Date for Entry: (Wednesday 20 November 2024)
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 30 November 2024)
[T1, W:12 – WD:52,
(Td:1)*].
Dear Diary,
This morning the challenge to
awake on the couch was not easy. It took me 34 minutes to catch myself. As I
got into the shower hot water did not come because of low pressure. To get
prepared and out of the house was swift. Thank Jesus for the song He sent to
me. As I crossed the bus route a bus was waiting for me. The music was Soca
alone today. I took my time walking down Sixth Avenue and it was enjoyable.
As bright as the sun shined, it
did not let me down like some mornings. I just wished I had stopped by the
Anglican school wall to record their school song. Maybe someday I can visit the
school to introduce myself and possibly ask for a recording It would be nice to
score out the song and then add it to my collection of school anthems. Jess was
now signing when I entered the staffroom. After sometimes everyone was coming
back from homeroom and roll call.
As soon as Mel came back we
started working on the playlist for the Christmas Concert. “GG” was asking for
the date and Miss said that it would be Wednesday 4th of December. Thankfully I
had the pies in time and then went to class with Jess. She had forgotten that
we had class. The students were in the science corridor coming already. Che and
I walked down to the music room. I was wishing I could get to paint.
Some of the Theatre Arts students
were coming and wanted to stay because they had no class. Jess took the
students into the pan room and then we continued working on "Oh Holy
Night". There was difficulty with the last line with rolling and hitting.
Toward the end of the double period in recess, I tried my best to write out the pitches in
"Jenny's" book. This time I used Circles instead of Squares. That seemed
to work and sectioned the pitches even more using double barlines.
During recess time, I gave Che
the scores of "Fur Elise" to hand out to the others. I also gave
"Mr Warner" the George’s anthem copy that I had promised yesterday.
It was made yesterday with some of the parts. "Mr Haynes" was doing
fantastic on the piano with the anthem. He had the ends of the verse to fix.
The good thing is that he was able to remember the correct pitches. I will help
them with the rhythm after. I showed them the change in the second verse and
then we moved on to the introduction.
That was my time with them until
I went to the short recess rehearsal for the concert. This was the section leader
band practising "Carol of the Bells". “Mr Warner” played the tambourine.
And Jess gave me the triangle to play. Roberts came to have her class. She had
3L now which was Mel's class. Was nice to see "Vara" again.
Plenty of noise in the staffroom
again with Miss Harris. A student disrespected "AJ" because of
refusing to take off a ring and a chain and claimed it was religious and had to
be removed from the bathroom. The Christmas Tree was up with lights. I loved
the decorated stars that hung from it. The dark area made the tree look good.
Lunchtime came by. I remained by my desk and felt sick. I ate the last of my
nuts and it got me upset.
There became a conversation long
after that “GG” and Mr Charles were talking and then she mentioned the
"Spoil de Woman" song. They ended up playing the song and we had a
good laugh over it. Miss Dayna and all of us were intrigued to hear what that
song went like so we heard it on a speaker. The music then changed to Baron and
then to Scrunter.
The staffroom was now starting to
look beautiful when the sun shined from Seventh Avenue into the windows. It
feels better to enjoy it after school. I remembered seeing Mr Marcelle coming
in the shortcut from the guard booth to the music room. I didn't go to the
practice again. I hope it was good progress made with the children. Outside
there was another football tournament going on in the quadrangle.
Sometimes in the seventh period,
Roberts came to ask me to put her pink bag and something else there on her desk
after school. She left her car keys too so she ended up walking with me. Her
stuff was elsewhere and she left. This afternoon Jess took the students to the
pan room in a group. By the time she began, it was only 5 minutes to 8th period
and she had asked me to tell her. I had forgotten while supervising four
students to do the test. Brad was one of the four.
"Mr Lallman" and I
spoke for a very long time, possibly from the time of the commencement of the
exam straight to the end of school. At some point before the exam, they asked
me to play something for them on the piano. The introduction that I created for
the Saint George’s anthem was my choice and they were impressed. I would admit
that it did have something special about it at that moment.
"Pablo" was trying the
first verse too but didn't know how the pitches worked. A lot of octave jumps
from pitch to pitch occurred from him. "Miss Garraway" was wonderful
with the first three lines of the first verse. I look forward to seeing her
continue the rest. The same for "Mr Barbour" who needs to work on it
more. Maybe the transition from Tenor Pan to Piano complicated it lightly for
him.
"Mr Lallman" and I
spoke about the test being difficult although I did mention that this was the
second easy test I had ever made and they were surprised. We then spoke about
music for CXC and he thought that it was easy. He said he lost me when the
conversation turned to composition and arrangement. There was a part about asked
me about how I learned all the theory and mentioned being self-taught. This all
led to conversations about music at the UWI level.
"Mr Peters" joined us
too and spoke about Maths and English. I emphasised how important it is for
them to pass their English A exams at CXC or they would be forced to take the ELPT
at UWI to enter. Only Brad was interested to see me grade his paper. Some of
them were afraid to see me grade the paper. He did slightly alright. I shared
the joke about myself and more than 10 marks in marking with them.
The school had ended and we didn't
get to go through some of their questions based on the exam. After class, Mr
Marcelle and I spoke. I went to say hello before leaving. We spoke about the
school song arrangement and the booklet that I made. He gave me a very special
compliment on arranging that I accept in Jesus' Mighty Name. He also spoke
about rhythmic patterns and that there can be ways to simplify them. I told him
that I didn't know much rhythms and then he was able to share some rhythmic patterns
for background patterns with me.
As he sang them out I wrote them
out on the whiteboard right there in the pan room. There was some discussion
about notation also. He asked me if I was able to stay back. I ended up staying
and then learned the Tenor part but went to Double Tenor to help out “Jan.”
"Patty" was playing Seconds. Mr Raymond was on the 6-Bass. We had a
new piece when he decided to make the song a medley of choruses. I'm not sure
if this was the song that he wanted me to do the transcription.
The practice ran over 5 PM. I got
a ride home with Mr Raymond. Daddy was coming out of his car when I began walking
into the compound. Was so tired after that long day and fought sleep on the
ride home. The MaziMazi did not want to work so I went to the journal. Seems
like GPI Notes did not want to work and they were only giving me 30 minutes of
free voice-to-text work.
In the past, it was unlimited and
free. I will now have to either continue typing on WhatsApp all the experiences
as the journal entry. The GPT app was only giving advertisements. Seems like
WhatsApp will have to work for now. I went to do three more paintings on Zen
Painting. After waking late these nights I could feel the tension in my eyelids
as if they beginning to swell. I hope that the swelling goes down in time.
LINK(S):
- “Spoil de Woman”.
Daryl Zion M. Ali
(8:33 am – 6:21 pm)
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