OMG Pan!

Everyone who understands the value of pan to T&T would know how much of a hard sell can be the idea of its unmatched role as a musical instrument, as a model for social organisation, and as a platform for realisation of latent economic value.

On point number one, though, people are fully entitled not to like pan and the music played on it. I get “oh geed” in the eyes of some people I know whenever I talk about a “sweet” arrangement or how pore-raising has been one performance or the other.

Last Saturday, for example, I confessed to having held back tears during the Small Bands Semi-Finals when one particular band played an old Sparrow. I saw similar sentiments on the WACK feed and recalled one COVID lockdown evening of 2021, when a solitary online performance inspired the question from one virtual onlooker: “Am I supposed to be crying?”

Music appreciation is very heavily a matter of personal preference – instruments, treatment, and genres. For example, I have seen bagpipes perform as accompaniment for rap, but must say while I listen to such music, bagpipes do nothing for me.

Last Friday, I wowed over the abilities of a random assemblage of musicians at a jam at the Ethnic Jazz Club. Jazz does it for me.

I also frequently argue with my musician son about the vast superiority of Tupac over anything produced by any modern exponent of rap. He was brought up on Rachmaninov, Curtis Mayfield, Fela, Kitch, Tupac, and Barry White.

So, yes, pan’s value as a musical instrument playing a vast variety of genres can be the subject of emotional interpretation; though we also need to consider matters related to its unique origins and its suitability in conveying indigenous aesthetics.

Even so, I am completely against legislated taste and do not agree with some of the mandatory requirements of music airplay and education being proposed – “national instrument” or not. This amounts to a measure of jingoistic coercion that is never helpful.

As a counterpoint to such a situation, there have been other nonsenses, including reference to at least one other instrument. But not today. Not I.

On point two, it is much more difficult to dispute steelband organisation – the role of the panyard in particular - as being among the more important instruments to address much needed social transformation.

The “oh geed” types who will not be found semi-conscious around a panyard won’t know what I am talking about, neither would those who link pan and panyards with a notion of collective ethnic failure.

The panyard is a unique and special place. Real steelbands employ such spaces for the inculcation of values associated with discipline, production, and tolerance.

Then comes the part I have written about repeatedly – the significantly untapped economic value of pan and all its various elements. The list of opportunities is long – from steelpan manufacturing, to tuning, to arranging, to audio engineering, to design, to playing. There is a growing number of people, groups, and bands who have recognised this and now play active, income-generating roles in other countries.

We have long passed the stage where we focused on ill-advised protectionism even as we allowed intellectual property value, in earlier manifestations, to elude us. The world already knows the correct size of the rubber! They also know that, in T&T, we have the best players on the best pans, playing the best music (of both the past and present) by the best arrangers in the world.

On some such matters, I am not overly troubled. Young people are indeed “into” pan and can carry the torch. Perhaps not at ticket counters or jersey sales, because there is more to “participation” than that. There isn’t a single musical instrument competently played and appreciated (beyond classroom requirements) more than the pan. The impact of this exceeds the esoteric value of music.

It has been this way for a very long time. Young people do not routinely transfer to seats in the stands after they have learned to perform, but many do. This was already the case 40 years ago. Some also move to different instruments and other genres – the marvels of music already infused through pan.

The so-called seasonal nature of pan has also long been addressed. Pan people know the bands that play meaningful socio-cultural roles outside of Panorama competitions.

Sceptical? Check out ongoing Junior Panorama preliminaries, Small, Medium and bands. Visit a panyard. Tune into the online platforms. “Oh geed” can become a precious OMG moment. I dare you.