Steelpan

Steelpans (also known as steel drums or pans, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steel band or orchestra) is a musical instrument originating from Trinidad and Tobago. Steel pan musicians are called pannists.

Description

The modern pan is a chromatically pitched percussion instrument made from 55 gallon industrial drums which formerly contained chemicals.

Drum refers to the steel drum containers from which the pans are made; the steeldrum is more correctly called a steel pan or pan as it falls into the idiophone family of instruments, and so is not a drum (which is a membranophone.)

The pan is struck using a pair of straight sticks tipped with rubber; the size and type of rubber tip varies according to the class of pan being played. Some musicians use four pansticks, holding two in each hand. This skill and performance has been conclusively shown to have grown out of Trinidad and Tobago's early 20th-century Carnival percussion groups known as Tamboo bamboo. The pan is the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. Since Pythagoras calculated the formula for the musical cycle of fourths and fifths, steel pans are the only instruments made to follow play in this range.