Steel Pan Music, An Art Like No Other

By Donald Williams


Music had changed so much over time. But the love of the people for it remains unmatched among the rest in art. Whether you are working or taking a break from it, you would want your headset on or turn the radio on to tune in to a station playing your favorite songs. Wherever you go, be it in coffee shops or just any store, you will still hear it playing.

To play it however, is something much more complex, as not too many can do it. But then there are others who are just so good. And because of that, music had evolved with so many instruments and various genres. Easily, pop is the most common. And the likes of steel pan music is not unheard of, although not as popular.

Amid the rise of electronics and its popularity far back in the twentieth century, the steel pan stood out well. This can be attributed to its simplicity, because it probably is the only instrument that came from industrial waste. Nevertheless sturdy, it became an icon of the culture in Trinidad, defining it with its Caribbean roots.

Sometimes referred to as steel drums, they emerged somewhere in the nineteen thirties. Some metal objects like paint pots, including car parts, dust bins and oil drums were widely used as percussion instruments but somehow, artists found a way to tune them. Over the years, there have been several version of its development that it is difficult to get the exact date.

Even though some of the pieces they used were outlawed, like bamboo bands or banned skin drums, they went on with their trial and error process. Through endless experimenting, they finally produced the kind of pitches acceptable to the ears. While there may be so many version to its origin, it cannot be argued that it had come from that island and Tobago.

And to think those people had no training, because at the time, at those hard times, you had to learn among yourselves. The war was not helping and the government associated lit with criminal acts because of the loud noise it produces. Clashes suddenly became common among groups who played them. Violence was not avoided but not for long.

In the nineteen fiftys, it had claimed a well deserved attention, earning a decision to bring a band that produces that kind of music, to the United Kingdom as part of a very important occasion of the Commonwealth. This had defined the instrument itself as a vital part of Trinidad culture and also earned a wide respect for where it had come from.

Music, before radio was ever known, had to be produced manually by people themselves. And so they did. Everywhere during the eighteenth century, it was present in the yards of slaves and the barracks of the nineteenth. It went on, transcending into the streets in the twentieth century, playing a vital role in the freedom of countries, like how the pans served in the freedom of its island.

The kind of music it creates is hard to resist and so infectious you would not want to stop dancing to its beat. You would not want to ignore its uninhibited feel because there is just nothing like it. A break from the usual electronic beats of the radio and too much mainstreaming, this is perfect for those who really who wants a good calm but cool days.




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