The Steel Pan

1. The Steel Pan

2. History of the Steel Pan • AKA Steel Drum • Originated in Caribbean • Other variations used from late 1880’s • Developed during World War II • In 1940’s, used 55-gallon steel oil drums • Ellie Mannette- 1946 • Anthony Williams 1960, “fourths and fifths”

3. The Making of the Pan • Choosing • Sinking • Marking • Backing • Grooving • Levelling • Cutting • Tempering

4. Choosing the Drum • Standard 55-gallon steel drum • 23 inches diameter • 24.8 inches long • Thickness- • 1.2 mm bottom • 1.0 mm sides • Thinner skirt = better “ring” sound of the pan

5. Sinking the Drum • Marking • Lowering • Shaping • Smoothing

6. Marking the Notes • Marking Outer Notes • Marking Inner Notes

7. Backing • Lowering the surface between notes • Done with backing hammer • Outer then Inner notes

8. Grooving • Note areas acoustically separated from each other and rest of surface • Confines vibrations that produce sound to their own sector of drum surface • Note is able to vibrate freely

9. Levelling • Playing surface formed to final shape • Each octave pair of outer-inner notes goes through 4 steps: taking out the fat, flattening the grooves, final shaping, and adjusting the notes to be level with each other

10. Cutting the Drum • The lower the tuning of the pan, the longer the sides (gives more resonance to the sound of the lower tuned pans) • Hammer • Jigsaw • File

11. Tempering the Pan • Pan is heated/burned over a fire for 10-15 min • Pan is then cooled by either self-cooling (most common now), cold water or cold oil. • Anneal • Oxidation • Hardening

12. Tuning the Pan • Pitch and timbre adjusted indepedently • Tuner has to control the fundamental AND the upper partials while tuning • Coarse Tuning • Fine Tuning • Blending

13. Tuning the Pan (cont.) • Soften metal, tuning of fundamental, octave tuning • Tuning done in circular manner, going around pan several times • Use hammer (inner) and bending iron (middle) to soften and wedge (outer) to raise the note • Surface of note usually hammered 5-6 times • Regions for raising fundamental around outside, for lowering on the inside. • Adjust the octave of the lower note to match the fundamental of the high note

14. Hanging/Fine Tuning • Pan hung at 15-20 degrees for playing • Holes on each side of skirt 5 cm apart • Now enabled to hear pitch and timbre effectively • Concentrating on fundamental, octave, and timbre • Same rules apply as coarse tuning

15. Finishing • Sound of pan affected by rusting; need to preserve pan • Common method: electroplate with layer or zinc or chromium, • Add thin layer of wax to protect the surface from moisture (which causes rusting) and to make it shiny

16. Blending • Pitch, Timbre and Loudness of various notes are adjusted after the finishing. • Mostly “blended” with other pans (i.e., in a band) to ensure all pans are balanced in these areas. • Also adjusted in octave pairs then matched to fundamentals

17. The Pan Family • The Pan Family: • Tenor/Lead • Double Tenor • Double Seconds • Double Guitars • Quadrophonic • Triple Guitar • Cello • Tenor Bass • Six Bass • Nine Bass