The steel drum, or pan, is a unique instrument, one of the most recently invented and indigenous of the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. It is a skillfully hammered 55-gallon oil drum, which has been carefully tuned to produce tones. The steel drum carries a full chromatic range of notes and produces any kind of music one can imagine.
During British Colonial rule of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1800's, hand drums were used as a call for the then slaves to reinvent their African heritage. At times they were used to call neighborhood gangs to "mash up" with other gangs. Hoping to curb the violence, the government outlawed hand drums in 1886. Deprived of the drums, the Trinidadians turned to the "Tamboo Bamboo" where each member of a group carried a length of bamboo and struck it on the ground as the group walked through the streets, producing distinctive rhythmic "signatures" which identified each gang.
When two groups met on the march, they would pull out machetes, which were hidden in the long bamboo poles, which solved none of the violence problems. Soon, the government outlawed the Tamboo Bamboo.
The Trinis took any object they could find, including garbage can lids, old car parts, and empty oil barrels. They used these instruments to form Iron Bands, which marched down the streets playing the same rhythmic patterns as the Tamboo Bamboo. Nobody is sure exactly who, but it was probably Winston "Spree" Simon, discovered that a dented section of a barrelhead produced a tone. Originally the pans were convex, like a dome rather than a dish or pan. Ellie Manette, a pan maker still active in the US, was the first to dish out a pan and give the steel drum its mature form.
A handful of craftsmen began to produce more and more tuned pans, eventually forming groups into orchestrated bands. Musical competitions, which began to take place every year at Carnival, quickly replaced the street fights. Fifty years after the first such contest, the rivalries between steel bands still exist, but manifest themselves into an excellent quality of musicianship. The bands, which include Witco Desperados, Phase Two Pan Groove, the Amaco Renagedes, and Nutones each perform a masterfully arranged ten minute piece. Each band can contain over 100 musicians and 300 pans, and rehearses relentlessly for months before Carnival in the hopes of winning the Panorama and being crowned steel band of the year. Panorama recordings can be found at www.panyard.com, as well as music from some of the world's greatest pan players such as Len "Boogsie" Sharp, Robbie Greenridge, and Ken "Professor" Philamore.