History of Steel Pan

The steel pan evolved out of earlier musical practices of Trinidad's African descendants. Drumming was used as a form of communication among the enslaved Africans and was subsequently outlawed by the British colonial government in 1883.


Roaring Lion tells how steel band started in Trinidad.

While many instruments have experienced some degree of evolution in recent years, the steel pan has the distinction of being the only instrument to be truly 'invented' in the 20th century.

The first instruments developed in the evolution of steel pan were Tamboo-Bamboos, tunable sticks made of bamboo wood. These were hit onto the ground with other sticks in order to produce sound. Tamboo-Bamboo bands also included percussion using biscuit tins, oil drums, and bottle and spoon.

By the mid-1930s bits of metal percussion was being used in the Tamboo Bamboo bands, the first probably being either the automobile brake hub 'iron' or the biscuit drum 'boom'. The former replaced the bottle-and-spoon, and then later the 'bass' bamboo that was pounded on the ground.

By the late 1930s the occasional all-steel bands were seen at Carnival and by 1940 it had become the preferred Carnival accompaniment of young underprivileged men. The 55-gallon oil drum was used to make lead steel pans from around 1947. The Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), formed to attend the Festival of Britain in 1951, was the first steel band whose instruments were all recycled from oil drums.

Early Pan Makers