Steel Pan and a Good Time.

Being a Trinidadian you must have gotten some exposure to our national instrument the Steel Pan. It is an instrument that is Caribbean based and the background music for most of our local calypso music. Just like piano it has its specific keys to hit to get different tones, but it is played like if you are beating a drum set. It really is an instrument of it own kind and in my country, around Carnival, we listen to an orchestra of steel band players create the melody of one of our calypsos.

I personally enjoy pan only 'live and direct'. It is not something I will listen to on the radio, but as a teacher I am constantly hearing in being practiced from the Music room. The kids really enjoy learning it, and as I said before, it being our national instrument, the Ministry of Education is implementing it into the music curriculum so that every child learns to appreciate the instrument. This is a good thing.

Yesterday was our Pan Semi Finals, where Steel Pan Bands of all sizes performed on stage for surrounding audiences and judges. In this audience are people who just come to listen to the pan music (we call them the die-hard), and there are those who come for the lime. I fall in-between. I liked listening to the bands play, and I also like when the bands are in transition from moving off and on the stage and a different kind of music takes over. It is called the North Stand rhythm section. This is when the crowd is entertained listening to the rhythm section of tassa and drums.

It really is something that needs to be experienced once in your lifetime. It is mesmerizing to see the people just letting the beat move them. It is when good fun, good friends, good drinks, good food and good music come together in fusion with the Steel Pan music keeping the beat.

It is fantastic.