Travel with JoY

Pan Finals and Carnival: Trini Style We were excited to have our daughter Ella and her husband Ken and our grandson Liam come for five days over Carnival. Carnival in Trinidad is Over the Top! Many of the citizens devote days and dollars in preparation. If they are in a Steel Pan Orchestra they are rehearsing nightly sometimes until as late as two or three am. If they are in a group (called a band) in the parade, they are either making their costumes, working to pay for their costumes (some of the more elaborate costumes run as much as $2000 USD),or possibly working out to get in shape (the parade route goes from early am until late pm, and is in scorching heat). Or it they are 'playing Jouvert' as Ken and Ella did, they are trying to get a little extra sleep for the parade that starts about 4am and goes until about 9am, marching the streets of downtown Port of Spain in a band whose members are slathered in either cocoa, paint, mud or possibly chocolate; following a ...

Jean and I attended the Pan Music Semi-Finals competition a week ago.  There were 14 Medium Bands of 80 players or less, and 15 Large Orchestras of 120 players or less.  The Large Orchestras have 210 pans of various sizes (tenor, double seconds, 7 bass, 9 bass, etc), cut from 55 gallon drums, and loaded on wheeled carts with covers.  In all, there were 5,000 pans played during the day.   In attendance, there were 8,000 people in the North Stands and 3,000 people in the Grand Stand.  We were among the two thousand wandering the "drag" to hear the bands rehearse before playing on the Main Stage, and heard most of the Large Orchestras.     The bass drums are heavy and require lots of help from community members, so Jean and I were "pan pushers" as we helped Phase 2 Pan Groove push a 7-drum-bass down the street for about half a mile.  At one point, we found ourselves positioned in line with the front row of lead pan melody players during ...

 PAN YARD MUSIC There are so many accomplished musicians on this island as it was the birthplace of “steel pan” music and claims to be the birthplace of Calypso, but other West Indies Islands may also lay a similar claim. The pan is a 55 gallon steel drum used for transporting oil or chemicals, and many years ago when this instrument was being developed, were readily available to local citizens (many of them poor) once discarded. They pounded out the steel tops to create notes, and surrounding themselves with many steel drums, developed songs/melodies by drumming on them. Over time, the tradition expanded to orchestras of 120 players, all playing different sized drums with unique mallets, under the direction of a leader and a section captain. They rehearse one song of 8 minutes in length each night for several hours for about a month, making changes and developing parts in the neighbourhood pan yard. Local citizens assemble to listen, and are free to walk around the...