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Aurélie HELMLINGER (PhD
student in Ethnomusicology, Paris X, Nanterre)
Lecture given at LAMECA on Thursday 29th March 2001, during a
conference on Ethnomusicology.
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pan, steel pan or steeldrum is a melodic
idiophone rather unique in its kind, the pride and joy of Trinidadians.
In fact, in the 1940’s, Trinidadians created a new melodic
instrument, born of the salvaging of oil drums: its surface, pressed,
burnt, hammered and tuned on a tempered western scale. Today,
there is a wide variety of types of steeldrum of different ranges,
spanning the equivalent of a symphonic orchestra.
We
are going to see how the playing of the steelband was shaped by
historico-political context of the country. To fully understand
its present state, we must know that it was invented during the
colonisation period, during the rise of nationalism, and that
it has developed particularly since the country’s independence.
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The
pan today is the official national instrument of Trinidad
and Tobago, as important as the National Anthem or the flag of
these most southerly islands of the West Indies. The brightly
painted plane which takes us there, proudly sports huge drawings
of steeldrums. Bank notes, stamps and many other food products
will also bear these representations. You can even come across
the statue of a panniste [1],
on a street corner, wearing his instrument over his shoulder as
was done by the pioneers of the steelpan movement[2].
Reference
works on the history of the steeldrum (Stuempfle 1995, Dudley
1997) have now clearly established that the first pans appeared
at the end of the 1930’s. We must stress, however, that,
as with many inventions, their appearance was not sudden, and
is, in fact, the result of a long organological evolution during
the English colonisation.
In
fact, Trinidad became an English colony at the end of the 18th
century, after years of Spanish rule. But the majority of the
island’s population were colonists who had come from the
French islands with their slaves and, of course, their cultural
practices. The most living example of the French West Indian influence
is the Carnival, taken up by the population of African descent
after the Abolition of Slavery. There are still other traces today,
especially in the toponymy. The ‘patois’, the local
Creole language which has today almost disappeared, was very close
to that of Martinique and Guadeloupe. This is just one of the
numerous cultural influences in the country, the majority of the
country’s population today being either of Indian[3]
or African descent. It is within the community of African descent
that the steeldrum will be invented.
The official
Trinidad version of the invention of the steelbands explains their
origin by the decision of the colonial power in 1884 to ban skin
drums, thereby specially targeting those polyrythmic practices
of the descendants of slaves similar to the music of the French
West Indies. They claim that this ban developed replacement strategies
(the bamboo, then the oil drums), thereby triggering the invention
of their national instrument.
If
indeed there was a ban, bibliographical sources (Stuemfle 1995,
Dudley 1997) indicate that this did not necessarily play as important
a role in the organological evolution. The legal text (quoted
in J. Cowley 1996) proves firstly that it was not aimed particularly
at skin drums, but “any drum (…) any noisy instrument”
as well as dances, processions, etc. The authors quote newspapers
published well before this law, describing groups of musicians
already with numerous idiophones, a catachresis[4]
of metallic objects. Other quotations from the year following
this famous law, attest to the use of membranophones and these
have not completely disappeared from other repertoires. The ban
met with relative success and did not succeed in abating the Carnival,
though this was directly targeted. The ban alone does not explain
the organological transfer which seems to have come rather from
an aesthetic evolution towards metallic sounds, probably also
linked to urbanisation.
Nevertheless,
near the beginning of the century, groups of tamboo bamboo (idiophones
made of bamboo, pounded and percussed) spread, increasingly influenced
by the metallic idiophones. It was during the Carnivals of the
1920’s (Stuemfle 1995) that the first completely metallic
orchestras appear, made of biscuit tins, paint tins, waste paper
bins, or kitchen utensils. … And so, little by little we
discover the acoustic properties of these idiophones: the hammering
of the musicians was bale to produce differentiations in the pitch
of the sound on the same surface.
The acoustic
perfecting giving rise to these observations, finally led to a
melodic instrument at the end of the 1930’s. The privileged
use of oil tins led to acoustic developments which, with the European
influence, saw the steelband evolve toward a complete tempered
range (end of the 2nd World War), and an aesthetic quality of
the western sound (Dudley 1997).
The pioneers
of the steelband movements were for some time, very poorly considered
by the population. Heated rivalry between the groups led to regular
general rows where death was not uncommon. Coming from the poorest
areas of Port of Spain, often delinquents or pimps (the presence
of the American military base resulted in the escalation of prostitution),
the first panmen were quite scorned. Intellectuals, often linked
to the nationalist movement, had to praise their creativity and
defend them using their word and their pen. By the time the country
became independent, the mentalities had already evolved. The commitment
of respected persons in favour of this movement, as well as the
evolution of the steelband repertoires, which was beginning to
approach the classical Western repertoire and to be played in
churches, succeeded in making it gradually more respectable (Aho
1987, Stuempfle 1995, Dudley 1997).
The Trinidadian
nationalist party (People’s National Party), in power almost
continually since Independence, continued its commitment toward
the steelband through a very interventionist policy. Having quickly
measured the symbolic and electoral capital that these typically
Trinidadian orchestras could constitute, through the intermediary
of the “Carnival Development Committee”, the “National
Association of Trinidad and Tobago Steelbandsmen” (later
to be called “Pan Trinbago”), it made a certain number
of decisions to promote the national musical life, the most important
of which was undoubtedly the creation of Panorama.
