“Alman” Worksheet

Date for Entry: (Sunday 14 October 2018)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 13th August 2022)

Dear Diary,

    After lunch, I was expecting a visitor at home number two in Curepe. His name was Joshua and he had passed for Hillview in this SEA period that just went. He was accompanied by his mom and aunty Zida brought them for the evening. These were our first acquaintances.

    The visit today was for me to assist/tutor Joshua with a recorder piece called “Alman”. He showed me the piece that Ms. Saunders gave the class. I remembered having to prepare and learn this for marks in my Form One time at Hillview.

    Before our lesson and practice began, I took a blank sheet of paper and rewrote the same piece from his notebook into the image above. I only had a green and a black marker at the time. I showed Joshua the page and told him that the letters will mimic crotchets, minims, and whichever note symbols were needed for the rhythms.

    I was comfortable enough to watch the same sheet on the table and read it upside down. I played the piece from my recorder that I walked with for the session. I gave him two trials on his own but asked him to pause after the first playing before trying again. I had to see if there was difficulty with the music or to see where I could give suggestions on breathing. In the image, you will see where the use of commas (or ‘breath pause’ like makings) to indicate how and where to inhale.

    We tried the same piece twice again, which was the lesson’s end. I also gave Joshua photocopies of some notes with music theory and from the Recorder Book 1 that I had in case he might need it later. That was the orange book. We had a good chat about his first experiences with Hillview and some of the teachers. One last play of “Alman” was requested by everyone before leaving. We did play the piece on our recorders together.

[UPDATE]

    Some weeks had gone by until I was given the news that Joshua’s mom passed down from Zida that Joshua did the “Alman” piece in class. He said that the class clapped for him but he only made a mistake and stopped to breathe. I was very happy for him.

Daryl Zion M. Ali