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 10:12am, I got a Messenger text from a new Facebook friend name John. He was someone I did not know at the time. 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 was no existing music notation for the song. It reminded me of my first time hearing 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 by 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 arrangement.

    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.
• Messenger Text. [Not Available]
• 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 to interpret 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 and 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 (7:30 pm), I took the same lead sheet and began working on the steelpan version of the same school song. I felt like it was too much work to do but I did not entertain that feeling. I continued working on the arrangement because I know of the special importance it will serve later on. My work for the night ended at 9:00 pm.

Link(s):

• Vocal Score with Piano Acc. [Available by Email.]
• 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 challenges 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 with the booklets and my laptop with the bag in my hand. I 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 before. I explained my reason and importance 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 out my plastic bag with the booklets. 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 to anyone. 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