Official Newsletter of Mark The Pan Guy
by Mark the Pan Guy
Laventille, Trinidad, a hilly, low-income
suburb just east of commercial Port of
Spain. This area was settled in the 1800s
by freed African slaves. At that time, Trinis
celebrated Mardi Gras by parading in the
streets and banging on skin drums. (Of
course, In Trinidad, this was known as
CARNIVAL.)
At that time, Carnival frequently turned
violent. The rum was flowing and very
often a lot of scores were settled. The
British Government in its infinite wisdom
decided that beating of skin drums was the
cause of the rioting, so all skin drums were
outlawed.
The party would go on. Laventille
Trinis invented a musical instrument out of
bamboo sticks, called Tamboo Bamboo,
where sticks of differing lengths would
produce musical notes. (By the way, you
can BUY this instrument today, at
Panyard.com.)
drum was a surprise. (He hid it in a sugar
sack.) He was contestant number seven.
For the contest, he played Beethoven's
"Fur Elise" and Brahms "Lullaby." Needless
to say, the crowd was knocked out. He
later on was asked to perform on the radio.
In 1947, Ellie's efforts to building a
steel drum band led to the invention of the
Balay, which is a single second. Its notes
were lower, thus leaving only nine notes on
the pan.
To make a long story short, in 1967,
Murray Narrell was Ellie's sponsor to
emigrate to America. (Those of you who
are steel pan jazz enthusiasts, like MOI,
will note that Murray's son Andy became
one of the first Jazz players to record steel
pans in that genre. Andy Narrell is
probably the most recognized name in
popular steel pan jazz.)
At the time, most of the notes on
Ellie's pans featured the tone (know as the
"fundamental" and an octave tone, to add
presence. In 1971, Ellie met James Leyden,
a music teacher from Chappaqua, NY,
who told him that even though the drums
were in tune, they weren't in "concert
pitch" which means they couldn't be played
with any other instrument. Leyden
introduced Ellie to the Strobe Tuner, which
helped him get even more precise tunings.
turned violent as well. Rival gangs
would sharpen the ends of the bamboo
sticks and use them as spears. Kinda
made Carnival even bloodier than the
skin drums did. So the British
Government banned them in 1934. Of
course, the bands continued to use
them up to 1935.
During a particular march,
Alexander Ford of Alexander’s Rag-
Time Band took up a garbage can and
started beating out a rhythm in an
effort to regroup his band members
and march them back home. This
practice caught on and people began
dumping trash out of their cans and
beating on them.
(Okay, it's time for you to take a
laugh break. Ole Mark The Pan
Guy's instrument evolves from a
TRASH CAN.)
Those of you who are as old as I
am will immediately recognize the
name "Alexander's Ragtime Band" as
an old tune by Irving Berlin, which
was later on made into a 1938 movie.
Here, Ellie learned more about how to use
different tones in each note to create a
richer sound in the steel pan, the sound
you are probably the most familiar with
today.
A couple of years ago, I visited Ellie's
panyard in Morgantown, West Virginia,
where he settled in 1992. (One of the
tuners of the Classic Series gave me a tour
of the plant). And YES, ELLIE
MANNETTE IS STILL ALIVE AND HE
STILL MAKES PANS. Apparently, Ellie
wanted to be close to a college and he
wanted to be in cold weather. Today, he
maintains the drums for the steel pan
orchestra at West Virginia University and
holds seminars every summer.
There is a LOT about Ellie I left out,
mostly because of the demands of space
here.
Of course, Ellie was not the only
inventor of steel pans. My double Tenors
were invented by Bertie Marshall. It was
designed to boost the melody in a pan
orchestra, an octave below the lead pan
(which Ellie DID invent) The Double
Second pan (which is in the same octave
range as the Double Tenor, but with a
mellower tone) adds harmony and tonal
flavor to the orchestra. Andy Narrell and
Robert Greenidge (of Jimmy Buffett's
band) both use Double Seconds.
And of course, my Double Tenors
were designed and crafted by Tom
Reynolds, of www.TropicalHammer.com.
You can find his panyard in Sanford, FL.
(Dictionary Definition)
Berlin story had NOTHING to do with
the actual band from Trinidad. In
fact, movie goers who first saw that
movie probably had no idea that there
was such a band.
So the original steel drums were
called Ping Pong pans, because they
only contained two notes, and were
played more as a rhythm than as a
melody. You no doubt have noticed a
similar concept when you hear a set
of bongo drums or congas. They are
tuned to different notes for the
rhythmic flavoring.
Winston "Spree" Simon is credited
with this invention. His tones would
be created by shaping four or five
concave notes into a bulging convex
surface. In other words, the top of the
drum would be bulging upward and
the notes would be little indentations.
It was Ellie Mannette (who by the
way was playing with Alexander's
Ragtime Band at the time) who
discovered that those notes could not
be tuned in that fashion. He reversed
the process, creating the "sink" that
you see every day in steel pans.
problemo, mon. Visit the Archives:
didn't look anything like the above
picture.
In any case, The British
Government banned all Carnival
celebrations from 1941 to 1945
due to World War II. Eliie used that
time to improve his pan design. At
the time he created a nine-note
instrument out of 35 gallon silt oil
barrels. He called it the
"Barracuda," because it was
supposedly the "baddest" drum on
the island.
In 1946, Ellie Mannette began
making pans out of 55 gallon oil
drums.
