Steelpan History & Development - (MUSC 2008)

 Date for Entry: (Wednesday 23rd January 2019)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Monday 14th March 2022)

Dear Diary,

    I was one hour and a half late for my ‘Steelpan History’ class (Steelpan History and Development) with Dr. Remy. I had chosen to take the first plenary of Science, Medicine, and Technology in Society. I was right about not doing this course for the semester because I did not like reaching out to class in the middle of it. It gave me time for the assignments in Steelpan Arranging 2.

    This steelpan course was lighter than I had expected. However, the Dropbox that Dr. Remy had for this class was a bit too much, and a lot of things I knew I could not read within a semester. It was only late into the semester that I got Dr. Remy to download the contents of the Dropbox file onto my flash drive.

    This course came with a final project and a final written examination. Both of these assignments came with a total of fifty points. There was a guest lecture with Mr. Ray Funk.

Link(s):

1. Course Outline.

 

GUEST VISIT FROM MR. LOQUAN.

* Unknown/Forgotten *

    This Wednesday, we had a guest visit from Mr. Mark Loquan. This was the first time I got to see who the person was in real. There was a wonderful series of performances he did from some of his personal music compositions. 

    While he played his guitar and sang the compositions, I immediately recognized some of the unique chords I heard in them. The Soca song "Vibes" sung by Destra Garcia had a very distinct connection and it was during the rest of the conversation that he confirmed it. A group picture was taken towards the end of the class. I was glad to have the copy for the journal.

‘GUESS WHO' CLASS EXERCISE.

* Wednesday 9th April 2019 *

    Dr. Remy showed me during a visit to her office for Steelpan Arranging 2 sometime during the semester that she had printed names of steelpan persons on strips. She said she would roll them up into small pieces and have the students pull one out and do a presentation on them. Since I was there, she allowed me to do that for her and when it was class that evening, I gave them to her. We place them into a small trick-or-treat pumpkin basket and I went around the class letting everyone take a small piece of paper. The steelpan person I got was Mr. Ray Holman.

    Dr. Remy was absent from class for two or three weeks. We had two classes where Mrs. Ramlal came to help conduct the Guess Who game with us. She had it recorded for Dr. Remy. My turn was the next class when Miss came back. I was glad it took a while for the class to guess who the person I got from the pumpkin was.

Link(s):

1. Guess Who Research.** [DOCUMENT MISPLACED.]

PLENTY GIFTS.

* Wednesday 16th April 2019 *

    This was the final class session for the course. I remembered well that Dr. Remy walked into class pulling in a trolley bookbag behind her. A lot of us thought that she was leaving the country right after class. She said that her son left for university away and she had brought some things for us. 

    There was a question and answer section as a review for the finals. She chose which student was to answer and if the student answered correctly, they would have been given one of Shay's stationary books. Everyone around was answering questions and Dr. Remy at the later part watched me and said, "Daryl! Why aren't you answering any questions?"

    I was able to get two things from her: a graph book and an opened pack of folder pages. It came to the ending of everything in her trolley bag and there was one very small and tiny book. I saw right away it was published steelpan book. She said she would let Natasha ask a real hard one for that book. 

    It took a very long time for everyone to get the answer. I got it right and the answer was "Bertran 'Bertie' Marshall". Once Natasha shouted YES, Dr. Remy took up the book and came and gave it to me. I remembered the UWI Andrew (#5) was mocking me about not getting any of the stationary books since they all knew I liked to write. But, when I got the "Stories in Steel 2" book, it was the true golden treasure of them all. I wished I had remembered to ask Dr. Remy to write on the cover for me.

 

FINAL INTERVIEW PROJECT.

* Tuesday 23rd April 2019 *

    The class was asked to select a person within the steelpan field and do an interview and research on them. It had to be confirmed by email and I was given approval by Dr. Remy to interview Mr. Saunders. 

    This project was done at the last minute towards the end of the semester. It was one that I did not want to do because the zeal was not there. I had to fight that feeling to try and get started when everyone else had been working on their projects since the second week of the semester. Several others voiced their complaints about having to transcribe the entire interview but I'm glad it only took me four hours straight to sit down and get it done. 

    The essay was done last before the submission. It was done the night before. I had the interview recordings burned and I was ready to submit everything. The class was asked not to bind it. The library would take all the projects and have them bound into one document. The due date was on Tuesday 14th May 2019 before our Indian Classical Music final examination.

Link(s):

1. Research & Interview - Mr. Nervin Saunders.
2. Photographs of Submitted Assignment.

Daryl Zion M. Ali