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“Collective
action, the link between the past and the present, enough to feed
national or regional pride” said André Schaeffner
(1989), in a way which well characterised the steelband since
independence. The polyrhythmic practices from which the steelband
was born, authenticates the African heritage, and thus provides
an element of continuity with the past. Moreover, the very history
of the instrument lends itself easily to an interpretative shift
laden with nationalistic ideology: an unjust law drives a creative
people to invent the ‘only’ new musical instrument
in the 20th century. Everything works together so that from 1962
the young state organises steelbands in what has been called,
since Hobsbawn’s work (1983) an invented tradition.
Steelband
activity today is largely orchestrated by the National organisation
(re-baptised ‘Pantrinbago’). Different competitions
add rhythm to the musical life through the months, introduced
always by the national anthem which is respectfully listened to
by all standing at attention. By their rules, they sketch a musical
landscape: to each corresponds a type of piece and an approximate
number of musicians.
Panorama,
whose finals takes place on the Friday night preceding Carnival,
mobilises the maximum of players. The limit number of players
was reduced to 100 – 130 a few years ago. The piece must
be the arrangement of a calypso aired on Trinidad radio during
the precedent year.
Today calypso
is made up a a rather large variety of genres. It began as a vocal
form of social satire, ‘political gossip or newsmongering’
(Hill 1986), characterised musically by rhythmic accompaniment
(cf Dudley 1996), by a responsorial form and a tonic/dominant
harmonic alternance. This vocal form comes from carnival songs,
and in particular from pre-Lent songs ‘the result of the
secularisation of former Afro-French rituals’, (D.R. Hill
1986). This traditional street-form, called in patois, ‘lavway’,
then ‘road-march’ (made up of songs, membranophones
and idiophones) gives birth at the end of the 19th century to
a the calypso, a more westernised English form with indoor performances
with a charge for admission now accompanied by instruments originally
from Europe, notably the brass). Today, they include numerous
categories (‘oral’ calypso, ‘ballad’,
‘single-tone’,‘double-tone’ cf. Hill 1986),
for which there are also competitions during Carnival.
Very early,
steelbands included fashionable calypsos in their repertoire.
The rules of Panarama gave birth to a new form, whose texts has
nothing anti-establishment or humoristic: the words of these studio
pieces generally glorify the steelband and Carnival. Their aim
is to provide musical materiel for Panorama pieces. A calypso
of this type, backed more by its heavy synthesisers and rhythm
boxes than by its textual qualities, will be long-lived if they
are aired often and provide the theme for the winning ‘Panorama
tune’.
Several steelbands
can therefore play the same theme, since these calypsos are a
sort of common repertoire from which each draws. But their originality
lies in the different arrangements: the steelband arranger composes
the introduction, developments and a denouement which should impress
the judges and excite the public. Well-attended by the population,
transmitted live on the radio and on television with heated commentaries,
Panorama is incontestably the headlight of the musical life of
steelbands.
The
Festival, for which each group must have between forty and sixty
musicians, is another competition recently opened to foreign steelbands
(also called World Pan Festival). The heritage of a festival
of classical music of the English colonists, the exercise consists
mainly of the interpretation of a ‘piece of choice’,
generally a western classical piece, but also of a calypso (they
usually repeat a piece from the previous Panorama), and of a ‘test
piece’, a compulsory composition for all steelbands, of
a rather European classical style. These two competitions attract
a huge following, but there are other smaller groups, notably
‘Pan Ramajay’ [5],
which judges improvisation, in a style inspired by jazz but on
a calypso rhythm.
In addition
to these official activities, the steelband occasionally honours
contracts for private or lucrative events, which help ensure its
preservation. On these occasions, the panmen play calypsos or
even international hits, just as they are and without new arrangements,
because the investment in time and effort required for the preparation
for competitions leaves little room for the learning of other
pieces.
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It is striking to note the steelband’s
drastic change in status. From an instrument born from the greatest
popular spontaneity, practically free from of all official organisation,
it has become the symbol of a country, its performances for the
most part governed by the national organisation.; the consequences
have been felt socially (the more well-to-do classes have become
involved in playing the steelband ); in the context of the game
(the competitions), but also in the musical form itself since
the appearance of the official rules. Politics has therefore deeply
moulded the musical practice of steelband in Trinidad and Tobago.
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| [1]
A steeldrum player. This neutral term for the instrument player
is, according to S. Dudley (1997:17), slightly different from
the term ‘panman’, for it can also have a connotation
of socio-political struggle linked to the history of the instrument,
a connotation which is absent from the semantic content of ‘pannist’,
frenchisised here into ‘panniste’.back
[2]
‘Pan around the neck’ - a practice reintroduced in
the 1970’s.. back
[3] Many Indian workers were brought to the island at the end
of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century because of the shortage
of agricultural labour. Their strong demographic growth give them
a slight majority today: 40.3% ahead of 39.6% afro-Trinidadians.
The rest of the population is mixed (18.4%), White (0,5%), Chinese
(0.4%) and others (0.7%) [Encyclopaedia Universalis, figures of
1990]. The Amerindian population (Carib and Arawak) has completely
disappeared, massacred, deported, decimated by the colonists.back
[4]
This concept borrowed from Psychology (which borrowed it from
Rhetoric), refers here to the diverting of an object from its
original function. back
[5] From old French ‘ramager’. back
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