Frauke Lühning

History and Music of the Steelpan

The Caribbean island of Trinidad and its music are less known in Europe than the
larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica or Puerto Rico. Located only 15 km from the
Venezuelan mainland, Trinidad has had a colonial past with many changes.
During WWII, local Afro-Caribbean youth invented the latest acoustic instrument:
the steelpan or steel drum.

It belongs to the family of metallophones, is tuned chromatically and has a range

of 2.5 octaves. It is played with two sticks with rubber tips. The instrument is
manufactured from an oil drum. Today there are about eight different types of
steelpans in the range from bass to soprano that together form an orchestra. The
size of the playing area and the length of the corpus determine the range and
timbre of the steelpan.

The transition from pure percussion instrument/drum substitute to melody

instrument happened by trial and error. It happened in the 1940s when
American soldiers were based in Trinidad. It was a time of great social
turbulence, because the British colonial system and its values were undermined
by the new American way of life. The young men who were experimenting had
no formal musical training. The development was driven by rivalry between the
bands and the wish to play more complex music like hits from Hollywood movies
and classical music. The process of invention of new pan types and building
techniques is still going on.
In 1952, steelpan builder and inventor Anthony Williams introduced his ‘spider
web’ pan. The layout is based on the cycle of fifths. This was a first step towards
a standardized layout of the instrument.
Classical music was of great importance for the development of pan for arrangers
like Anthony Williams; the execution of classical music required a larger tonal
range, exact tuning and a beautiful sound. But he also analyzed classical works
and applied classical composition techniques in his compositions.

The music of the steelpan is a hybrid style. Its origin lies in the Afro-Caribbean
drum tradition with three drums tuned in low-middle and high pitch. The direct
predecessors of the pan were the tamboo-bamboo groups that used bamboo
pipes as percussion. When the youths started to tune their steelpans they used
the European tuning with 12 notes and the tonal system. They even used
European composition techniques. These characteristic traits can be found until
today in the arrangements of calypsos by the steelbands. By forging together
Afro-Caribbean rhythmical structures with European composition they developed
a very complex form of music, unique in the Caribbean. Even though most
steelpan players have no formal musical training and cannot read music, they
memorize and play music at a exceptionally high technical and musical level. The
music in steel bands is composed by ear and learned by rote; it is not improvised
but totally arranged. We see here a hybrid fusion of the African and European
way of making music.

Nowadays the repertoire of the steel band spans from Bach until Stravinsky, but
also contains arrangements of film music, jazz or pop and of course calypso and
reggae. Steel bands in Trinidad and other metropolises (Londen, NY, Miami,
Toronto) where many ‘Trinis’ have migrated, celebrate annually the ‘Pan-orama’,
a competition where every band presents a 10 minute arrangement of a calypso
tune. For this competition the bands in Trinidad swell up to the size of 120
spelers (m/f).
Steelpan is a very accessible instrument for beginners and has found its way into
schools and the amateur music scene. Nowadays many American colleges have a
campus steel band and in England there are countless schools that offer steel
band lessons as part of their curriculum to the pupils. Steelpan has also found its
way into modern classical composition; many contemporary composers utilize
pan mainly for its timbre, not so much as a melodic instrument.

Literature:

Stuempfle, Stephen. 1995. The Steelband Movement. The Forging of a National

Art in Trinidad and Tobago. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Dudley, Shannon. 2008. Music from Behind the Bridge. Steelband Spirit and
Politics in Trinidad and Tobago. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Dudley, Shannon. 2003. Carnival Music in Trinidad. Experiencing Music,

Expressing Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

More info:
www.panjumbie.com
www.whensteeltalks.com

http://www.reverbnation.com/pantrinbago?utm_campaign=FacebookSharing_v3
&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=thumbnail&utm_content=artist_2325220
has the newest steelpan recordings for Panorama 2013, recorded about a week
ago.

There are countless youtube clips of steelbands such as Phase II Pangroove,

WITCO Desperadoes, BP Renegades, Exodus or steelpan virtuoso Len ‘Boogsie’
Sharpe or American Jazz pannist Andy Narell.

More questions? Contact Frauke Lühning: fraukeluehning@gmail.com