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| 1. What is the Steel Drum "Orchestral Family"? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2. Can anyone learn to play these instruments? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3. How did the Steel Drum instrument evolve? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4. Do the instruments hold their value? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5. Who builds the Steel Drums you sell? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6. How is the Steel Drum instrument made? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7. How are the instruments tuned? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8. How long does it take to get my pan? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9. What instrument should I purchase for my needs? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1. What Is The Steel Drum "Orchestral Family"? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maybe the best place to start is to describe an Orchestral Family of instruments. In any orchestra the various groups or families of instruments are grouped together to create voice sections. The Horns, Woodwinds, Strings and Percussion sections are examples. Each section contains instruments that play in various parts of the musical scale from the very high notes (soprano) to the very low notes (bass). The Steel Drum family of instruments mirrors the above description. The Lead Pan plays the highest notes, The Double Seconds play the next lower and so on. The Steel Drum family consists of the following basic instruments, musical functions and vocal choir relationships:
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| 2. Can Anyone Learn To Play These Instruments? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The short answer here is definitely YES! Very little physical skill (mainly how hard to hit the notes) is required to learn. From there, which note to hit next is the only question. For this reason a Pan is an excellent beginning instrument for children. If you are new to reading music, we can send a suggestion list of basic music books that will help get you started in a hurry. Additionally, you will receive a diagram of your instrument showing which notes are which. Once you locate the basic notes on your instrument and practice striking them, you will be well on your way to playing your first song. A Steel Drum instrument or set of instruments can be thought of as a piano built in a circle. All the notes contained on a piano keyboard are contained on the Pans. Each single Lead instrument or set of instruments contain about 2 1/4 octaves (repeats) of the “Chromatic Scale”. If it can be played on a keyboard (which all music can), it can be played on the Steel Drums. We often astound people by playing polkas, country songs, and even classical tunes on our Pans. They seem at first to be locked into the thinking that only “Island Songs” work on the Pan. This is probably because they first heard the Pan played in an island setting. Virtually every lead pan today (all notes on a single instrument) is laid out in a ‘Circle of 5ths’ configuration that leads to a logical note progression around the pan. The other instrument sets in the family are laid out so that the Chromatic Scale notes are easily played by alternating hands. Back to Top |
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| 3. How Did The Steel Drum Instrument Evolve? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Steel Drum, or Pan, is a very unique instrument and one of the most recently invented. It is a skillfully hammered 55-gallon oil drum which is carefully tuned to produce exact tones. Each Pan or Set of Pans carries the full chromatic range of notes and can produce just about any type of music that comes to mind. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE STEEL DRUM - Researched and written by Angela P. Smith, Austin Texas The steel drum is believed to be the only non-electronic, acoustic musical instrument invented in the 20th century. The first steel drum or ?pan? was invented around World War II in Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela in South America. In the 1800s Trinidad was a sugar plantation society. The French and English colonists brought natives from Central and West Africa as slaves for their plantations. The Africans brought their musical traditions with them, especially their drumming and singing, and used it in much the same way as they had in Africa ? for celebrations, religious ceremonies, to pass time when they were working, and for communication. The colonists were threatened by the drumming, thinking ? sometimes rightfully so ? that the slaves were sending messages that might lead to a slave uprising. Drumming also was used to accompany ?kalinda? or stick-fighting gangs. These groups would walk the streets playing rhythms and singing. When one "kalinda" gang met another, a fight would usually break out. The fights intimidated the colonists and gave them more reason to oppose drumming. Carnival, the period before Ash Wednesday and the Christian period of Lent, was another opportunity for Africans to take to the streets, beating their drums. Fights often broke out between drummers and the colonists. The Europeans, again suspecting the drummers were passing coded messages