Steelpan is a musical instrument and a form of music originating in Trinidad in the West Indies. It is also known as Pan or Steel drum. Add musicians, and it turns into a Steel band. And this may come as an absolute surprise that steelpan is the only acoustic instrument that was invented in the 20th century.
The pan is a pitched percussion instrument, usually tuned diatonically but sometimes chromatically, made from a 55 gallon drum of the type that stores oil, and is one of the most recently invented musical instruments.
In 1939, Winston “Spree” Simon took an old oil drum, and while beating it with a corn cob discovered the first sounds of steelpan music. The first record on a pan band was in a report of the Carnival in the Trinidad Guardian on February 6, 1940.
Early bands were essentially rhythm bands. However, during the 1940s discarded 55-gallon steel oil drums became the preferred type of pan and, perhaps noticing that constant drumming changed the tone of the pans, techniques were developed to tune them to enable melodies to be played. Ellie Mannette is credited as the first to use the oil drum in 1946. By the late 1940s the music had spread to neighbouring islands.
In 1951 the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra took the music to the Festival of Britain in the UK. During the 1960s the tuner Anthony Williams developed a pan—the fourths and fifths—that has since become the standard.
Two Americans, George Whitmyre and Harvey J. Price, have secured a US patent for “the process of formation of a Caribbean steelpan using a hydroforming press”. This patent is being challenged by the Trinidad and Tobago Legal Affairs Ministry, since many Trinibagonian drum makers have used similar methods for years.
The world of steelpan is still thriving. Many ensembles have emerged which combine the steelpan with other styles of music and instruments not typically found in Caribbean music. As more artists begin including the instrument in various genres of music, it is likely that it will begin to be seen more as a versatile, general-purpose instrument than as a niche or novelty item.
The pan culture is encouraged in Trinidad and Tobago, and is included in parades on Carnival days, Emancipation day, and other celebrations. In addition, Caribbean immigrants to other countries often form community bands and youth bands, resulting in vibrant steelpan scenes in cities like New York, Toronto, Miami, and Washington,
DC.
|