Steel Drums

The Steel Pan, also known as the Steel Drum, is a musical instrument assigned to the idiophones that was created on Trinidad. An ensemble of several Pans is called Steelband. Steel Pans are made of a concave thin sheet in the form of a round metal resonance body (traditional: oil barrel) into which different tone fields (sound surfaces) are driven to produce different pitches. The tone fields are struck with mallets. The steel pan is often referred to as the steel drum. This term has become established especially in the USA. In Trinidad, the term steel drum is used to describe the raw material from which a steel pan is made. The term pan refers to the material and the inwardly curved face, drum refers to the sheet metal plate beaten like a drum membrane and the shape corresponding to a frame drum.

The Steel Pan as a musical instrument is best understood from its function within the collective of a pan orchestra. This always consists of the following instruments (arranged according to pitch):

Tenor (soprano)
Double Tenor (Soprano)
Double Second (Alto)
Double Guitar (Tenor)
Triple or Four Cello (Baritone)
Quadrophonics (Baritone)
bass

This combination covers a range of about six octaves. A steel band equipped in this way is able to perform practically all typical orchestral music. The ranges of the steel pans are normally chromatic, so that all keys can be played. Pentatonic tunings are also common. Pans for only one key are rare, but occur. The Steel Pan is an idiophone with fixed pitch fields of a certain height. The tone fields are struck with mallets made of wood or aluminium, which are wrapped or covered with rubber at their end. The instrument was invented in Trinidad in the 1930s and is the national instrument there.

The British colonial rulers forbid the locals to drum on African percussion instruments. This is why the lower classes of Trinidad looked for new possibilities of musical expression. Oil production plays an important role in this island state and has contributed considerably to the industrialisation of Trinidad. Thus the first steel pans were created from discarded oil drums, which were abundant in Trinidad due to the oil industry.

During the Second World War, carnival celebrations were suspended in Trinidad. The end of the war was exuberantly celebrated by the population. Steel bands were heard for the first time in the streets of Port of Spain at the celebrations of V-Day. Since the carnival is traditionally a big parade, the pans were hung around the neck of the players by belts, so they were mobile. Hence the expression "Around-the-neck-Pans". These instruments were not chromatic due to the limited space on an oil barrel (resonator), e.g. you could only place a D major scale on a single guitar.

The Steel Pan is an artistic expression and socio-cultural "valve" of the Trinidadian people, who are mainly composed of former African slaves and Indian contract workers. How, where and when exactly the beginning of the development of the Steel Pan began can no longer be determined with certainty today. The fact is, however, that in the early days of this history, real gang wars between the districts of Port of Spain dominated the daily events. Rivalries between individual bands (gangs) took on such brutal dimensions that British law enforcement officers only knew how to help each other with even greater counterviolence. Over time, the Trinidaders succeeded in productively transforming the available energy into musical competition.

They were now in competition for the more powerful sound of an orchestra or also for which group possessed the instruments with the larger tonal range. As pioneers of this epoch Winston "Spree" Simon, Anthony Williams, Neville Jules and Elliot "Ellie" Mannette are mentioned, to name only a fraction of a huge group of innovative (then very young) people. The still very young Steel Pan gained international attention when TASPO (Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra) was invited to England in 1951 to present this new musical instrument at the Festival of Britain.[2] Some musicians of this group stayed in England (Sterling Betancourt) and made the Steel Pan successfully known in Europe. Other Trinidaders carried the Steel Pan and the music of Trinidad (Calypso) to America and around the world.

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