One Love

Monday was a holiday in Grenada (Whit Monday) which meant that everything was closed down and there was nothing to do. So, most of the day was spent relaxing which was a nice break. But, yesterday was the first day of our steel pan lessons! If you don’t know what a steel pan is, think of the theme song of The Little Mermaid. It is the instrument that sounds very “Caribbean” in the background of many songs. I had never really picked up on the sound of that instrument until I heard it for the first time, but you can’t help but associate it with Caribbean islands.

We traveled as a group to downtown St. Georges at 10am and arrived at the steel pan yard to receive lessons from David Edwards. Right away he started to explain some of the basics of steel pans to us. One of the first things that we learned was that steel pans require knowledge of music so we would be learning how to read music and translate it to songs on the drum. From that I realized that it would be a little different than when we learned the hand drums from the Tivoli drummers, because with those we started playing right away. With the Tivoli drummers it was more about feeling the rhythm inside of you and playing what you feel, but with the steel pans we would need to learn notes and proper form. Mr. Edwards taught us how to “play” the drums instead of “beating” the drums, as he put it. It wasn’t about how loud we could bang the mallets against the steel but rather about playing it correctly with our wrists as our guides. We had to do wrist exercises to help warm up and strengthen our wrists before we began. Then we practiced holding the sticks and “rolling” different notes or “picking” them (two different techniques that required either strumming the note with both hands back and forth or just playing the note once with one hand).

Mr. Edwards also explained each of the different types of steel pan drums. Each drum was made in a very delicate way which involved softening the metal and molding it in a way that made each note sound perfect. Then a conch shell was used to separate each of the notes in the pans so that they didn’t run together. There were in total six different types of steel pan drums that we would have to choose from. From the ones I remember, there was the single tenor which played the main melody of the song. It was the highest and most distinct drum that was meant to be the loudest. It consisted of only one drum (the smallest of all of them) with tiny sticks to play the small notes. Then there was the double tenor which completed the harmony with the single tenor. It used two drums and was a little lower in pitch than the single tenor and was a little bigger. There was also the guitar drum, also using two drums, which played chords like you would imagine a regular guitar would play in a band. The last I can fully remember is the bass drum which obviously played the low background bass in the group. The bass was the most difficult and the drummer had to have long arms because it consisted of six different large standing drums. The mallets had large rubber balls at the end of them that played soft, low notes. The bass required a lot of coordination, so clearly that was not the one I was going to choose.

I decided to try the double tenor since the single tenor already had six people on it. It was only Asia and I on the double tenor, and I was ready for the challenge of two drums. It proved to be very difficult too! Our first lesson was to learn how to play the C scale with all natural notes (i.e., no flat or sharp notes). It was so much harder trying to go from one pan to the next quickly while also learning how to tap my foot. A lot of us were struggling to multi-task between the two, but eventually by the end we could play the scale at a really fast tempo. I felt very accomplished by the end of the two hour session when I could play quickly without even looking. At one point he had us close our eyes and play without looking, and I was able to pass the test.

Something that I noticed while playing was that the Grenadian people are not shy to stop by and walk right into the steel pan practice room to blatantly stare at us. I saw a lot of confused faces by people who would peer inside and just take pictures of us. And of course I was the first person next to the door, so now I am in a lot of pictures playing my drum. So, although we are not looked at as completely alien people like we were in Grenville, it must still be a completely strange site to see American students learning how to play the steel pans.

After the session yesterday, a few people from the group and I decided to do some shopping. While we thought that the shopping would be really cheap on the island, like everything else has been, we were completely wrong. We couldn’t find shirts or dresses for less than 95 EC (or $40 American), and everyone was trying to rip us off because they saw us as tourists. We were right in the area where most of the cruise ships dock when they come to Grenada, so we were just lumped together with all of the other Americans that come to the island for vacation. It was a little disappointing for awhile until we found the local market and a really nice souvenir shop. One man came up to Maggie, Drew, and I and was trying to sell us necklaces and other jewelry. He showed us this necklace that he was known for which had lots of spices and herbs on it. It basically smelled like Christmas. His whole pitch was just ridiculous, because it was one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, but he was trying to make it sound like I would want to wear it around. He said if I bought it from him and wore it I would be known as the Spice Girl. The guy was just trying so hard to sell it to me that eventually I caved in and just bought it because it was just so ridiculous. So, now I have a necklace with spices that I will never wear, but at least it smells good.

Today was our second trip to the steel pan yard. When we got inside, we all went right to our instruments from the first day and started re-learning the C-scale. After a bit we could play it very fast and well enough to move onto our next lesson. Mr. Edwards then taught us the whole C-scale including the flat and sharp notes in between, which added an extra challenge to an already difficult task. I had to remember which notes were on which pans and remember exactly which order they went in. He had us practice it so many times that I feel like I can play it in my sleep. More people came in to watch off the streets and it was a very similar experience that we had yesterday but just a bit harder with the extra notes. Below is a video of me attempting to play the full scale.

At the very end of the session, Mr. Edwards surprised us by asking what song we wanted to learn how to play. We all came to the consensus that we wanted to learn how to play “One Love” by Bob Marley. He went around to each drum teaching them different parts of the song. Each drum wouldn’t be playing the same notes. We were taught different things that all together would sound like the song. Once Asia and I started learning our parts I realized why it was so important to learn the scales and know where all the notes were, because it made for a faster learning curve and increased understanding of what was going on. Once we finally got to play as a group, it sounded so great! We did so well and Mr. Edwards even jumped on the real drum set and started jamming out to the song. It was a great learning experience and I really look forward to the next few days as we attempt harder compositions.

After the lesson, Kassie and I went to another library (The University of the West Indes' Open Campus Library) and attempted to research more information on our topic. With no success, we have come to the realization that there really are little to no written records of drumming culture in Grenada. It is exciting to think that we will be one of the first ever groups to record information that we find out about the drums as an instrument that influences culture. It just goes to show how important our work actually is and puts some value on the project we are doing. We have already encountered people who are thankful that we have come to their island to finally document and record their cultural history.