Since no one can answer the questions put by me I will move on to the electronic era and what it can do to prolong the existence of pan and pan players. I will start by stating electronics is not totally man made. Nothing is totally man made including the acoustic pan. Without steel in the earth, the manufacturers of oil drums couldn't make steel barrels. Even before that the steel had to be dug out of the earth and processed itself.The steel pan instrument use of the oil drum came in after many other attempts to making a pan. It remains the best use of the oil drum discarded. Although in some cases as explained elsewhere it can be very dangerous to the health as well. Sheet steel is used in the making of G-pans and conventional ones. Still sheet steel must first be processed by the manufacturers. So the acoustic steel pan is indeed an art and culture begun in T&T. Art and culture without proper industrialization does not contribute to the economics of any country in any significant way. It contributes something but in very small amount. Every country where art and culture was first developed by humans, took those developments and made an industry out of it. For e.g the US African descent citizens developed the art and culture of the Blues music. That was then industrialized by American Record companies contracting with artistes and producing commercial recordings and records. So to the Film companies captured parts of the history of America and produced films which give some indication (not all totally true to form) but gave information about the history which went before. So unless Art and Culture is properly industrialized it will not withstand time. Time and tide wait on no man or thing. The present Art and Culture of the steelpan band is coming to a limit where it is burdensome on the economy especially in T&T where government and private business are asked to support. So too other countries where the steelpan band had been exported are now picking up that heavy burden. T&T in the past has seen the glory days of steelbands on the roads of this country. However, like everything else time changes everything including steelbands. Time is the only representative of God here. It cannot be defeated in any way. Have you realized this? Time therefore destroys everything in many ways. It also creates everything new as well. Electronics is also an energy not created totally by man. There are sound waves in air. There are electric waves in air. There are energy waves in air. There are digital waves in air. there are electronic waves in air. This leads us to wireless electronic technology which is discovered. This leads us to electronic sound capture. When steelbands roamed the streets of carnivals these things were all there. They were all there at day one by God's arrangements. They were yet to be discovered. There are also much more various types of energy waves in the air still not discovered by man as yet. We are in the era of high technology and electronic advancements. When steelbands roamed the streets of T&T carnivals there was no Internet and high technology yet a few of our pan creators actually made attempts at amplifying their pans. That history is recorded. So the idea of making the steelpan instrument louder is not a new idea by anyone living today. It also formed part of the Art and Culture of the steelpan band. When steelpan musicians are asked to perform either singularly or together, their pans are assited with mics, so that they become louder and especially for large audiences from 1000 and over. Indoors this work fine. Outdoors there is always the case of air feedback, because air is never standstill. So it is part of the Art and Culture of steelbands to attempt to satisfy it audiences with louder music other than just the pans playing without and microphones. The use of microphones itself is an electronic invention. Now there are cordless microphones. So in many ways steelpan playing and its music was and is associated with electronics in various ways. Without steelband recordings we couldn't hear what was played some 50 years ago. Although the recordings were crude, they still used early electronics. Bertie Marshall himself invented many little early electronic equipment. Again for the use with steelpan sound. Nothing new to steelpan players and steelpans itself. If steelpans could have talked they would also agree with me here on Facebook. Anyway many intelligent steelpan men agree with me Only the foolish and ignorant steelpan men deny the fact of electronics with the steelpan. We are into advanced electronics and it isn't going to go away anytime soon. There can now be a combination of the electronic sound of pan which was electronically recorded in electronic sound studios across the globe, plus the electronic recording of both the acoustic pans played along with the electronic sound of pans, recording panorama sounds complete with music score on account of electronic MIDI and the electronic sound of pan. There can now be electronic sound boxes specially made for electronic pan sounds ranging from the first sounds of pan back in the 40s and of various pan tuners' sound and mixers like what the other conventional musicians use to produce their music. There can now be electronic equipment owned by steelbands and there can now be much more digital records made faster and cheaper due to the electronic technology now available to professional pannists and the more intelligent steelbandmen. This intelligent group is gradually being developed more and more. The best example in this regard is Len Boogsie Sharpe and Devonne Stewart. There are many others as well. It will only grow from here onwards. And I do not rest my case. My duty is to help turn the illiterate pan persons to a level of electronic literacy so that they take advantage of the electronic era in this 21st century or else get left out of the successful mic of international musicians whether they play this instrument or that instrument including the pan. It is the electronic era and the pan movement is asked in many various ways to now step up to the plate or else be a forgotten specie eventually. Only the electronic sound of pan can prolong the pan movement. Watch around the world and see what is happening with steel barrels to hard plastic barrels, what is happening with the various Panoramas and carnivals, how the steebands are being left out in various ways. You cannot continue to deny the electronic age for the sound of pan, otherwise you are part of the problem of killing the steelband movement. Don't be foolish some of you. Be wise and wise up.

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  • You need to join a debate club, I'm sure UWI has one, you looking the wrong place for a debate, and I will not go tit for tat with you, AGAIN.

