Carnival!

The Carnival on Trinidad is the perfect example of a combination of two very different cultures that has been highly successful. In essence, it is a European masquerade combined with drumming and calypso music, and then taken up several notches.

Carnival is a huge event in the Caribbean. It takes place on Trinidad some time in late February or early March, just before Lent. There are three main components, without which it would not be Carnival, calypso, steelpan and playing mas (masquerade). Carnival is a five daylong celebration where most of the activities are centered on music, often steelpan. It starts on the Friday before Lent and runs until Tuesday so that people will be ready to settle down for Ash Wednesday and Lent. I believe this celebration happens because in Europe in the Renaissance the Catholics were getting the sin out of their system before they would became strict about what they did and what they ate for Lent. This is the same reason we have Mardi Gras in New Orleans every year. The French and other Europeans brought over their pre-Lent celebrations when they colonized the Americas. The African slaves they brought with them also readily adopted these celebrations as a chance to have fun and not be constantly scrutinized by their owners. The Africans, who often used them for celebration, were the one to incorporate drums into Carnival.

Although it is not the reality, the main theme of Carnival is unity, which is achieved through participating in bands and dressing up in costumes and other such things, and escaping reality for a bit. Carnival is a time to be crazy, wear costumes you would never think of wearing any other time, and dance and act like you are crazy. The ideal of unity comes from the country as a whole. T&T's motto is “Together we aspire, together we achieve”. The five-day celebration of Carnival is a time to give up stereotypes and just enjoy life and the people around you. Carnival is somewhat paradoxical though because it is also about intense competition. The people that win those competitions are even rewarded with the possibility to travel the world showing off their talent.

Carnival and steel pan competitions are also about showmanship and branding oneself. They function much the same way sports and music work together in this country. We associate certain songs with certain types of sports and also certain types of people. In Carnival, the best bands gain status and power within their community and sometimes even the world. For many people in the Caribbean, Carnival is about a lot more than just letting go of inhibitions.

Music is central to Carnival because it provides both the background and the stage. It is both the beat behind the festivities and the center of attention throughout. The people of Trinidad and Tobago make Carnival a fun and crazy experience for anyone brave enough to go, and it is the model for many Carnivals all over the world.

Citation:

Trinidad Carnival." Carnaval.com Entry Page.

http://www.carnaval.com/cityguides/trinidad/trincarn.htm

(accessed March 31, 2010)

Images:

http://www.definitivecaribbean.com/Images/smoothgallery/Trinidad/Pan-Player.jpg

http://rf-photography.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/carnival-3_lo.jpg

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0702/trinidad_postcard0222.jpg

The Band

Steel pan bands did not start at one particular time, as I had thought they might, but seem to have evolved over the years. The first bands on Trinidad played regular skin drums during Carnival, but in the late 1800s those drums were banned. The players then used chunks of bamboo because they discovered that different lengths produced different sounds and pitches. Those became known as Tamboo Bamboo bands. When those were eventually banned, steel pan emerged, and because the slaves were more free by that time steel pan had a chance to thrive.

As the instrument evolved, so did the bands. At first they may have only incorporated a few metal drums into their bands, but soon they became solely steel pans. When people discovered that by using larger containers and longer sides you could get different pitches to the overall instrument, it opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. By 1949, over seventy-five steel bands were in existence and they founded the Steelbands Association of Trinidad and Tobago. Because the pans were cheap to make, most of those playing were from the lower classes. Steel pan music represented the plight of the poorer people, it was known as poor black man’s music. In the early to mid 1950s there were even competitions between the bands, held despite disapproval of the upper classes, who did not embrace the new music or instrument.

Even once the slaves were freed in the late 19th century, the inequality in Trinidad and Tobago continued. The division of both race and class helped foster the need in the lower classes for a symbol of their plight and a way to express themselves. This is what music does in many contexts because it is both a product and a shaper of culture. Hip-hop is a good example in the US. It is a symbol of black lower class and the problems they face. In many cases around the world, music is a way to expose the structural violence being permitted in even the most prosperous areas of the world.

However, a change occurred in the early ‘60s, because middle-class Whites and East Indians started picking up the steel pan craze. This changed things because it was now not just the poor black man’s music but music that was performed by and spoke to many different types of people. In 1963 the Panorama came into existence. It was a formal competition with obvious and desirable ends. Companies such as Coca Cola, Angostura and many others began to provide financial assistance and rewards to the winners. Steel pan was becoming a lucrative past time.

