Re: Steel Drums
Sorry to thread-jack but I've got to correct everybody calling them "Jamaican": they actually originate from Trinidad & Tobago, although they have since been co-opted all over the Caribbean to varying degrees. But don't be fooled by the plinky novelty things that are sold to cruise ship tourists; in T&T they take steelpan very seriously and indeed there are over a hundred steel
orchestras in that country alone, each comprised of different voices roughly analogous to the string orchestra: from the single tenor pan with its 32 notes which can be equated to the violin, down to the bass pan which can be anywhere from 4 to 12 full-length barrels of 3 notes each. And then there is the rhythm section: drum set (sometimes two!), timbales, congas, cowbells, tambourines, scratchers (like a Dominican guira), and iron (brake drums), all beating out a dense polyrhythm.
In Trinidad as well as other places across the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora where Carnival is celebrated, there are competitions called "panorama" where steel orchestras up to 120 players perform intricate 8-to-10 minute arrangements of local popular songs (calypso, soca). It's vaguely similar to drum corps, to put it in more familiar terms.
To get an idea of what a 120-person competition steel orchestra sounds like, enjoy
this piece which was composed and arranged by a prodigy of the instrument and a fantastic jazz player in his own right, Len Boogsie Sharpe. Fun fact: the drum set player here is Richard Bailey, who drummed on Jeff Beck's "Blow by Blow" and "Wired"!
Anyway, sorry to get pedantic but I'm deeply involved in steelpan (imagine drumming and driving an orchestra of over a hundred of these!) so I love telling people what it's really about. And part of that is making sure folks know they aren't "
Jamaican steel drums". Trinidadians are very proud of the instrument... and with good reason!