Your Opinion on Steel Drums

rastaron

Member
The kit, of course, is my true and only love and I will be playing until until I retire from this earth.

I have, however, been picking up a lot of different instruments ( djembe, cajon ), etc and have been really interested in picking up a set of steel drums.

In your opinion, for someone who has a pretty good knowledge of chords, keyboard layout and has played marimba in the past, how difficult is this instrument to learn and play?

I have been playing the kit over 20 years.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.
 
I got a pair of tenors as a thank you gift...some really nice ones! It's a whole new technique, and the note layout can be pretty confusing--I'm glad I had a chance to briefly study them in college, 'cause otherwise I might ruin the ones I have by over-playing them.

If you are pretty knowledgeable about music theory, the chromatic (single) lead pan would make GREAT sense to you, but I'm still confused by the whole two-pan thing, as each pan essentially has a whole-tone scale in it, and the note layout follows no theoretically logical order (I think it has more to do with how to get as many notes to fit as possible...). To be honest, I'm still confused by it, and have to review it extensively and manually figure out my parts on it, which can be grueling at times...but, I'm not a full-time steel pan player, so I haven't devoted all the time to it I need to in order to become proficient, so that's the case.

I'd go the way of a spider-web layout (single drum) if I had a choice in the matter. One drum (less to haul to gigs) and ALL of the notes in one drum makes sense.
 
Thank you sir.

This is the exact type of information I was looking for. I really appreciate it.

I have already begun my search for the tenor drum.

If you can offer any suggestions for purchase, I would greatly appreciate it.

Have you done any gigs playing yours?
 
I'm not super-knowledgeable about pans, but I found THIS website helpful:

http://www.mannettesteeldrums.com/

What I was talking about was a "spiderweb lead" drum--THAT is the one you should get. The cool thing about this website is that you can see the note layouts of the various drums. The kind I got is the "double second", and as you can see by the note layout, it's pretty confusing to try to play any kind of scalar line on them.

I haven't ever "gigged" with them live, per se, but I've played them for recording sessions several times, mostly as a "texture/timbre" or a riff instrument. If I had to whip out a pan solo, I'd be dead. Luckily, while the engineers are trying to figure out just how the heck to mic up these things, I have time to figure out and practice the music I'm handed--talk about being under the gun! :D

Good luck, and let us know what you decide to do...
 
Back
Top