About Steel Pan Drums
The steel pan evolved out of earlier musical practices of Trinidad's enslaved Africans and Afro-descendants, who had to make do with discarded materials for constructing musical instruments, as well as a specific cultural response to the specific demographic conditions present on the islands. In its contemporary form, it first arose in the 1930s and was developed largely during World War II. The first record of a pan band in the press appeard in a report of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival in the Trinidad Guardian dated Tuesday, February 6, 1940.

Steelband, Port of Spain, early 1950s
The BP Renegades Steel Orchestra One of the oldest steelbands in the world is The Neal & Massy Trinidad All-Stars, which celebrated its 72nd anniversary in 2007. 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 pans, 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 (see Destroyers for Bases Agreement) 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 - pan music still features in the annual Notting Hill Carnival. In 1957, Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery formed what became the US Navy Steel Band, which toured the world as ambassadors for the U.S. Navy until 1999. During the 1960s the tuner Anthony Williams developed a pan - the fourths and fifths - that has since become the standard design used today. Two Americans, George Whitmyre and Harvey J. Price, have secured a US patent for "the process of formation of a Caribbean steelpan using a hydroforming press". This patent is being challenged by the Trinidad and Tobago Legal Affairs Ministry, since many Trinbagonian drum makers have used similar methods for years. Their pan making company, Hydroforming, has gone out of business. Steelbands in the early years were looked down upon by upper class society, and the panplayers were seen as undesirables. This view has completely reversed to the point where there are many more church steelbands than conventional bands.


Links
Wikipedia on Steel Pans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelpan

History of the Steel Pan:
http://www.lafi.org/magazine/articles/steel.html

History of the Steel Pan
http://www.rhythmicalsteel.com/history/history.html

History of the Steel Pan
http://www.iadb.org/idbamerica/English/MAY01E/may01e2.html

PanTrinbago: Everything Pan
http://www.pantrinbago.co.tt/www/home/index.asp

The Pan Page: Everything Pan
http://hotpans.se/pan/

More on how steel pans are made
http://www.toucans.net/Toc/makePan.html

Pictures of how the pan is made: http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~sonobe/English/sketch_panmaking.html

Ellie Mannette Steel Drums Finest Steel Drum Makers in the World
http://www.mannettesteeldrums.com/

Steel Bands around the world, a listing:
http://hotpans.se/pan/bands.html

A video on making steel drums:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDE25KaXVJk
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