JoY in Joyland
P hase II Pan Groove Steel Orchestra, one of the leading steel pan orchestras of Trinidad was practicing, preparing for the first phase of competition which culminated in the national Steel Pan Championship, Panorama, in the Queen's Park Savannah in the capital city, Port of Spain. Pan orchestras are one of two reasons to put Trinidad on a life’s bucket list -- the extravagant bird population being the other reason. The Steel Pan drum was created in Trinidad, originally from the 50 gallon oil barrels, cut, welded and tuned to create individual notes. They evolved into a full range of ‘instruments’ including smaller tenor drums with higher pitched multiple notes, double tenors, guitars, cellos and more — all steel head drums. Each large steel pan group consists of up to 125 players using anywhere from two to nine drums at a time. Each drummer's instrument is on a metal rack with the larger multiple drums on wheeled carts. In the pan yards, every night through Jan and most