Steel Pans: A Brief History

by Maxens Berre

The island of Trinidad, claimed by Spain in 1498, was culturally and economically neglected untilthe late eighteen century. Toward the end of the 1780's, French planters arriving at Trinidad brought a substantial slave population which provided an initial impetus of economic development. However, in their quest to obtain new colonies in the New World, the British defeated the French in Trinidad in 1797.

The island was conquered by the British. When slavery was abolished in Trinidad in 1837, the British government invited Asians and Indians to work on the land. While Africans remained the largest group, this new group also helped to shape the cultural panorama.

The Black population in Trinidad used hand drums for their dances and ceremonies and to communicate with each other. Hand drums were also used for celebrations and for fighting. However, the central event for which drums were used was Carnival. In its early stages, Carnival was a procession in which groups of torchbearing Blacks would reenact plantation fire drills accompanied by drums.

The use of drums in street parades was outlawed in 1883, since the British feared that the passing of secret messages by means of drumming might become the impetus for social unity and revolt among the Blacks. Riots and conflict between the natives and the authorities led to the banning of drum processions during Carnival time as well.

Many drum players, deprived of their drums, abandoned drumming altogether, favoring more European, melodic forms of music. However, rhythm being the most important element of African-based music, many drummers simply replaced their drums with sticks, especially with bamboo sticks which could be tuned . These sticks were called Tamboo Bamboo1. In this form, the British repression helped develop the use of drumming sticks in the islands of the Caribbean.

Tamboo Bamboo was used as an instrument that when pounded against the ground produced a distinctive rhythm. Each group developed its own distinctive rhythmic pattern, which served as group identification.

Free Blacks and slaves had been developing neo-African forms of music since the early 1800s. These included stick-fighting dances, especially the one known as calinda. Eventually these fighting dances and other musical manifestations were considered violent by the British colonial rule, and Tamboo Bamboo was declared illegal.

Drumming is, however, ingrained in African cultures, and the people of Trinidad continued to develop instruments to replace the banned ones, including tin cans and woodbarrels.

It was not until the beginning of this century that drums and tamboo bamboos were again allowed, with restrictions, during Carnival time. The elaborate processions of Carnival required elaborate rhythms, and drummers started perfecting their instruments to produce a more varied tonal range.

During the 1930's biscuit tins were included as rhythm instruments in the Tamboo Bamboo bands. In 1934 Tamboo Bamboo bands were again forbidden due to street clashes among rival groups. At the same time a gradual change to street instruments in street bands began to take place.

The year of 1938 is considered as the birth of the steel drum when Tamboo Bamboo bands were finally switching over to steel.

The first true steelpan used by musicians was an empty biscuit container. The next development was the discovery that when you hammered a paint pan out from the inside, different notes could be played on the pan. Soon the bent peace of steel gave way to the steeldrum that could produce simple melodies. The early steelpans made of paint tins or biscuit tins had only a handful of notes. They were one foot in diameter and two feet long. They were tuned to the highest upper pitch note the steelpan could produce.

Soon drummers discovered that bulges of different sizes in the botton of a tin could produce sounds of various pitches. In 1939, a drummer named Winston "Spree" Simon began playing melodies on the first tuned tins. He is considered to be the inventor of the tuned tins. Spree later produced the first convex (dome- shaped) steelpan.

Originally, steelpans were convex; however, the pursuit of a wider range of notes produced the development of a concave instrument. In a steelband, the melodies are played on a tenor pan, which can play a complete low pitch scale. The bands also have double tenor pans, a pair of lower pitch drums in which a lower pitch scale is divided between the two drums. Treble and harmonic drums are also featured.

Pan music developed rapidly during the late 1930s, and by 1941 many steelbands playing in Trinidad became popular among U.S. soldiers based on the naval bases on the island. Although Carnival was banned for the entire duration of the Second World War, steelbands playing in lower class neighborhoods flourished in this period. First, the banning of playing during the war years gave people more time for acoustic experimentation with the emerging steel drum. Second, the oil industry and the US naval base made oil drums abundant in the island. These oil drums were cut and used as dustbins. The dustbins eventually replaced the biscuit tins as the raw material for pan making.

During this period, pan music was associated with criminals and the lower class. The constant clashes between bands and the frequent inter-band rivalry, which occasionally resulted in violence, helped to perpetuate this association. Raw materials to make steeldrums were scarce, and panmen generally had to steal materials from oil refineries and naval yards, all of which helped to seal the bad reputation of these drummers.

After the war, Carnival was reinstated, and with it the famous competitions between steelbands. In 1946, Ellie Manette created the first steeldrum in its concave form, made from a steel 55 gallon oil drum. By the 1950s, steel pan music had gained enough popularity to be sent to the United Kingdom as part of the Commonwealth celebration. As a result, the steelpan was strongly identified as an important element of Trinidarian culture. This also greatly enhanced the social "respectability" of the steeldrum. The music swept up the usually restrained British and helped to establish the international exposure and acceptability of the steeldrum.

During the 1960s, steeldrums came of age. Numerous steelpan festivals and competitions were introduced during this period and steelbands even performed for Queen Elizabeth when she visited Trinidad. Steelpans played an important role during Trinidad's independence celebrations in 1962. Steelbands started to tour both the United States and the U.K.. On February 22, 1963, the first National Panorama competition was held in Trinidad.

Through the 50 years following the Second World War the steel pan has been further developed by panmakers through sophistictaed experimentation. This development, still in progress, has produced new refined crafting techniques. Modern steel bands have ten different drums, from tenor to the Nine Bass drums, which produce a vast tonal range. This tonal range of modern steel bands includes several octaves that emulate those available in a grand piano.

Today, huge steel band orchestras are common in many Caribbean islands, but the Trinitarians are credited with having been the creators of the steel pan. As Charles de Ledesma and Simon Broughton comment in their essay about Trinidad:
"The Trinis put something cheap and abundant to extraordinary good use and created one of the few acoustic instruments to be invented this century." (World Music Rough Guides. London 1994).

No longer the domain of the Trinitarians, steelpans symbolize the culture of the English speaking Caribbean islands. They are played on many islands outside of Trinidad and Tobago.