From skins to steel

The beating of animal skin drums was an integral part of the Africans' religious observance, acting as a vehicle to create ecstasy as well as to transport them to a higher plain in order to communicate with their saints or gods during slavery. The cultural traditions from Yoruba of Western Africa, was the popular among the Africans of the Diaspora. These rituals helped them to survive the rigors of a life of hardship, oppression and toil and to celebrate important social occasions. A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument.

 The history of musical instruments dates back to the beginnings of human culture. Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their complexity can sometimes be misleading, since advancements in musical instruments have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task^. It is likewise misleading to arrange the development of musical instruments by workmanship since all cultures advance at different levels and have access to different materials. These music and drumming cultures can be found across from Africa, Asia, North and South America also Europe.  For example, anthropologists attempting to compare musical instruments made by two cultures that existed at the same time but who differed in organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which instruments are more "primitive. Giving chronology to instruments by geography is also partially unreliable, as one cannot determine when and how cultures contacted one another and shared knowledge of music making instruments.

The abolishment of Slavery allowed for another expression of musical freedom, to be developed in the Caribbean Islands and especially in Trinidad during the 1930’s forward. The invention of the Steelpan instrument, created a modern orchestral symphonic sound, utilizing all the necessary musical voices; Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass, also independent of the traditionally known Chamber orchestras. Evidently, this was never done before in the history of musical instruments.  The use of the circle of fifths theory into a practical musical instrument is a unique example of the extent of the vision of the pioneers to this new Idiophone Instrument Voice. Each steel pan instrument is fashioned from a 55-gallon steel drum whose surface has been sunk into a concave shape and divided into concentric rings of notes. The note surfaces are struck with rubber-tipped mallets. Depending on the range of notes it produces, the steel-drum instrument can consist of a single drum (the soprano pan) or as many as six to twelve drums (the bass pans)

During the late 1940’s that time, Mr. Joe Griffith, a member of the Trinidad Police Band, encourage and initiated chromatic tuning of pans, and the very valuable advice extended the steelpan instrument tonal range to higher octaves and give rise to the functional orchestras of Steel Drum Bands or Steelband as they are passionately called, in the country of origin.

Elliott “Ellie” Mannette, was a founding member of the original Oval Boys Steel Band in Woodbrook which   became known as Invaders.  In 1946 he discovered that if the 55-gallon oil drum was hammered concave rather than convex, he could put more notes on it. He created the Tenor Pan tuned from B below middle C” and set the standard for the lead voice in the steelpan family of instruments. Both Mannette and Neville Jules of the Steelband called Hell Yard, known now as Trinidad All Stars introduced instruments that were two drums tuned together to form one tuned double pan instrument.  Namely, double seconds and Double Guitars.

Tony Williams began a trail of genius in 1950, his vision has develop and standardize pan to where it could have its own legitimacy beside the conventional instruments of the world. This vision manifested itself in his greatest invention, the Spider Web pan.  The notes radiated from the center like a spider's web, leaving practically no empty or dead space on the face of the pan. His genius led him to place the note arrangements in the best possible tuning position, in logical musical sequence spaced at intervals of fifths and arranged in such a way that each note ascends the chromatic scale and is one-eighth of an inch narrower than the preceding note. This fifths arrangement is the standard for the Lead instrument used today.

Bertie Marshal is one of the steelpan innovators extraordinaire. He also displayed his gifted talents as an arranger, player, and band leader with the now defunct Highlanders Steelband of Laventille beginning in 1957. In 1965 he created amplified pans, culminating in 1971 with the “Damper Pan” which combined tone control and amplification. He modernized the earlier lead to the Soprano range and expanded on the surface of the drum by deepening into a more concave shape, this strategy added more space between the notes, as they had been too crowded. This technique certainly revolutionized pan tuning by introducing harmonics and complex tuning. This tuning method creates the sound of pan we enjoy today. He designed and introduced the double tenor.