Now, the bands are very complex, with many different types of pans and even other percussion elements as well. They perform at Carnival and Panorama and many other events throughout the year. It is almost impossible to walk through Port of Spain without seeing at least one steel band or mas camp. This craze is an integral part of the history of the islands.

Citation:

Emerit, Ronald C. "Steelband (Trinidad)." Trinidad & Tobago (From the 20th Century

Onward), 2008. http://www.bestoftrinidad.com/steelband.html.

(accessed March 30, 2010)

Images:

http://www.fridayislandweddings.co.uk/images/wedding-steel-band.jpg

http://washingtonprintmakers.com/files/steel%20band.jpg

Ancestry and Connections

In reading some more about the history of how pan music came about, I found a more detailed description of why people started banging on the semi-random pieces of metal they found. When the Spanish and French came to Trinidad and Tobago to colonize, they brought with them slaves from Africa. This is not uncommon, in fact almost all of the Caribbean was a European colony at some point, but it helps explain the slave's desire for instruments like drums that remind them of their native culture.

When the Europeans brought the slaves over from Africa, they were taking them out of an environment where they felt safe and leaving them little or no remnants of their old life. This is an extreme example of disorientation, and the slaves most likely felt a lot of culture shock. Humans are creatures of habit, so when we are out of our comfort zone we tend to cling to pieces of our native culture. Because African tribes are famous for their drumming and drums are easy to make, this was what those slaves chose to pursue when they reached Trinidad. We see this same phenomenon in the slave music from the South in our country too. The African slaves were creating a little bit of African culture wherever they ended up. The steel pan drum was one of many drums to be created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Caribbean. Although the steel pan drum was highly imprecise at first, it served as a way to lay down a beat and connect people who came from similar cultures.

When African and Caribbean music started gaining popularity, bands began forming. They would consist of many different styles and pitches of pan, and many now include actual drums and drum sets to back up the pan players. These days the pan bands are a large part of the culture of the islands. There are competitions held each year and the bands are a central element of Carnival every year. Steel pan drums are a connection to the African culture of most of the islanders and a point of pride for all who participate in pan bands. The drums are also a part of the newer Caribbean culture that formed as the relations between the different racial groups on Trinidad changed, because people construct the cultures they live in. As the important anthropologist Geertz says, man is an animal suspended in a web of significance that he himself has spun. The steel pan drum and music of Trinidad and Tobago are integral parts of that web of significance for all those who have lived or are living on the islands.

Citation:

Remy, Jeannine. "Steel Drums History." Idaho State University.

http://www.isu.edu/stdorg/special/csdb/history.html (accessed March 29, 2010)

Image:

http://img.allposters.com/6/LRG/17/1731/6X23D00Z.jpg

Beginnings

In preparation for a trip to the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago this past summer, my family picked up a copy of The Lonely Planet. One of the things the guide emphasized as a claim to fame for the island nation of T&T, as it is often called, is that the only acoustic instrument invented in the twentieth century was invented on Trinidad. The instrument is called the steel pan drum, often simply pan, and it was originally made out of any old, round, metal containers.Islanders would take whatever containers they could find and cut off one end so that they had the flat end and the sides intact. They then would take a hammer and make the end into a shallow bowl. To get multiple pitches they would even take sections marked by hammer grooves and hammer from the bottom until they got the desired pitch. The length of the sides decides the overall pitch of each particular pan. Making pans was a simple and cheap. Now there are professional companies that manufacture the drums but they still make them in much the same fashion.

The pan has a very distinctive sound and when I first heard it on a street in Port of Spain, Trinidad, I was surprised that it was such a simple instrument. The man playing it was doing a gorgeous rendition of Amazing Grace. Pan has a sound all its own that is associated strongly with the Caribbean. It seems to me that pan is more than just a piece of metal that can make some nice sounds. It is a way for people who do not have a lot of material things to participate in a cultural movement. Hopefully, I will be exploring this in depth in later posts.

If you would like to listen to an example of steel pan music I have a link to a video from Youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=tNx0s7QtKEw&feature=related

Citation:

Schmidt-Jones, Catherine, and Russell Jones. "Steel Pan Drums." Connexions- Sharing

Knowledge and Building Communities, 2009. http://cnx.org/content/m12397/1.4/.

(accessed March 28, 2010).

Images:

http://www.ttcgnewyork.com/images/steelpan.jpg

https://www.musiciselementary.com/images/CSDS%20Steel%20Drum%20-%20RED.jpg