The object, that I have chosen to represent as a piece of craft is the steel pan. Which was invented in my home country, the beautiful Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, during the times of World War II. Its roots are from Africa. The British colonial authorities banned African drumming, the people made music from bamboos, which they thumped on the ground and then they created "Tamboo Bamboo Bands".
Between the 1930's and 1945's, biscuit tin, hubcaps, and empty oil drums became a new sort of drum. With distinct notes hammered into the surface.
Legend has it that Spree Simon was the first person to create a "pan". He found a dent on his garbage can. He took a hammer and knocked out the dent and suddenly became aware that each blow with the hammer created a different sound. He continued to add dents of various shapes and sizes and before you know it, he may have created a scale. But unfortunately this garbage can was not suitable because the metal was to thin. The war came and went and the drums were left abandoned by the U.S. forces. Becoming the ideal material for creating the steel pan. There were a lot of them plus the fact that Trinidad produces oil meant that there was a continual supply of oil drums. .
Trinidadians began using discarded fifty-five gallon oil drums, which were hammered, concave, trimmed, and heated to make the material more durable to retain notes in tune, and then it was hammered from the underside to create convex notes on the concave surface. The first melody pan was introduced. The pan's crafting process was improved by sinking groves and tempering. Sticks dumped with rubber tubing were starting to be used. The steel pan was grouped into categories as iron, boom, dudup, and ping-pong.
According to, Ulf Kronman, "the drums that were used for the steel pan making are ordinary, new or used steel barrels. Panmakers usually prefer drums that have a rim with a flat side and square cross-section a so-called "flat flod".