    • CH, the guy have a RIGHT to be a UBIQUITOUS IDIOT IF HE SO CHOOSES, I won't bother to waste my time with him any more either, people like him favorite subject in school was recess, and it look's like he "Break Beach" from that too...

  • There you go again, the poor little smart boy,  people doh even want good advice from you, if JJJ didn't get on yuh case no one would have bothered with what you have to say. If you are  looking for intellectual battle you came to the wrong place. not that we don't have intellectuals here, Ghost took you on already, no one has the desire to do so again. It must be lonely knowing that you alone smart.

    • CH, I know he would come back with more "Bull Shit", he don't know anything at all, he do not know how "Ubiquitous" he is, so here is a little history Sidd, I'm not as young as U OK, I've been playing pan since I was 9 years old , learning to read and write music from " Frankie Francis" at 9, and professionally at 11 in 1956 with Five Graves to Cairo" from Belle Vue, joined St James North Stars in 1958 on the road, joined the stage side in 1960, in 1961 was the first tenor pan player to learn Voices of Spring, where prior to that I had learned 3 more classical pieces, "Boca Chimes" by the late John Donaldson, "Angel Serenade" by Schubert, and" Humorous" by Dvorak, before "Voices of Spring" by Johann Strauss, I was the glue that held North Stars paper together with the help of the man himself, Anthony Williams who taught me everything there is to know about pan, where I started assisting him in 1963, sinking, grooving, cutting , tempering/burning and per-tuning, in 1964 I sunk and groove a drum 9 inches in debt, which allow me to assemble 48 notes on the tenor pan, everyone said it couldnt be done, but the man Williams said YES it can be done but, I'll need a bigger drum,29 inchs in diameter, that was when we got some sheet metal from "VAN LEAR" to make our "Big Tenor Pan", D seconds, Quad Cellos and Basses yes the very big tenor Brian Copeland to be his Genesis G-pan, so don't talk shit to me about sheet metal this and that, the 4 ths & 5ths, electronics, I've been to Boston University, and C.P.C.C North Carolina, I've studied Corporate Law, Music, can play ANY AND ALL PERCUSSIVE INSTRUMENT, TUNE PIANOS, and I know how Pythagoras DISCOVERED the CYCLE of 5ths, how Johann Kepler was able to draw the lines and spaces on manuscript paper, and of cost HOW Anthony Williams DERIVED the CIRCLE of 4ths and 5ths, remember what I mentioned about our Planet Earth, I know as much about the rest, Me I also know how the solar system function, therefore there's no way that any of that superstitious nonsense applies to INTELLIGENT HUMANKIND like CH, Mi Amigo and myself,IN THIS 21st CENTURY, I'M BEYOND EDUCATED

    • I am smart. I am not poor and little. I am not what you want me to be. I am who I am. You are who you are. If you cannot have a healthy debate without finding fault with the debater, then you are not educated in the particular field to have a debate. Do battle with the topic if you can. If you have something and something intelligent then you would bring it. You would not attack the debater's character because the debate itself is over your head. That's no fault of mine. That is your concern not mine. That is the debater's character but he may be bringing something you either could understand or don't understand. If you don't understand the intelligent thing to do is either to say you don't understand or say nothing. I understand so I say a lot. At first Ghost didn't like how I understand things so he challenged me thinking that I would go away. I do not go away. I am prepared to say what I have in mind and stand by it through thick or thin because it also comes from higher sources. No fault of mine but it is my actual wealth of intelligence. That is my real wealth. I earn money by it. I read what you do not read. There is no loneliness in knowing what I know. The topics are not for you alone or jjj. There are people reading it. If they wish to stay away that is their affair not mine. If they wish to enter the debate that is their affair not mine. You of all persons should know from day one I write openly how I feel and what I know and who wish to challenge that's alright with me. I don't curse and call people names. When I use the words illiterate and ignorant people react. But if you don't know what I am saying and don't understand what I am saying it means that you may be illiterate about a subject matter or ignorant about it as well. These are not curse words and words meant to insult. Trinidadians misuse the words in wrong ways. The words describe your absence of knowledge or poor fund of knowledge in a particular sphere of knowledge. So posters who don't post are using their rights. maybe they don't have this type of knowledge but are reading and learning from it. If one posts and don't understand what I post, I respond and explain it in various ways so they can catch a glimpse of what I am saying. But if after all that I tried to explain they still reject it and not only that they become conning then this does that mean I will fold up and not post. I actually stayed away for some time. Now I write a little more, that doesn't mean someone can say that I don't know and I will not respond. Why I should not respond. Every human being knows something but what is the quality of the knowledge counts today if ever it did not in the past. Today's world is about how much you know so that you can protect yourself with knowledge. You don't protect yourself with guns and money. You protect yourself with knowledge. Sometimes I see on you Facebook post where you repeat others' wisdom thoughts. Are you really leaning from it? It doesn't seem so to me. if one is wise, you would recognize what I bring to any forum. I don't bring only mundane knowledge. Most of what I bring is transcendental absolute knowledge where I read transcendental sciences of the Universal laws of God. It can be applied even in the pan world. Like I said, learn something when I write. That's all you need to do. If people don't want good advice from me what does that have to do with me. Nothing Cecil. That is to their discredit. The people who don't want good advice cannot bring anything to the pan movement table. It is only people like me the pan movement needs. If not, no one will bother about the pan movement. We have all begun to see this already. The people who advise the iIg 5 are educated people who have something new to bring to the pan movement. If the pan movement is to be anything, it must also conform to intelligence not stupidity and expect everyone to like it just because its an Art and Culture of T&T. It just doe not work like that anymore. The pan movement will need to convince people that it's and intelligent movement and not simple any more. That is something the pan movement needs to remove from people's mind especially in T&T. So count yourself lucky you have me expressing these things openly. The problem is that no one cared that much and simply think it is carnival thing and Panorama. It is not. It is much more than that.

