What a long road our national instrument has travelled! The early experience of pan must have been underwhelming, if you discount the marvel of discarded oil drums being able to produce any kind of musical sound.
That could not be said about the sheer pleasure to be derived from today’s steel orchestras. With the enormous versatility of the modern pan instrument it has found its way into classical orchestras, and the dexterity of today’s pannists allows them to play from the simplest of melodies to the most complex arrangements found in orchestration.
It is slightly less true now, but we only saw and heard pan at Carnival time when I was a child. Then, there were comparatively small bands of pannists and pan quality was dubious. The single, shallow pan around the neck lacked resonance and sounded very trebly and metallic compared today’s tenor pans. And they looked nothing like the smart, shiny instruments of the 33 steel orchestras that competed in the Savannah last weekend for a semifinal place to get to Saturday's Panorama finals.
The road to the present huge popularity of pan among TT citizens and worldwide is potholed. The clashes at Carnival, immortalised in calypso, and the bad, poor-boy culture are legend. The journey to pan's becoming our national instrument was not without its own squabbles, but finally our unique national instrument is on our coat of arms, although that too involved TT-style bacchanal. Soon the updated coat of arms will be on our national currency, which has not always been widely available for pan’s development.
The resurgence in pan is down to many factors, financial investment being the most important. Corporate sponsorship has shaped pan’s fortunes – take BP’s continued support for Renegades. Going into Panorama 2025, most competing bands have devoted sponsors, a notable exception for a long time being Phase II, led by legendary Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, now in a partnership with Hadco.
Managing a steel orchestra and competing in Panorama must be a very expensive business requiring sustained support. The performances demand outfitting the players, onstage production, transport of the pans and their tuning, among other costs. Without private-sector backing, pan would not have moved into the international realm either, from Boscoe Holder first dancing to a steelband on BBC TV in 1950 onwards.
Pan’s growth from accompanying masqueraders to being a phenomenon of its own has involved many people over decades. The present leadership of Pan Trinbago has streamlined Panorama and made it a more thrilling Carnival-time experience, although work remains to be done there, and also to achieve the transformation of this splendid embryonic pan industry into a fully fledged one that can offer year-round employment, providing a career path for the multitude of talented young players. Playing sophisticated eight-minute arrangements by rote is amazing, but playing by mere observation offers limited prospects. Without proper musical education, pan will remain a hobby, and without more strategi
