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Friday, April 8, 2016

Be Different With Steel Pan Music

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.

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.

The instrument itself has a shiny metal surface with a series of dents hammered to it. Each of them gives out a different note. That is, different ones that are around it, based on positions and size. You will often see them as fifty five gallon oil drums that can be deafening if you did not appreciate a littler noise in songs that much.

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.

It had, over time, went on to greater heights, being sent to Britain as a part of an important event. That was where it gained and established international acclaim. And then went on to become as an art form widely accepted. It also identified the pan as a type of music that shaped the Trinidadian culture, earning acceptance and respectability.

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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