Steel Drums or pans, and sometimes collectively with the musicians as a steelband, is a musical instrument and a form of music originating in Trinidad and Tobago.
Steel Drums are a pitched percussion instrument, tuned chromatically, made from a 55 gallon drum of the type that stores oil.
In fact, drum refers to the steel drum containers from which the pans are made; the steel drum is correctly called a steelpan or pan as it falls into the Idiophone family of instruments, and is not technically regarded as a drum or Membranophone.
Bunches of young African men can be credited with contributing to the Steel Drums. Only having scraps as their primary resources they used what they had to preserve aspects of their culture in the space of the Caribbean.
Clearly being influenced by the mixture of those on the islands along with the desire for African drums, Steel Drums was formed.
The development of the Steel Drums took place largely during WWII, the first record of a pan band in the press being in a report of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival in the Trinidad Guardian dated Tuesday, February 6, 1940.
Early bands were essentially rhythm bands. However during the 1940s discarded 55-gallon steel oil drums became the preferred type of pan and, perhaps noticing that constant drumming changed the tone of the Steel Drums, techniques were developed to tune them to enable melodies to be played.
During WWII, tamboo bamboo bands, who usually performed during Trinidad's Carnival began using steel drums discarded by the US military to make advanced versions of their instruments.
Ellie Mannette is credited as the first person to use an oil drum in 1946. By the late 1940s the music had spread to neighbouring islands.
In 1951 the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) took the music to the Festival of Britain in the United Kingdom.
During the 1960s the tuner Anthony Williams developed a pan - the fourths and fifths - that has since become the standard design used today.
Paralumun New Age Village