GIRL GUIDES - Anthem

Date for Entry: (Monday 21 August 2023)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 23 March 2024)

Dear Diary,

    The following is an account of my personal work with the Girl Guides Anthem. (This journal entry was composed in the weekend after the YouTube upload.)

 

THE SCORE.

** Monday 21 August 2023 **

    This evening, I was visited by John to review some work for school. He showed me some of his scores and I soon came across a handwritten score for the Girl Guides Anthem. I did not know at the time that Girl Guides had an anthem.

    I began to sing the melody by melodic solfege and it did seem interesting enough to make a good song for a steelpan arrangement. I was able to get a scan of the score that he had for when I was ready to start working on the song.

 

SPECIAL FINDINGS

** Saturday 27 January 2024 **

    I knew that the words from the score John gave me was missing. I went to Google and started doing my research for this piece. I was lucky to find two scores for the same melody on a webpage. There was one in English and the other in English and French.

    The French lyrics required a quaver on the third beat in some measures to end the remaining syllable from words. There were also a few more syllables in the English text. Thankfully both scores provided chord symbols that were taken immediately into the Musescore file.

    Before the night was over, at my decision, I had the melody from the English version transcribed into the Musescore and took the chords.

Link(s):

• Website for Girl Guides Anthem.
• The World Song (French) - C Major LEAD.
• The World Song - C Major LEAD.

 

THE STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT

** Sunday 04 February 2024 **

    Work for the steelpan music was done and completed today. It took a similar format as the majority of my arranged notations. A lot of research had to be done. I had to find out the name of the composer, the year that the song was done, the name of the lyricist and the composer of the melody. Fortunately, the two lead sheets found earlier provided some of that information. I wanted to see if Girl Guides might have known. I will have to see if I can find their email address to message them.

    However, the song does sound amazing. I feel very proud of it and hope that it will be useful to the Girls Guides in the future. There was a big challenge with the introduction and the ending as usual since many recordings did not have them. I discovered a beautiful piano-accompanied version on YouTube but refused to take things from it to avoid plagiarism.

Link(s):

• Piano Accompanied Version – Girl Guides Anthem.

EMAILING GIRL GUIDES.

** Thursday 08 February 2024 **

    Tonight, I found an email to the Girl Guides Commissioner and another from the Website. I got the email address for Girl Guides in Trinidad and Tobago. But the homeland email address unexpectedly ended up bouncing. I'm not sure if the address provided on their website was no longer in service. There was a nice electronic response saying that the email was received. I hope that in time a response will be given.

 

GIRL GUIDES LOGO.

** Friday 08 March 2024 **

    I was planning to upload the YouTube video for the music that I did on the song. I would need an image of the Girl Guides Logo but after my previous sets of research, it seemed like when a certain country took Girl Guides, they had a certain twist to the logo.

    The Girl Guides logo would be taken and arranged to suit the country’s Coat of Arms or could be embellished to look different from other countries.

    I decided that the Logo from the United Kingdom’s page would be best suited since it came from there. However, there were many versions some with better quality of colour than others on the internet. I took one with a black background and one with a white background.

    I thought that the white background logo should go first and match the white with the rest of my videos and the black could be used after in the video either just before the score appears or towards the conclusion. There was a third logo I found with the first making in turquoise but the image was too blurry. I kept it but did not use it.

 

GIRL GUIDES ANTHEM – YOUTUBE VIDEO.

** Sunday 10 March 2024 **

    Today was a painful and emotional day. I waited for the night to come to upload the anthem to YouTube. No email or response was sent and it resulted in me having to go ahead without approval or any feedback based on what was shared.

    Three attempts to record the video were made. One video upload was done but it was deleted because the information I was looking for was right in front of me the entire time (see Webpage link). With the new addition of information to the score, the music had to be recorded a fourth time and then edited a third time.

    That time I knew that the anthem was finished and ready. I was able to find out that the anthem’s melody came from an existing composition by Jean Sibelius. The name of the piece was “Partiolaisten Marssiquot” (March of the Scouts); Opus 91b. There was a piano and a choral version of the song on YouTube.

    I learned that the song in its arranged version was approved by Girl Guides in 1950 to be their anthem. This was the year I took to be the year of composition for the anthem on the score.

Link(s):

• Sibelius Jean (Op.91b), “Partiolaisten Marssi” – Chorus Practice.
• Sibelius Jean (Op.91b), “Partiolaisten Marssi” – Piano.

• My Steelpan Version.

Daryl Zion M. Ali