Ohio, USA - From the outside, Panyard Inc. looks like a bland building in the middle of an Akron working class neighborhood on California Avenue.
But if you step inside, close your eyes and listen, you can easily imagine sitting on a Caribbean beach with a mai tai at your side.
Panyard is recognized as the world leader in manufacturing steel drums. The company, now in its 21styear, carefully crafts instruments that make that "put a smile on your face" reggae sound.
....Panyard is just starting to turn a nice profit. A big reason for that: kids and schools clamoring for a beginner steel drum called The Jumbie Jam.
"The Jumbies, we're putting out close to 3,000 or 4,000 a year, and that's growing rapidly," Kerns said.
read more / see video
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A new product targeted to children, to run at a loss leader price of $250.00US to inculcate the culture of an instrument at a young age, that will necessitate possible future revenue up to or more than $5000.00US or more..per person......increase production volume. Do the math. It is simply a brillant idea.................INNOVATION.
New product development with a growth strategy to bring about great brand awareness,offering a quality product developed by a world market leader, retailing between $5000US.
It is nice to see that someone is featuring our national instrument in a fantastic way. I look forward to our local counterpart and world market competitor PanLand Inc. featuring in same fora in our local and international markets.
I look forward to the completion of the necessary infrastructure at our soon to be built at our headquarters for Pan. I hope that the monitor of the News Desk of Pan Trinbago, Pan Trinbago Officers, PanVesco board and all other key stakeholders , on this forum, take the time, to critically assess, the portion of the market share that needs to be embraced. From his article and video....the market intelligence shows that.
I am quite sure as well that given entities, such as Panyard Inc.(USA) & Panland Inc.(T&T), et al. (other panmakers & tuners), are unlikely to yield their share to a new entrant, making a substantial impact, because it is manufactured in the instrument's land of birth.
I dare say their seems to be enough food for all. Your comments, your views,..please..Have a good night.
classic thread.
those who having heart attacks and to mr glenroy , buggs and others get your heart medicine ready and those with high blood pressure eat some kariley, the Pan tuning course was a disaster first the teachers were having difficulty to get money, we had to stage a sit in on their behalf the secrets been out and get this the tuners can be bought, some tuners pass the knowledge hopimg that the students will not learn, but once you learn how to build a pan properly tuning is just an extended aquired skill that comes along with practice. How hard to strike the note, what manner to deploy in hitting it what to look for etc is based on understanding and research of trouble shooting, Today one can either tune or not, the guess work is getting less and less, it is all about focus, and intelluctal understanding
as far as selling out a European guy visited us on the course and paid one of the teachers a saun of money and he took him aside and taught him, Mr Harrigan was hired as a teacher and came to class one morning pretuned a note place the hammer down and made a remark about the class and left never to return, the swedish guy bought the information that he wrote in his book the hanbook for tuning, whilst tuners hide their skills from Trinis they freely pass on knowledge to others, we had an establishment called Pan Proffessionals we taught people to play and build pans, whilst we our selves were learning to tune from people like Lincoln Noel and others, myself, Gabriel Robley, Desmond Marcelle, George Yeates and Keith St louis ran it, in 1994 on my return to Trinidad me and Keith had a dispute I left there was a fella named Steve Lawrie from south Africa there as a student, Jimi Phillip a pan tuner pan scientist was there also I was working with Jimi he built pans from sheet metals and had an arsnell of pan inventions and innovations, Steve was hired as head tuner in panyard and after that they came out with the so called solid hoop , put two and two together, oh yea if you talk to ron and he like something you say he will deploy it in his strategies I was telling him that I saw a $40,000 US piano in florida and next thing it is in his panyard rhetoric, rhetoric is everything in the world please do not kill me but I believe that a pan is worth $5,000 US however it is the poor man's piano and effort should be made to keep it affordable for the poor man I hope the G-pan folks will fine tune their production and get it to affordable rates, hand crafted instrument can then be the high end product
The haste to boof up people and make remarks is giving people like Ron a chance to forge ahead whilst the real dedicated pan tuners suffer not because of the existence of Ron Kerns and others but because of the disrespect by the same trini people who are quick to condenm ,not pay,bad mouth, treat tuners like dogs,some tuners still pay small money to the people who build pans for them, if we were treating Ellie and Roland the way we needed to they would not be "selling out" as some people imply, the judges do their work in panorama (most of them that is) people call them names etc not all of them may be in favour of the results but they all get the blame, to be continued
Eustace, in a WST interview with Ray Holman he speaks about experiments conducted by the TnT government to make pan from a press of which he was a part of. He also said the presses mysteriously disappeared. Do you know anything about this? And if you do, was this press simular to the one that was patented by the two professors in Delaware? http://www.panonthenet.com/spotlight/rayholman/index.htm
bugs
Here's how they make their pans.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8858009907305151004#
Forgive me for being sceptical, but I prefer my pans made the traditional way, from an oil drum. Same as if I was buying a good violin, I wouldn't get a mass produced plywood box, but a hand made creation.Glenroy I will get back with you shortly there are things you and the rest of the pan world need to know, Buggs I ent forget how u boof me up the other day, I deserved it even though you were too harsh, don't worry I do not have a tambrand whip for you but will get back to you soon so stay in touch
Oh gorm "Bugs" I will have to beat myself I now realise this thread is posted by Pan Times Oh gawd I thought we had lost the "never see come see" trophy, it sounded so much like Ron and after reading the original article I am more educated I am not withdrawing my comments though, Bugs when you done beat me lend me the tambran whip ah have licks to share
wow, i didn't know some of these details. guess my thinking was on the right track more than i even realized.
