Steel pan, Day 2

Today was day 2 of learning how to play steel pan with Mr. Headley. The morning didn’t start off too well for me because it was raining cats and dogs! Personally, I just think the rain puts a damper on the rest of the day. Although the rain got me down, my spirits were lifted once we got out of the Maxi Taxi and arrived into the pan yard. During this session we continued to learn the rest of the tune “The Waltz”, which seemed complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really simple. I was having trouble with the note progression that he also taught us; I just couldn’t remember which note goes directly after the other. After playing for majority of the morning, Mr. Headley gave us a little more history on the steel pan and its correlation to calypsos. He sang and played on the steel pan the U.S national anthem as well as the Trinidadian national anthem. It was interesting to hear him play the national anthem on the steel pan because I had never heard it with that instrument and, I haven’t recited the national anthem since the 8^th grade. The other calypsos he played were fun and all had an underlying message. Listening to Mr. Headley talk about the history of the steel pan I realized that all of our project topics, Mas, Kaiso, and Orisha are all interlocking in Trinidadian history. It’s almost like you can’t mention one topic without using the others as reference points and vice versa. All in all, today’s lesson gave me a better feel for the pan and also helped me to see that spirituality, music, and performing in Trinidadian culture are all dependant upon each other. The pan is very vital not only to Trinidadian history but to everyone’s history it represents freedom, power and many other things. I’m happy that we are learning how to play this instrument and happy that we are learning its roots. Lastly, we are supposed to be learning a new song on the pans tomorrow and I’m really excited, I can’t get the tunes out of my head!