This betrays an ignorance of the history of music on these islands, which as a lengthy tradition of adopting many different instruments - brought from around the world - and producing creolised forms of music. Many Trinidadians would be surprised to learn that the first three decades of recorded Calypso were dom- inated with the sounds of the violin, piano, flute, clarinet, and trumpet - alongside the ubiquitous Venezuelan cuatro and the guitar.

The recordings show a fascinating creolised blend of African and European culture, which also absorbed elements from more recent migrations from the Americas. They serve as a mirror on the popular trends of the time, both in the Americas and in Europe, and they were also at times an instigator themselves of new popular trends in and outside of the Caribbean.

Over the past seven years, from 2014 to the present, I have created an extensive collection of transcriptions and arrangements of recorded Trinidadian music - spanning the period from 1912 through to the 1950s. Together with the UTT Ibis Ensemble at the University of Trinidad and Tobago Academy for Performing Arts, I have performed a series of concerts with the wish to represent these pieces to a wider local audience.

My intention was to simplify a selection of this early music - from 1912 to 1920 - for a single melodic instrument with basic chords. The target audience will be both amateur and professional musicians, providing a simple melody/accompaniment for the former, and a starting point for the latter to ex- pound upon. It is my hope that, by concretely documenting and disseminating this wonderful music, it will help ensure its preservation and future performance.

Process

The first step in this project involved compiling my many previous transcriptions, and choosing suitable pieces for inclusion in the first volume. The selection process used the following criteria:

1. My professional, but admittedly subjective, view of the quality of the melody.
2. The subject of the melody, prioritising titles with an explicit link to Trinidad or Venezuela.
3. The possible copyright status of the original recording, conservatively using the US 75-year period.
4. Selecting an equal, or near-equal, number of Paseos and Waltzes for balance.
5. Avoiding selecting all from one band/performer.

By November, 2019 twelve pieces were selected for inclusion, presenting seven paseos and five waltzes. The overall balance of music is closer to equal once the greater length, and variety of musical material, of the waltzes is taken into account.

My conservative reading of the legal restrictions of copyright meant that I was limited to recordings from 1920 and earlier. The recordings of string band music from this period were almost exclusively by two bands - Lovey’s Band and Belasco’s Band/Orchestra. These recordings were from 1912 & 1914, and 1914 & 1918 respectively.

Each of my original transcriptions/arrangements then went through a simplification process, over a period of two months The intent was to present firstly the melody in its simplest form, before adding a few variations - as was the style of the recordings. I attempted to distill the many different improvised lines of the original into a selection of variations that were not too difficult for an amateur play- er, whilst still providing interest for the more advanced musician.

This involved limiting the range of the melodic line, and the exclusion of faster, or more acrobatic, passagework. Some improvised lines were re-written to make them easier to play while preserving the spirit of the lines. The nature of the improvisation meant that there are sometimes multiple rhythmic versions of the basic melody. I have chosen to include many of these throughout the repeats of the appropriate phrases.

As a violinist myself, and noting that the main melodic instrument on all the original recordings was the violin, I used the instrument as my template for the melodies - going so far as to suggest bowing and fingering in the finalised version.

The element of accompaniment was simplified to adding chord labelling above the melody, and including a suggested strumming pattern at the beginning for guitarists or other plucked instruments such as mandolins or cuatros.

As part of the project was to address a perceived gap in many people’s knowledge of the music of early 20th-century Trinidad, I wrote an introduction to give context and background to the volume of music presented.

Paseos and Waltzes of Trinidad: Volume 1 was completed in March, 2021 and self-published online.