however - regardless of these behind-a-doors details ..... just on general principle i would never buy a pan from Panyard Inc. And yes i've seen their pans, and played them, and they are decent, they're pretty, and have a nice sound & tone. etc. So i personally can't 'completely' discredit them as regards the quality of the actual instruments they can produce - yes they're nice, but they're not THAT incredible.
And I take serious issue with anyone trying to impose their own business model on others, for the purpose of fixing prices and driving up ALL prices to an obscenely high level. I will never ever buy a mass-produced, overpriced instrument. The pans i have now, and any next ones I buy, will be Trini-made, the traditional way. My intention is to support the traditional makers & tuners who make their living from their love of the craft, the music, the instrument, and the culture -- i have NO intention of fattening the pockets of mass-production "businessmen" - even if they ARE 'musical' businessmen. Corporations have brought about the ruin of many small businesses, and destroyed the lives and livliehood of many artisans and craftspeople - I flat out refuse to be a part of that happening to Trini panmakers & tuners. So they're the ones who will get my money, and I will in return get what IMHO are superior - and totally unique - instruments.
just my personal feelings.....
You're speaking the truth Catt.
bugs
Glenroy nuff respect to you and buggs and others, I was in the process and I have seen it from the inside and the outside, correction peeps, myself, Gabriel "Doyle" Robley and others were on the first comprehensive pan tuning course held in Trinidad in1992, the only reason the had such a course was because the Nigerian Government made an arrangement with the Trinidad and Tobago government to teach four of its soilders how to make pan, get this we were schooled in pan history, metalurgy, and pan building as requested by the Nigerian team (who had no clue what it was about but asked for such instructions) we were included only because certain Pan Trinbago officials stepped in and insisted that Trinidadians be given the same opportunity.
We were lectured to by Mr Oscar Pile on history in the first two weeks and then we ere turned over to Mr Richard Mc David of CARRIRI who introduced us to Dr Wharton and others at UWI and CARRIRI, there we had the illustrious oppurtunity to see all the past and presebt at the time research that was going on, Mr Mc David gave us a copy of the metal analysis that they had conducted after years and years of research and lectured to us on the process of their analysis he also gave us tours on the various experiments past and at that time present, some done in Sweeden some at UWI, I recieved a copy of the news letter called "pan lime" that had a copy of the analysis that we were given in it several years later panyard was using the same paper claiming it to be the result of analysis they conducted, I understand that they were in attendance at a conference held by some proffesors in either Chicago or akron itself, Mr Mc David was at one of them, I understand.
After the departure of Roland they were buying and selling over pans from Trinidad, they employed one of Roland's apprentices as a head tuner who at the time was a rookie himself; Glenroy I am afraid the secret has been out long time and you will be shocked to know the attitude of some Trini tuners I am sure that Roland did not try to educate any body but we now know that the key in pan tuning lies not in the tuning it self but the building another story itself, read my next thread because this is a complex issue and I do not want you to loose the thread, out of frustration access to info was shared prematurely, now we have the G-pan which may have connections to the past and panyard hijacking an idea that was started By Tony Williams before Ron Kerns was even born being marketed as some new science, Bertie Marshall was the first to discover that increasing the distance between notes will result in a greater clarity when he double groved the double tenors (mind you the grooves are not the note but the border around the notes for visual effects) the notes no matter the shape of the border had been shaped oval since the late 1960's even the outside ones some tuners did not use it on the outsude notes though Freddie Harris II made many pans with the outside notes having oval shaped borders lying in the horizontal position in the same manner that panyard is claiming to be the first to do such before the first copy of pan lime was circulated, keep on lying Ron people love liars anyway
Did you say that the course was set up by the Trinidad government to teach Nigerians, and Trinidadians were only included as an afterthought?
I find that very disturbing.
This just fuels my thinking the the Trinidad Government were extremely derelict in their duty to promote and protect the culture on behalf of the ones who created it.
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