About Steel Pans

The Steel Pan is the newest acoustic musical instrument in existence. Invented in the 1930s by Ellie Mannette (who, by the way, is still alive and residing in Morgantown,  West Virginia), it continues to evolve and find its way into more and more diverse styles of music.

This is the panyard where my petroleum based musical instrument comes from. It is located in Sanford, FL. It's called Tropical Hammer.

Tropical Hammer Steel Drum Crafters

You've probably noticed those blue things that look like oil drums. They are. But no oil was put in them yet. The instrument, (the part I bang on) is actually the BOTTOM of the drum. Here the drum is sunk, around 21 inches, using a flat head jackhammer. The room is padded and ear protection is used because it is loud as hell.

After the pan is sunk, it is cut off and then fired. (The fire tempers the steel, so that a G doesn' t turn into an Eb when you hit it hard.)  Then the notes are formed and fine tuning begins. After the tuning is completed, the pan is either sold as is, painted (with car enamel) or chromed. (Chroming costs a minimum of $250 per pan, since there aren't that many chrome factories in the world with vats large enough to dip a steel pan.) After the chroming, the pan has to be retuned. This is the genius who made my pans:

This is Tom Reynolds, who is doing a very light tuning, mostly to tap a few recalcitrant notes back in line.

Here is where Tom does a major tuning, when notes refuse to cooperate on the stand. It's loud, but fascinating.

Oh, and if the name Tom Reynolds sounds vaguely familiar, you are probably close to my age. Here is a picture of him and his band in the early Seventies. He's the one on the right. And the oriental writing was not on the original album.