These interviews were conducted by J. Hunter Moore (1954- ) during the fall and winter of 2017-2018 for a Fulbright U.S. Scholars grant project in Trinidad and Tobago.

The goal of the interviews was to investigate and document the composing methods of calypso composers. Interviews with ten composers were conducted.

Some of the interviews have been edited for length and relevance. The edits have been marked in the transcripts.

Running times have been listed in the transcripts at intervals of approximately five minutes to facilitate locating a particular place in the recording.

When the subject sings, the time at which he or she begins singing is marked in the body of the transcript and listed in the introductory material for each interview.

A glossary of the local words and expressions used in each interview is provided in the introduction for the interview in which the words appear.

The following procedures were used in transcribing:

• Interjections such as “um” and “uh,” were not included.
• Repeated words and expressions were not always included.
• Words and interjections used by the interviewer to express interest in what the subject said, or to help move the conversation forward, including “okay,” “yeah,” or “mm-hm,” etc., were not usually included.
• When the interviewer simply repeated what the subject said, it was not included.
• If the transcriber could not understand what the subject was saying, the subject’s words are represented by a description in parentheses, for example: (Several words missing.), (Three or four syllables missing.), etc.

-J. Hunter Moore