"Steel drum still ringing in my head. I feel pain so I’m not dead. Things couldn’t get more out of sight. It got a little crazy last night.” These are the lyrics to the first verse of Kenny Chesney’s hit song, “Got a Little Crazy.” His description of the sound of the steel drum is exactly what I feel every time I hear or play the steel drum. Kenny Chesney is the man who has influenced and nurtured my growth as a musician; he is also the man who has inspired me to continue on with my music career even though I am not pursuing a major in this field. With the inspiration of Kenny Chesney, I am living for what my childhood has been shaped around: the steel drum.
Every time I hear the ring of the steel drum, I am taken to a new place in the world. While my body remains here in the flatlands of Illinois, my mind travels down to the homeland of the steel drum: Trinidad and Tobago.
The steel drum not only produces music, it is an object that has emerged through rough times. Due to the perseverance and determination of the people of Trinidad and Tobago the steel drum is around today. In the early to mid-1900s, there was an economic shock that hit Trinidad and Tobago, strained the government, and put people out of work. As a result, there were many people on the streets looking for something to do. These people wandering the streets turned towards 55-gallon oil barrels to provide them with entertainment.
For a while the people in Trinidad and Tobago were acquiring oil barrels without any resistance from the government or the oil stockyards. It wasn’t until the stockyards found out the people of Trinidad and Tobago were using these barrels to make finely crafted instruments that they started to increase security in the stockyards. The increased security made it tougher for people to get oil barrels.
As a result, at night people would sneak into the stockyards and steal oil barrels and store them in alleys for usage the next day. During the day, the people would take their oil drums and beat down the tops into a concave shape and then start to form various patches to form notes. This crude way of forming a steel drum is still done today. With this type of formation of a steel drum, not much technology is used other than a hammer and a drum tuner’s own ear. The tones produced from these drums are quite rigid and boxy. After the pan tuner has gotten what he thinks he wants for tones on the pan, he makes himself a mallet by putting a rubber band on the end of a five inch stick.
Today, many complexities are involved with making a steel drum. Less than half a century from the time that the steel drums were made in mass numbers and “introduced” to the world, a company called Panyard was formed in the United States. The goal of this newly founded company was to perfect the construction and structure of the steel drums that came out of Trinidad and Tobago. Essentially it was Panyard’s mission to put groundbreaking technology and engineering into steel drum fabricating.
After years of research, Panyard researchers Shelly Irvine and Ron Kerns put together a new breed of steel drums. They figured out that by extending the diameter of the steel drum to space out the notes inside of the drum, they could achieve a better tone quality out of each individual note and create a better sounding steel drum. They called their new breed of steel drums the “extended hoop” steel drum. The spacing out of notes on their new extended hoop pan allowed for Shelly and Ron to better control the thickness of the metal on each note so that the notes were not as boxy or dry sounding. With this technology and precision, the two revolutionized the steel drum making industry.
Even as Shelly and Ron have made steel drums a better sounding instrument, they still have not mastered the “easier crafting” portion of the steel drum fabricating business. It takes approximately 45-90 days to fabricate a satisfactory steel drum from either the extended hoop or the standard oil drum platforms. With this incredibly slow turnout rate and so few people fabricating the instruments, it makes for a high demand for the steel drum.
As a child, I did not understand the concept that the steel drum was an instrument that was extremely rare. I was introduced to the steel drum at my first drum instructor’s house when I was about five years of age. I was taking drum lessons for about a month and then one day I was looking around this guy’s basement and saw a shiny thing set up in the corner. From what I had observed, the shiny object looked round, and the finish gave the object the look of being of high value. I had to know what this was, so I asked my instructor what the thing was and he told me that it was the steel drum. He then proceeded to tell me the story of how he and his buddy were playing gigs in bars and at other venues trying to make some extra money on the weekends. My instructor ended up playing me a few cool runs and chords on the steel drum and my jaw dropped. I had goose bumps all over my body and there was an instant shiver that was sent up my spine. I had to learn to play the steel drum. Unfortunately, when I told my instructor that I wanted to learn how to play he said that I had a lot of time to learn and that I needed to focus on learning how to read music first since I was only five years old.
I took this as a slight setback. As the months passed by and I continued my lessons on how to play rhythms on the drum set, my heart remained set on the steel drum. It almost made me sick to look at the drum kit and then look at the beautiful instrument in the corner as I knew that was my destiny. One year passed by of playing some drum set. After a year my instructor moved away and I had to find another instructor. I had a period of about five years where I was looking and searching for an instructor that held the key to learning the steel drum. I could not find anyone that had or taught the steel drum in my area.
When I was twelve, I was super frustrated and was about ready to quit drumming altogether when my dad came home from work one day and said that he had found a guy that lived 30 minutes away from us that had steel drums. I told him to get me a spot reserved for lessons and that I wanted to start as soon as possible.
I went to my new drum instructor with a renewed fire in my step, talk, and overall ego. When I stepped into my new instructor’s studio, I took one look at the steel drum and suggested to him that I was there to learn to play the steel drum.
As an enthusiastic and eager kid I was totally expecting my instructor to pull the cover off of the steel drum and let me try to play it, but instead he just shook his head and told me that I could not play the steel drum quite yet. I asked him why and he went on to explain that I had to learn to read musical notes before I could play the steel drum. This all felt like the same roller coaster I was on before, but I hopped on the ride again and began the new journey on my way to playing the steel drum.
About three months after learning to play marimba so that I could read music, I started playing some steel drum. I surpassed my abilities of playing the marimba on the steel drum in one month. My hands were like lightning on the inside of the steel drum. I could learn songs extremely quick. Playing music on the steel drum was like a drug. I was hooked from day one and have not stopped playing steel drum since.
Before learning to play the steel drum, I was a person who took music for granted at times. I never really saw the real meanings behind songs, chord progressions, and musical structure. Now that I have been playing pan, I have connected to music. When I am feeling sad, I can play some slow little riffs on the low end of the note range of my pan and sooth my soul. If I am mad I can play some violent chromatic runs. If I am happy, I can strum a chord progression and then improvise a happy melodic line.
As I have grown over the past years, I have had many opportunities to play at several different venues. I have been blessed to provide entertainment to the forgotten people in nursing homes. I love putting smiles on people’s faces that are helpless and are “dumped” in a nursing home and never visited again by their family members. It makes me feel good that they look forward to seeing me and listening to me play for them. The steel drum not only has allowed me to touch the lives of others but has also taken me to play on cruise ships, at state fairs, on stages in auditoriums, at private parties, and at weddings.
Because of the steel drum, music has become a foreign language that I can comprehend. Perhaps the most important thing that the steel drum has done is allowed for me to find myself and to enjoy life and all of its joys just a little bit more than what I ever did before. When I hear that steel drum ringing with its great beauty, I can close my eyes and allow myself drift to a new world. Being able to escape reality and find myself has helped me when I have felt alone and thought nobody cared. Through my steel drum I have seen a new aspect of life and have been rejuvenated and re-energized in my outlook on life.
A single glance at a steel drum takes me on the journey that takes me not only through my life, but through the life of the steel drum itself. What if the people of Trinidad and Tobago had not broken into the oil drum stockyards and stolen the 55-gallon oil drums to make these instruments in mass numbers? Would we even have the steel drum today? Most importantly, what would my life be like?
My steel drum represents my life. It has colorful pitches that are tuned to perfection, has a history that is hard to understand at times, and is a very unique item that not only is different in its looks, but in its sound as well. Without my steel drum, I would be a different person. I am happy that I have found my match and that I have an item that I can look at and associate with even on my roughest days.