What an amazing instrument the steel drum or pan is. Did you know that it is the only instrument to be invented in the 20th century? It's true. The pan was born in Trinidad in this century. It was created as an inexpensive way to express music in a culture that could not afford the luxury of more expensive instruments.

We perform on 5 different types of pans which cover a wide range of notes and simulate the voicings of a choir, and a drum kit as well as various percussion instruments.

Sopranos, Altos, Tenors, Cellos, Basses, Drum Kit, Percussion

Sopranos

Normally called a "Lead" pan, we decided to simply refer to these instruments as our sopranos. They play the melody the majority of the time. Our sopranos are "C leads." This refers to the range of the instrument - what notes it is capable of playing and is a very popular drum. The most popular in Trinidad are "D leads" which are similar to ours but have a slightly higher range.

It's called a C lead - the lowest note is a C - middle C in fact and is tuned in 4ths and 5ths. Starting on the C and going clockwise, you move in 4ths and going counter clockwise moves by 5ths. This pattern also keeps augmented 4ths/diminished 5ths (such as C and F#) as far away from each other as possible, decreasing to a minimum sympathetic vibrations that may create undesirable overtones. In our band, we use 6 sopranos.

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Altos

The altos as we call them are normally called double altos, simply because there are two of them. They play a mixture of melody, counter melody, rhythmic lines and chords. The alto has the largest range of any instrument in our band - a whopping 32 notes - and functions much the same as the alto voice of a choir.

The alto has only 30 notes. Ours are slightly different, having 9 notes around the perimeter of each drum instead of the normal 8. The layout of the notes however is almost identical. We have 3 sets of altos in our band.

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Tenors

What we call the tenors are in fact properly called double guitars, or simply guitars and we use 2 sets of them. As you can imagine from this name, their main function is strumming chords. Occasionally they play some melodic stuff, but they are best for chords and non-melodic lines such as arpeggiated patterns, broken chords, rolled chords and rhythm. The range of the tenors is similar to that of a tenor voice in a choir. The tenors have a dark, warm tone.

The tenors don't have as many notes as the altos. This is because in order to produce a lower sound, the physical size of the note must be larger and therefore takes up more space limiting the amount of notes you can fit on one drum. The basses are severely affected by this. The tenors can cram in 20 notes on their 2 drums.

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Cellos

Our cellos, triple cellos to be exact, cover a range similar to the tenor pans, but extend even lower. This gives the cello the ability to play chords and accompaniment in a similar way to the tenors and also support the bass which is very important. Because the basses play so low, they sometimes get lost in the sound and are hard to hear. With a cello backing them up an octave above, the bass really fills out and booms through. Once in a while the cellos play the melody but they mainly play chords and arpeggiated patterns.

Like the tenors, we have 2 sets of cellos. The number of notes is less than on the tenors or altos because the range is lower. To cover a usable range therefore, they must use three drums to get a total of 24 notes. I believe that the standard steel band does not use the tenor drums and uses only the cello pans to cover the tenor range of the steel band choir.

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Basses

The bass drums are, I think, my favourite. A normal set of steel band basses contains 6 drums with 3 notes each. We have 2 sets of 6 basses, but only carry 4 with us to concerts and on parades due to space limitations. This reduces us to only 12 bass notes.

You can see that this poses a bit of a problem...we have no Eb, Ab, C# or F# on our bass drums! We play most of our songs in simple keys - C, G, F, A minor etc. - and have the major notes covered for each of those keys. Once in a while however, we really miss that Eb and Ab drum. "I Can See Clearly Now" for example contains a bridge section that goes to Eb! We use the cellos to cover those missing bass notes and the basses simply play another note or notes in that chord (in the given case, a Bb or a G.) While we do get by quite well this way, I've been seriously thinking about digging out the Eb/Ab drum and going to a 5 bass set. Again, space is limited both for storage and on our parade float so we'll have to see.

The basses play bass lines and mainly the root of the chords. One of my favourite things is watching those bass players grooving out the bass line to "In The Mood."

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Drum Kit 

We use a standard drum kit to keep the beat, comprised of a bass drum, snare, two tom-toms and a floor tom, ride cymbal, crash cymbal and hi-hat. Not taking anything away from the challenge of playing the pans, but learning and teaching the drum kit has got to be one of the most difficult aspects of the band. I think that a lot of people think that playing the drums is easy. I assure you, it isn't.

Aside from having to move your four limbs independant of one another, you have to keep the beat perfectly steady - don't drag...but don't rush either, - and you are the leader of the band. All of the other players depend on you for cues, tempo, feel, togetherness - even dynamics and musicality. It's a big responsibility and a difficult job. To see how central the drums are to a band, have your drummer change styles in the middle of a piece or suddenly stop playing. It throws the whole band off - most players just stop and wonder what the heck happened.

The kit drummers are the pulse of the band and are often taken for granted. So from me and the rest of the band...THANKS!

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Percussion

To colour the sound, we also use several percussion instruments including maracas, claves, congas, tambourine, and cowbell which we have lost somehow! (Stolen perhaps by a cow?) We gotta get a new cowbell. In our band, everybody plays percussion. We usually have 2 members per pan (to allow for absences during the vacation months) and when a member isn't playing a pan, they often grab an available maraca and join in.