Beating The Steel Pan

Thursday we woke up for another steel pan lesson in the pan yard. I was all ready to play and excited to learn the rest of the song, “One Love.” However, my mood quickly changed once we actually started learning some more. While I had already mastered the very basic intro part, we had yet to learn the main verse which was a lot harder. Our teacher had to go around to each instrument and show them specific notes to play. He got to the tenors last and by that time we were already rushing. So, he tried to speed teach us our part which was so much more complicated than any of the other instruments. I was having a really difficult time since I’ve never really played an instrument and I wasn’t picking it up very quickly, but luckily I wasn’t the only one. We were all struggling a bit that day and our session went very long as he tried to get us all to play in harmony (which never actually happened). Also I’m conveniently next to the door when I play so people often come in and like to harass me and ask me questions while playing (which doesn’t help with my lack of understanding). Overall, it was a very frustrating day trying to learn the rest of the song. I left feeling a little defeated and just hoped that the next day it would be a little easier and less stressful for me.

My research group was all set up to interview our pan instructor after our Thursday session, but we ran out of time and he seemed a little flustered by our lack of performance that we had to reschedule. We did, however, stumble upon another interview last minute with a principal of a local elementary school. We weren’t sure at first how it would relate to our topic, but once we got there it was very obvious. Ronda (our student helper from SGU)  helped us get to the school in St. Georges, and it was unlike any other school that I’ve ever been inside. We walked in and the kids were running around everywhere in the middle of the day. Usually all school children in Grenada wear school uniforms, but today was a special fair day so they had a half day and could dress down. There were no individual classrooms. Instead, the school was comprised of a large, open room with large chalk boards on wheels to separate desks. I can’t imagine what it would be like to see different lessons going on at the same time with everyone all in the same room, but I guess they were really working with what they had available.

After spending some time in the classrooms, we finally met Mr. Degale who was the principal of the elementary school as well as the creative director for the Tumda Drummers in Grenada. He spoke about Grenada and the drumming culture here. He was so passionate and a really great guy to interview, so easy to talk to. One thing that was really interesting was when he spoke about drumming and spirituality. He talked about how he often will get in a trance with his music and won’t be able to stop playing until he comes out of the trance. The drum captivates his body. He also spoke about how he is trying to teach all children on the island how to play drums. He believed that Grenada will soon be the drumming capital of the Caribbean, which is so interesting to think about since I had never heard of Grenada before this trip. We left in good spirits with an invitation to come back and watch his children perform sometime soon.

The rest of the night was spent at a restaurant on the beach. We felt like being tourists for awhile and getting some American food while enjoying the nice weather at night. Just a quiet night afterwards.

Friday was our second to last steel pan session. Before we left we had our last group reflection where I expressed some of my frustration  with Thursday’s speed session. I was actually dreading going to the steel pan yard again because I had gotten so lost on Wednesday trying to keep up with the lesson. I also expressed my confusion with the people here in St. George’s. While it was really easy just to greet everyone on the streets of Grenville, St. George’s has proven to be a little more difficult. People here are ruder and don’t expect you to always greet them. I’ve gotten some pretty strange looks for trying to be friendly here. I’m not sure if it’s the tourists who look like me who come here that give people that look like us a bad reputation or what. It’s so much different than the Grenville experience. It’s also hard to tell people’s intensions when they start to talk with you. In Grenville it was mostly genuine but here it seems that a lot of time they have a motive or intention, kind of similar to Boston. But, there are still people that we encounter that are nice and friendly and proud of their country.

Even though I was very apprehensive about going to the steel pan lessons yesterday, it turned out to be a really good day. I had remembered more from the day before than I would have imagined and he took the time to re-teach us everything slowly. We really started to get the timing and the notes down and it all came together to start to sound like an actual song. After our session while we were still all in a good mood, our group actually set up an interview with our instructor, Mr. Edwards to learn more about the steel pan drum. We have done a lot of interviews revolving around skin drums, but have not really heard much about the steel pan drum and how it fits into the culture. He was really excited to talk to us and tell us about his experience working for the Ministry of Culture and starting his school to teach the drums. He talked the differences between the skin drums and the steel pan, specially mentioning how the steel pans were uniquely Caribbean. He mentioned how the skin drums are a direct reflection of African drumming which came with slavery, but steel drums were created in the Caribbean. At a point in history when skin drums were banned and instruments like tamboo bamboo came out, steel pans also started to take shape. But, steel pans have always had a very negative association, because the people who used to play them were drop outs and ex-prisoners. But, Mr. Edwards said that today steel pans are more a symbol of national pride and of Caribbean pride and that many school children are learning to appreciate the music. Culture, he says, is something that many people in Grenada take for granted, but it is something that he is trying to instill among the youth today so that they can finally appreciate it.

After our interview, we took a much needed break and went to the beach for a few hours of tanning bliss. We couldn’t stay too long though because we needed to get back in order to leave for the Gouyave fish fry! The fish fry was a mandatory event, and we had no idea what it was exactly, even Dr. B. We loaded into the van and drove an hour to the town of Gouyave, which is also where we were for the dance lessons not too long ago. Once we finally got there it was completely different than I expected (as usual). There were about ten different booths set up selling all sorts of fried fishes, bread fruit, bread, and juice. There was also music playing and there was a very upbeat and party-like atmosphere surrounding the event.

Jahjah showed us her family’s favorite booth, so I decided to try it. I got a plate of fried mahi mahi, fish cakes, and bread, which was all delicious and freshly made. And, of course, I paired it with some passion fruit juice which is pretty much the most addicting drink you will ever consume. It makes me sad that I only have a week left to drink it. Then we all just hung out and enjoyed the experience while eating our food. Ironically we watched a steel pan group play that might have been a little better than us. I found the little girl who was playing the double tenor, my instrument, who just looked so bored while playing. She didn’t even have to look at the pan that’s how good she was. It made me feel a little bad about my pathetic pan playing. They were really fun to watch though especially because we could all appreciate them a little more now that we knew what it takes to learn the instrument. It’s definitely not an easy instrument by any means.

After enjoying the experience for a few hours, we made our way home and a few of us ventured out to the beach to do some night swimming. It was gorgeous outside, as always, and we swam out and admired the view. Everything was all lit up. It was a crazy experience, knowing that we were swimming in the Caribbean Sea at night in the warm water looking out over the side of the island. The night would have been a perfect end to the day if it weren’t for the broken water pipe that I came home to afterwards. Water was spewing out everywhere and the entire room was flooded with an inch of water. So, the rest of my night was spent sweeping water out of my room and fixing pipes, but other than that it was a great day.

Today was our final steel pan lesson, which was actually very sad! I really started to look forward to the sessions, especially because we started to nail down “One Love.” You can see one of our final performances of the song below in a separate post with a YouTube video. We still sound a little rough, but it’s not bad for learning a new instrument in five days as well as learning how to read music and memorize the notes on the pan! I’m impressed with our final song. Then, once we thought that was the end, Mr. Edwards surprised us all by teaching us a second song in 15 minutes. He made the point that learning the first song would take a very long time, but learning a second song would be a lot easier. He was definitely correct, but it was still a little difficult to learn a completely new song when I had just nailed “One Love.” But, I don’t think we sound half bad considering the amount of time that was spent learning the notes. The second song we performed can be found in the post below “One Love.” I’m curious to see if someone can guess what it is just by our (slightly off-beat) performance. Comment with your guesses!!