Saturday, April 9, 2016

Steel Pan Music, An Art Like No Other

By Donald Williams


Some days people just want to escape the world with songs on their playlists. Or by playing the guitar on an otherwise ordinary day with friends. Or even when you are doing the same mundane things on a Monday morning. Whatever it is, music is undeniably part of your daily life and for good reason.

Sometimes you may even wonder how a day can go by without it. Simply unimaginable if you think about it. Among its many forms and genres, steel pan music, it is safe to say, rightfully stands out. This may be because of its simplicity and Caribbean coolness. Not everyone is familiar with it though.

But the few who does, appreciates it well enough to know how versatile it can be. And the instrument is not something easy to learn. It would take an experienced musician to play it, because this kind of thing is much more complex than just listening to songs. Or playing the string instruments.

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.

Its early years did not come easy. The noise it involved and the effect upon others brought forth an association with criminal prosecutions. Its popularity in the Caribbean at the time seemed to create a kind of effect on the youth that was so much different than how rock and roll was in the 60s. However the fact that it made people want to dance even if the music was over, was undeniable.

But even that had not been enough to avoid clashes between groups and enthusiasts, resulting in violence. Thankfully, it did not went on for long because as pioneers excelled in developing it, horizons had been brighter and steel drums suddenly had a good future ahead and along with other genres. Even the war could not stop people from appreciating it.

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.

Being an integral part of social life, even everyday life, there seems to be no end as to how songs or rhythm in instruments like steel drums will be created. It is part of the culture and identity of almost any country. And the pan is one nice lesson to remember how it can be as revolutionary as it is artistic.




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