I was just wondering how many Steel Pans players we have on here, after someone in one of the other threads mentioned them

So, some questions to start off with...

How long have you been playing and how did you get into it?

Which pans do you play?

What tunes have you done?

Do you own your own pan(s)?

Do you have lessons and/or play with any bands? What's your teacher like?

As for me, I've been playing since I was 10 I don't know how I got into them, but I suspect I wanted another instrument (because you couldn't take them home, the school decided they didn't interfere with practice and let you take them up as an addition). I auditioned and got in for group lessons, which were pretty alright. The only thing was that my group kept forgetting everything we learnt - we weren't taught with notation so you needed to remember it. I started off on tenor, then moved around doing a tune or two on the doubles and one on the bass, though I was generally settled on a single second. When I went to high school, I ended up as a bass player which is great It's six pans and really challenging with the movement. I don't have lessons any more, but since they're more of a small group ensemble just doing the steel band seems to work out well enough. I want to join the youth music organisation band in September too.

I've been taught by the same teacher all the way and he's brilliant. He's a friend as well, with a great sense of humour and he's also married to our music co-ordinator. As for repertoire, we've done loads of stuff - mostly my teacher's taste, but since his taste is pretty darn good I have no complaints! Right now, we're doing California Dreaming, Can't You See Me? (Roy Ayers) and I Want You Back (Michael Jackson/Jackson 5) I don't own my own pans - I'd love to, but I don't think we have a room of the house to give over to six pans!

Anyone else who plays or likes Steel Pans?

I like them - have never had the chance to play or even muck around on them though!

Likewise. Was considering getting one but have just bought a keyboard instead...

Are they quite easy to learn?

our school had one and I played in a group with them for a few years. I got to play all of them from soprano to bass. bass was fun if you had something interesting to play :-D

we played lots of things (some worked, some didn't!) including mama mia by abba, paganini's caprice, the theme tune from beverly hills cop, I can see clearly now...

didn't really have a proper teacher, you just had to learn to read the music if you couldn't already (or write the note names over the top) and learn yourself

Yeah, pans are quite easy to learn the basics on, I'd say. To get really good you need a lot of power in your arms and on the bigger sets you need a bit of common sense to make things easy for yourself, but as long as you have a fairly decent idea of rhythm (which most musicians obviously have) you should be OK

Iluvmacs, the Paganini sounds cool! We don't do much classical, though I've heard the youth music organisation band doing part of Troika and they're apparently getting the piano part to Rhapsody in Blue when our band does it

Just found this thread... for some reason it doesn't come up on the forum, only on search

Anyway, I've been playing since just before last Christmas when our school bought a set. We were allowed to use them in one music class and I loved them so much!!
I play tenor, mainly because they happened to be the beaters I picked up when I first played them. Also most of the other guys in my band don't want to the play tenor/think it's too difficult so I don't get much choise in it. Would love to have a go at the bass at some point though!!

Haven't done much repetoirs, the first thing we played was a tune called Daugters of Darkness and for the Spring concert (last night ) we played I got Life (the tune from the Muller Ad.)

Don't own my own pans, would love to but I've hardly been playing any time at all and haven't even considered it.

I don't have lessons, but I play with the year 9 & 10 band. They're a great bunch, only thing being I'm the only girl But our head of music arranges all the music and helps and teaches us, she's great

I've had one go on the pans. It was at a corporate event last year, and there was a band playing, and after a while we were encouraged to have a go ourselves. We played The Saints and I was on melody - it wasn't too difficult, partly because the pros explained things very well and partly because (1) as a percussionist I was used to hitting things to make a sound and (2) as a tuned percussionist/pianist I was used to hitting different things to get different pitches. But I'm sure that to reach expert level would be as hard as it is on any instrument.

I'm now playing tenor plans in a university group. It's good fun. The hardest part is learning where each note is as they are not set out in a logical way. Once you've mastered this for each piece it becomes very much a case of remembering the hand and arm movements, I think.

I want to play some!

Are your tenors set out in a circle of fifths pattern by any chance? I never realised this, but Nicki pointed it out to me last night and now all the tenors at our school make even more sense to me than before, woo!

Methinks they would be very neat for teaching music theory Of course, if your tenors are truly random this probably doesn't help.

Hehe, I never realised that observation was that important!

Have to agree. Ours are set in a circle of fifths with the octaves going in towards the middle. Makes sense, but it does take some getting used to, being so different from my other instruments. And I'm sure there's a joke somewhere about tenors being truely random...

Just thought I'd drag this thread up from the depths to ask some advice...

So our band's been playing about a year now, on and off and we've had a few changes but we're basically still the same people...

However, at the start of this term our music teacher, who had been arranging all our music for us and generally helping us left on maternity leave.

The new teacher is keen to keep the band running, but has absolutely no experience with steel pans. We've still been getting on quite well, but now we've pretty much played all the music the teacher left and are really getting a bit bored.

In a moment of madness, I said I'd have a go at arranging some new stuff for us to play. I've had a crack at doing Hot Hot Hot, which we'll hopefully try on Wednesday, but now I'm at a bit of a loss at what to do.

Basically, does anyone have any tips or advice on what or how I should arrange?

Wow - a large thread in the perc. section???




As for the steel drums - I never have!

I don't play any kind of percussion, but if you look at the type of music your last teacher left perhaps you can find more songs that are similar. Perhaps if you let us know what music you do have we could suggest some.

Have you looked on Youtube? Have you found any recordings of steel band music? Do any steel bands have websites with repetoire lists? Don't forget the other people in your group may have suggestions as well.

Val

Sunday Morning by Maroon 5 would be good! It's one of those songs that just feels right for pans.

We have a steel pan band at school (which I was always too old to be in) and it's called Pantastic. They mostly play under the sea so loud it can be heard from literally all around school.

We've just started a pan group in Sixth form. But we got told off for taking them outside as they were too loud! We can manage a passable version of 'Oh when the saints' and thats about it

Just one recommendation for choice of piece: do at least one slow one, partly because it reduces the amount of effort you have to put in to each minute of music, but also because pans have a beautiful sostenuto pianissimo. Of course, your players have to be able to do it too, but if they can't it will be very good for them to learn.

I suspect the aphorism, "A good score should have a lot of holes in it" would apply to scoring for pans. What this means is that if you have a piece that extends more than very few minutes, you should include passages in which some of the parts are tacet, so as to give the audience a change of texture.

I played (bass) pans at Wavendon Allmusic many years ago, in the "Learn a new instrument in a week" part of the course. We performed two (or it might have been three) pieces from memory (scary!) at the end-of-week concert. I can't remember how much rehearsal time we had but it was not more than 12 hours total.

Our pan band seems to be very laid back! We don't have scores as such, its very improvisatory beyond the melody of the piece! Somehow someone managed to transform 'Oh when the Saints' to some pop tune that I have no idea what it was... So we have some variation in our piece