the corridor for us to do the written aspect of the exam. Mrs. Neaves had to play excerpts on the piano and we had to answer based on it. Some of the things involved music notation, naming scale types and others. 

Link(s):

1. General Musicianship 1 (1st) Assessment - Exam Paper.

Daryl Zion M. Ali

DECISION PENDING - UWI (DCFA) Vs. Hillview College??

Date for Entry: (Wednesday 7th October, 2015)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 6th September, 2021)

 

Dear Diary,

    Today I had a very important decision to make. It was to either go to my tiring and usual painful day of class (individual pan and then Intermediate ensemble) at DCFA or I can go and enjoy my once in lifetime Graduation at Hillview College. 

    My decision was to go to class because I didn’t want to lose any Lessons with Mr. Sharma and be forced to have to do a makeup session. Then there was an intermediate ensemble and if there was a new piece or n special teaching or review on another I would miss out a lot. 

    I suppose it was best because I got to learn another part of the hard song “Oye Mi Canto” Mr. Nurse gave us and there was a new piece given that day as well. The name of that piece was “Perpetuum Pan” together with “Paradise Garden” for our coursework assessment coming soon. This sounds a lot difficult but I know I can do it. I hope!

    Pan Lessons earlier this morning when smoothly with Mr. Sharma. He told me that he got the name of the first piece “With a Wink and A smile” after the piece and it was something for two pans because of the word invention. There was another Musical term he told me about but I forgot. It had a piece of ‘ word with inventing’ in it.

    During the Lesson, I got out all of my scales, thank God. The arpeggios were to be played in triplets, which I needed some more practice in. Then we moved on to my second piece of the Grade 4 Pan Examination Booklet. It was called “Invention No. 8” which was another one that Mr. Sharma did. I always had a battle in choosing which pieces to select because he and Dr. Remy always had good music in the book so I decided to make it fair where I did one he put together along with another by Dr. Remy.

Links:

1. DCFA Steelpan Exam Book - Grade 3 Tenor (2012-2014).              (School's permission for sharing not granted.)
2. Hillview College's Letters & Invitation Card to Graduation.
3. Perpetuum Pan (Tenor Score).

Daryl Zion M. Ali