that might lead to rioting and revolt, banned all drum parades in 1883. Without their drums, Africans began using bamboo sticks to play rhythms. These groups became known as the tamboo bamboo bands. During Carnival, the tamboo bamboo bands would parade, pounding bamboo tubes on the ground and beating spoons on glass bottles. When rival bands met on the street, they would compete to see who could be the loudest. These sometimes violent and messy clashes, which left streets littered with broken bamboo and glass, led to tamboo bamboo bands being outlawed in 1934. The late 1930s are considered birth years of the steel drum. Tamboo bamboo bands had already started switching to steel because the players discovered metal was stronger and louder than the bamboo. The new rhythm groups were called iron bands. Their instruments were mostly paint and biscuit tins. The more inventive players discovered that bulges of different sizes in the bottom of a tin could produce various pitches. Some players started to tune the tins and play melodies on them. ?Winston ?Spree? Simon is generally considered the inventor of the first melodic steel pan. No Carnivals were held during World War II for security reasons, but Simon and others continued experimenting with metal. From 1939 to 1945, the first melody pans were introduced. Players discovered 55-gallon oil drums abandoned by U.S. forces stationed on the island during the war provided an ideal metal for the instrument. The early pioneers of the steelband movement were considered outcasts and hoodlums, Rival bands clashed and engaged in bloody turf battles. Petty jealousy and disputes over women were often the cause of fights. The forming of the Trinidad and Tobago Steel Band Association in 1949 was the first successful effort by some of Trinidad?s influential leaders to end the hostilities. For the first time steelbands shifted their attention from fighting to pursuing common interests. The music of the steel drum was finally on its way to being recognized as a true art form. Many who had looked on steelbands as breeding grounds for troublemakers now saw them in a new light. Over a little more than half a century, the steel drum has made its way from the panyards of Trinidad?s poorest neighborhoods to the world?s most prestigious concert halls. In 1991, the steel drum was officially recognized as the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. An instrument once scorned and ridiculed is now a source of great pride for a nation and played and appreciated around the world. NOTE: Angela P. Smith is a freelance Writer/Editor, a great Pan enthusiast and a customer of the Steel Drum Shop. Thanks Angela! NOTE #2: Most of our tuners in Trinidad have been making Pans since they were young men in the mid to late 1950's. They are the last of the generation of individuals who actually created the modern instrument. |
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| 4. Do The Instruments Hold Their Value? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Every Instrument is an Investment - Every Steel Drum instrument or Pan is in reality a hand formed piece of metallic artwork upon which music can be played. Numerous individual pan makers worldwide are each creating one instrument at a time using their own methods of metal manipulation, tuning and finishing. No two Pan instruments are alike. Each has its individual characteristics of appearance and sound. An Instant Collectable - The hand made, individual uniqueness of the instruments dictate that they have already earned 'collectable' status. Our personal Pans have over doubled in value since we acquired them and we display them in our home when we’re not playing (great conversation piece)! Another unique feature of these instruments is that they seem to improve with every tuning. This may be due to the additional hardening created by the tuning process. No Mass Production - Due to the numerous individual processes required in creating a Pan, no truly mechanized system of mass production has not yet been developed. The day that mass production is introduced, if it ever is, the value of all handcrafted pans will probably skyrocket! Not to worry for now, since the standardization of note placement is only recently becoming a reality. The Variables - Some instruments look great and sound average, some sound great and look average. Occasionally, one is found that “hits the ball” in both courts. Likewise, occasionally one comes along that should have become a barbeque! You can see that buying a Pan from somewhere in the world, un-seen or heard, has some risk. We take that risk away. When you purchase a Pan from us, you will know the exact instrument you are receiving before you buy it. Back to Top |
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| 5. Who Builds the Steel Drums You Sell? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
island nation of Trinidad is the birthplace of the "Classic" Steel
Drum instrument.
The instruments we sell are made by artists both in Trinidad and
right here in the United States. All pans sold on this site are
the real thing. All pans, including our new mini-pan can be used in a band or for recording! Imported vs. Domestic? This is a contest played out on many fields around the world. As with any other product, advantages to the end user can be found in both, so we offer both.
