Tunapuna Presbyterian Primary School (SONG)

Date for Entry: (Sunday 27 October 2024)

Actual Date of Online Entry: (2024)

School front**

Dear Diary,

    The journal entries below correspond with my work on the school song for Tunapuna Presbyterian Primary School Song.

 

MEETING THE “UNIVERSAL CHALLENGE”.

** Sunday 27 October 2024 **

    This evening, I had a scheduled meeting with John in person at home. At first, it was requested that some music notation be made. I was excited to see what kind of song he was bringing for me to work on. Before the work began (at 3:30 PM), he told me that Tunapuna Presbyterian Primary School had a school song, and they got a recording in the school from a visitor named Mrs Myrtle Panday. She once taught at the school.

    I got a copy of the lyrics sheet that he had prepared before moving to the computer. He asked to play the piano and said that the melody had been taken from the song “The Happy Wanderer.” This was my first time hearing the melody. At the end of the single verse that he played, I mentioned that it would have made a great tune for a steelpan arrangement. I think he was hoping that would have been done, too.

    He also shared with me a copy of the “Happy Wanderer” score from a songbook called “Let Us Sing”. I chose to YouTube the song too to follow the words from the songbook and the gentleman playing his guitar. Once we got to the Chorus, he mentioned that the words were to be replaced with the words created by his wife Allison.

    By opening the lyrics sheet he had created, I realised that the school song was originally strophic (only with verses) and the chorus has now been given a Chorus by Allison in 2024. The melody was copied from John’s “Let Us Sing” songbook for both Verse 1 and the chorus into Musescore. I had it copied and passed for the other three verses.

    When it was time to insert the words from the school song, it was then that John had sent me the recording of Mrs Myrtle Panday singing. His melody was in C major. She sang in the key of G major. I had the tune transposed and began working on the changes. Hearing several changes, it was best to open a new score on Musescore and transcribe the recording from scratch.

    After scoring the first verse and the first chorus, it seemed to me that their verses were shorter than the original melody. The chorus was shorter by eight crotchet beats (or two bars) of music. Moreover, looking at the chords in John’s book (using them as a guide) I knew there was going to be a lot more I needed than what was provided. This was also mentioned to him.

    Within three and a half hours, the entire lead sheet was finished and ready to become a steelpan arrangement. The first lead sheet and a recording were sent to John and Allison. When looking at the temporary result, I noticed the name. The given ‘name’ was “My Alma Mater”.

    Again, as with other school songs, it had to have a name. This was the final challenge of the night with the song. John’s suggestion was “Your call I’ll Always hear” from the first verse. I was sharing how it had to be something that stood out the majority of the time as with Tunapuna Secondary School when choosing the name “Thy Light is Come”. Looking at the Chorus that Allison created, I took the sentence “You Truly are the Best” for the name.

    I also wrote down some more information for him on a short piece of paper about things I needed for the project. We had a joke about the paper being ‘homework’ for Allison. There was a list of ‘homework’ for John too in hopes of it becoming another possible music project that I can work on.

 

Link(s):

• Happy Wanderer Score. **
• First Lead sheet Attempt. (*Destroyed)
• Happy Wanderer (YouTube). 

 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT: THE VERSES & CHORUS.

** Wednesday 30 October 2024 **

    Tonight, a strumming pattern and bassline were given to the first verse and chorus. They were attempted on the same night as the first attempt to create a lead sheet (Sunday 27 October 2024) but that attempt was not successful.

    After three hours of working on the strums (from 6 PM to 9:13 PM) I was able to find something that worked. It was immediately copied and passed for the other three verses and their choruses. From the last beat of the verse into the chorus minor changes were made to accommodate the transition.

    I was wondering if an introduction would be appropriate. I had a big scary fright not knowing what to do at all. John told me to create something nice. This most definitely would have had to be left for tomorrow then. The three hours had tired me out. While listening back to what I did for the night, I began to hear more possibilities for the chorus. A note was left in the Musescore file for tomorrow.

 

STEELPAN ARRANGEMENT: THE COMPLETION.

** Thursday 31 October 2024 **

    Today is Divali. From about 8 AM this morning work on the introduction began. I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to create a short melody from scratch. Sadly, the verses or the chorus did not have much that I could use to work with at the time. I decided to keep it short within four bars and then find a way to make it flow into the first verse.

    By 1:43 PM the first version was sent as a recording to John by WhatsApp. It was discarded immediately. I found it necessary for an F-A-C chord to be used in the last two beats of the introduction before the first chord of verse one.

    Once the introduction and the verse worked best to my liking, the chorus followed similarly. However, the possibilities for the chorus were tried and it worked. Only the tenor pan part will carry it. My wish was to do the same in the lead sheet but having separate voices created an untidy visual. The arrangement was finally completed by 1:58 PM and sent back to John.

    By 2:30 PM the lyrics sheet was taken and created in uniform styling to the previous books. The cover page for the book was created and the ‘Book Matter’ document was prepared. I will have to find the school logo to generate the parts of the steelpan arrangement and have the documents ready for compiling the booklets.

 

SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHS.

** Saturday 02 November 2024 **

    Today, I was given the images of the school. The quality was excellent. The only issue was that there was a date stamp. I had to find an online programme to assist me. It was not easy until I found the right platform. More technical work was required, but Praise God, I was able to accomplish the task.

    Seven images were sent to me and after a very long and careful process of elimination, I came down to four good images for being used in the YouTube video of the school song. The most important things for these images would be showing the front of the school, the name of the school on the building, and most importantly, the Aramalaya Presbyterian Church that crowned the hill to the top of the street. I still have to see if the four images will be used or if another will be eliminated by that time.

 

SCHOOL LOGO.

** Wednesday 06 November 2024 **

    Tonight, I was able to get the school's logo. Unfortunately, the status of it was a photograph of a professionally created one. This professionally created one was not sourced. It took me three hours of trying and hoping that the internet would be able to assist me. I discovered a site called Canva that was able to alter the witness of the background, the darkness of the lines in the image and other editing necessities.

    The black and white version was the first that I had created for the evening. This was my favourite out of the two versions. The second one was a lightly black and blue-coloured version of the lines. I tried to make a coloured version to match what was provided to me.

    However, black was the only colour being given. I wish there was a way to go back and change the colour to light blue like the Presbyterian Church’s colour. These images were sent back to John for the school to have copies of them and decide if they would like to use them.

 

(MORE COMING SOON!!)