Like no other instrument, the steel drum evokes a specific place: the sun-splashed beaches of the Caribbean. Listen to the calypso rhythms and folk-like melodies for which the instrument was designed, and it’s not difficult to imagine the shore of Trinidad, where the steel drum first emerged 50-odd years ago.
Lately, though, the steel drum has been playing its tropical song in U.S. cities. On street corners in Manhattan and hotel lounges in Chicago, steel drum players have been bringing new textures to jazz and pop music.
Little wonder, then, that when the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago convenes an Inter-American Conference on the evolution of black music, the highlight will be a concert featuring the Rising Stars Youth Steel Orchestra (see below for details).
You cannot understand the relationship between African, Caribbean and American music, in other words, without coming to terms with the steel drum.
“The steel drummade from the end of an oil drum -is probably the most important new acoustical (that is, non-electronic) musical instrument developed in the 20th Century,” wrote Thomas D. Rossing, D. Scott Hampton and Uwe J. Hansen last year in Physics Today, the journal of the American Institute of Physics.
Though the instrument’s scantily documented history is intertwined with the folklore of Trinidad, where it first appeared, most scholars believe that the steel drum emerged around World War II.
Before that, youngsters marching in Carnival parades pounded thick bamboo sticks into the ground to create a percussive orchestra sound. When the “stickbands” were banned in the 1940s (because the sticks were being used as weapons), the youngsters improvised, turning “to garbage cans, buckets, brake drums or whatever was available,” wrote the musicologists.
“It was an evening when my band was parading the streets of the village in full force,” steel drum pioneer Winston “Spree” Simon once recalled.
“I lent my drum, which had a special sound because it was made of a light, soft metal, to a strong friend of mine … so that I could get a `jump up’ and rest from drumming.
“Upon my return, I found that the face of the pan (or drum) was beaten in very badly, and the particular sound I had was gone.
“I then started pounding the inside surface of the drum to restore it to its original shape. I was using a stone.
“While pounding on different points, I was surprised and fascinated that I was able to get distinctly separated musical notes. … I turned my knowledge over the other members of the band, and the pan was born.”
Though it’s unlikely any individual literally invented the instrument, its popularity spread swiftly from Trinidad to neighboring Caribbean islands and, finally, North America. The current instrument contains a maximum of 32 notes (compared to, say, the piano’s 88).
In addition, a whole family of instruments developed from the crude, four-note original. Just as saxophonists today specialize in soprano, alto, tenor and baritone instruments, steel drummers can play the high-pitched tenor, the mid-register guitar and the low-voiced bass, as well as several instruments between.
“Many years ago, in Trinidad, the steelpan man was an outcast, because of the fighting of the stickbands,” says Rudy Johnson (pictured), a tenor player based in Chicago.
“Now things have changed. In the United States, everyone wants to hear the steelpan. It makes them think of the islands.”
MAKING THE PITCH
Unlike a piano, in which each note is a half-step higher than the one adjacent, on the steel drum the notes are scattered across the face of the instrument. The reason is if two pitches a half-step apart (as in C and C-sharp) were located next to one another, one would reverberate in sympathy with the other when either one was struck. The result would be a blur of dissonance. Because the steel drum is a relatively new, folk-like instrument born of this century, its disbursement of pitches has not been standardized, with one player’s drum laid out differently from the next. For the most part, though, the pitches associated with the black keys on the piano tend to be on one side of the drum, while the pitches synonymous with the white keys are on the other.
HEAVY METAL
Made literally from a portion of an oil drum, the instrument welds two distinct pieces of metal: a strip that serves as the perimeter (and holds the lowest notes) and a broad, deep dish (which holds the higher pitches). The instrument-maker uses a hammer to press particular indentations that yield the desired notes, and these must be re-hammered periodically to keep the instrument in tune. And while the high-pitched tenor drum (pictured here) consists of a single instrument, its bass counterpart requires fully four drums to contain all the low notes. Though constructed primarily in Trinidad, self-styled instrument makers on the East Coast and in the Midwest have begun crafting their own steel drums.
HOOKED ON SONICS
The steel drums player achieves the uniquely ringing quality of the instrument by striking particular indentations on the instrument with a mallet. If he strikes the drum gently, listeners will hear a single pitch; if he strikes it more vigorously, listeners will hear not only the single note but others known as “overtones.” For this reason, a single steel drum can create the sonic impression of several instruments playing at once.
COLD STEEL ON STAGE
There may be no better introduction to the steel drum than a concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Skyline Stage of Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave. Ensemble Kalinda Chicago, which explores the links between African and Latin music, will share the bill with the visiting Rising Stars Youth Steel Orchestra.
Created in 1981 in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, the Rising Stars ensemble contains the complete arsenal of steel drums, from the highest tenors to deepest basses. For tickets, phone 312-559-1212. The concert is but one offering in the Inter-American Conference on Black Music Research, running Thursday through July 20 in the Swissotel Chicago, 323 E. Wacker Dr. For information, call 312-663-1600, ext. 5559.