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| By making lots and lots of noise, that’s how! A Steel Drum instrument begins life as a 55-gallon oil drum. Sinking - The flat end (bottom) of the drum is pounded into a pan shape by many individual hammer blows in a process known as “sinking”. The depth of the “sink” is dependent on the instrument being created. The higher the tone, the deeper the “sink”. The hammering also causes the metal to both stretch and harden. The Cut Off – This is where the skirt length of the pan is determined. The higher the range of the individual Pans “voices”, the shorter the skirt must be. Smoothing - Another round of hammer work must be done in the smoothing process. This is similar to the process of reshaping a dented car fender and then smoothing the metal using hammers and backing tools. This process also further hardens the metal. Etching – The unique shape of each note is then etched into the metal using a drift punch and a hammer. This also creates a dead zone between the notes. Firing – The pan is then heated red hot for a few minutes before being allowed to cool. This process anneals the metal and lets the stretched, bent and otherwise severely molested metal molecules realign themselves and “relax”. Note Shaping – Each note space, inside the etching, is then shaped into a dome by further hammer work. Preliminary Tuning – This is where the builder finds out if this particular Pan will become a sweet sounding musical instrument or a very unique looking backyard barbeque or goat feeder! Through lots of tapping and often, more enthusiastic hammering, each note is brought into tune. Clean Up – Now the beaten, burned, semi-tuned instrument must be made presentable. The surfaces are washed, buffed and polished until they are as smooth as possible. The Pan is then either primed and painted or sent out for the processes associated with chroming. Final Tune Up – This, you would think, is a quick process. Not exactly. Each time a note is stretched a little, the notes around and across from it change a little too. The tuner goes around and around and around to assure things are perfect. That’s it! Anyone with several years to burn, a bag full of body and fender tools, a thorough knowledge of music and a set of ear muffs, can learn to build their own! Obviously, this treatise is for the uninitiated reader and is intended as a very shallow overview of a process that has taken nearly 80 years to evolve.
Back to Top |
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| 7. How Are The Instruments Tuned? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuning an instrument made of a single piece of steel is not for everyone to try. Since the metal in a pan "relaxes" after its initial fine tuning, many of the instruments we import, arrive out of tune. That’s why part of our normal receiving process for imported Pans is to immediately run them through our Tuning Shop for a complete inspection and tuning. The tuning process, depending on how far out of tune the notes are, can take several hours. Time is money so our pans cost a bit more than others. They are just better prepared to work right. During the tuning process, the instruments are mounted on a stand equipped with a microphone. The microphone is plugged into an electronic tuner (Strobe-tuner) that detects musical vibrations down to the cycle. The tuner then uses small hammer blows to stretch and shape each note until it is producing exactly it’s required number of cycles or tone. Around and around he goes, he only stops when all notes are perfect! No matter how long it takes. Back to Top |
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| 8. How Long Does It Take? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special orders and large orders need to be built from scratch for you. 60-90 days is a normal lead time to allow. Our Build/Ordering system assures we are virtually always in stock of our Trinidad Classic Pans series lead pans. This In-Stock status will soon extend to Double Seconds. You should check our Products section to see the pans we have on-hand for immediate delivery. |
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| 9. What instrument should I purchase for my needs? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After having written this letter in an email response about 35 times, it dawned on me that something was missing from our website. What was missing is the answer to this question. You want some guidance as to what will fulfill your needs without putting you in the poor house. Great question, so here goes? Our basic guidance is that you should purchase the most expensive instrument that you can afford. This is not just sales talk, it is common sense. The more expensive today, the higher value tomorrow. It?s all about resale (if you want to sell in the future). Any pan purchased at today?s prices will absolutely appreciate in tomorrow?s market. They don't wear out! I have heard Trini Pans from the 50's that sill play beautifully. Our tuner, Francis, plays a set of doubles that are 25 years old, rusty (although he scrubs it off sometimes) and even have a hole or two in them. He won't give them up and they are as sweet sounding as you have ever heard. Go Listen To Francis Play! Regarding CHEAP OR USED PANS - Be Careful! A used pan is virtually never going to be a Great Pan! If someone is selling a used pan, they are trying to improve what they have. People keep the good ones and attempt to improve over the "not so great" ones. Not much more to say here. Buyer be ware. Cheap is not going to reward you very well. Be ready to spend some extra bucks for a nice instrument
We at Hopetown Music Inc. sincerely hope this information answers some of your questions about the history, origins and availability of the Steel Pan instrument. If you have additional questions, please call us. Back to Top |
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