About Steel Pan

Is it a pan? Is it a drum?

Yes. And I love them.

Pan (or steel) drums are as Caribbean as… umm… I don’t really know where they originated, but Wikipedia probably does. But they’re THE Caribbean instrument. It sounds like a mix between the piano, a xylophone and a drum. Originally hammered out of old oil barrels (and in Bequia they’re still like that) these pans have an amazing sound.

(photo courtesy of Loulou who has many holga and polaroids worth drooling over)

So I started taking lessons about a month ago, with a guy called Elvis, the only pan-drummer on the island. He’s good. He teaches all the kids in the school and plays in a couple of bars during the week. I have my lessons in THE Bequia high school, which is an experience in itself, with concrete classrooms adorned with scattered half-broken desks and chairs overlooking the town, with a great view of the harbor in the background.

I thought since I already played drums it wouldn’t be so hard to pick these up… umm… yea… See on drums you just hit the thing and you’re good. On pianos you have the notes in a row, so you logically go from Do to Re then Mi… well it looks like the creators of the Steel pan were either evil geniuses or completely stoned. I’m gonna go for the latter. The notes are scattered in a circle in a completely random order and instead of using just one notation system we’ve gotta use them all- so instead of playing only Do-Re-Mi sometimes it magically shifts to C-D-E or 1-2-3. Yea.


So every time I have lessons I get extremely frustrated and my brain starts to hurt, but I’m actually making progress and last time I learnt my first song! Ok, so its silent night… but still.

Now my mom’s scared I’ll start growing dreads, quit the hotel business and set up my street-side steel pan and jam my days away. Aah, that would be the life.