  • Cecil

    You haven't forgot Ghost have you? We had greater intellectual battles including arrogance, boasting and extreme cussing by Ghost. When Ghost came to Trinidad at Starlift yard, he immediately began hugging me. I also took to his personality as well. When too strong personalities meet, most of the time they become friends, That's because strong personalities do battle intellectually and not resort to easy way out by saying someone never played pan or make a pan. I am Trinidadian and in my 70's remember? I played pan when the players had to make their own pans. There were no tuners that you had to pay money to make pans. JJJ never did battle with my post like Ghost and he gave up fast. Ghost remains my only contender on these forums. No other comes up like him against me. Yet he accepted most of my ideas eventually and by knowing more of the situation in T&T when he came he began realizing what I was saying. Trinidad remains the worst place for pan is my overall philosophy. Unless the pan persons become more educated both in music, music business, the psychology of dealing with businessmen, the coming together of steelbands to form an international business, and a Pan Trade Union, pan will not be taken seriously at least in T&T. Most Trinidadians my age know about pan more than old pan players think. Why? we up-kept the pan movement back then Cecil. We the supporters and businessmen at the time we assisted it to go through and most of us came from the middle class. Without the middle class and upper class business community the steelband movement would have ended a long time ago. Try to understand this important piece of knowledge. We need both classes and the working class to come together to form and international steelband Industry (not Government Sponsorship or Business Sponsorship that is not good enough again) where pan players, pan supporters, business persons both locally and abroad can come together to form a professional pan music business internationally complete with Radio and TV stations, now Internet sites dedicated to the pan movement, pan circuits and pan clubs throughout the planet and much much more. This is what I propagate and philosophize on. If you think I feel I lecture to people by saying these things then I am a lecturer on the Internet where pan should be heading too. Try to defeat my theories that's the only option you and others have. But no one can stop me from posting how I feel. And the truth is, there are more people who like what I post than those who don't. I don't just talk. I am also developing an Internet Advertising referral business where steelbands can make money on the Internet using my Advertising campaign. Electronics must be used for the advancement of man not to the destruction of man. Pan included. I have that blessings from God. I am not here on the Internet to play around and talk around. That is the difference you and others are picking up on now. What "nail in the coffin" are you speaking about. Stop your day dreaming and face the reality of the steelpan movement now. JJJ is obviously from the old school of pan but have not continued to develop anything further. The Ellie Mannette school continues on so they are attracting intelligent and educated people which pan needs. This old school about pan is for the working class only, has gone a long time ago. It was only when bands like Silverstars aand Dixeland (the middle class bands) came in some recognition was truly given to it. So its not about grassroots pan man only. It has gone past that even in Trinidad. Don't promote ignorance. Promote knowledge. Don't hide under ignorance.

    The Big 5 idea comes from people like me Cecil. Educated and intelligent folk, lawyers, accountants, economist, businessmen etc. This is now needed more than ever in the pan movement internationally.
    • The main problem of the pan movement is this. The pan man wants to be chief cook and bottle washer. This is the flaw. It should be made up of pan tuners, pan arrangers, pan players/musicians, pan yard building and land developers, pan and pannists promoters, pan businessmen, pan club owners, pan TV stations, pan radio stations, pan film makers, pan history writers, pan lawyers, pan accountants, pan trade unionists and pan players union safeguarding royalies, pan band fan clubs and the list can go on and on. This is called industrialization of the pan movement business. Having Pan Trinbago wanting to be all theee things at the same is the problem. That must stop and it will stop very soon. If it is organized this way, then pan bands will return on the roads at carnival because there will be sufficient force applied to the authorities coming from important people in society.

      They are not expected to return like in the 60's and 70's but they will have some form of concrete return.
  • Sidd: You want to get me in trouble on the forum this morning. The problem is NOT acoustic or electronic. The problem is a LACK OF MUSICAL TALENT. Look, SALMON CUPID invented the E-PAN and INDIGISOUNDS captured the PAN TONES and made them accessible to all your MUSICIANS but all that technology is sitting on the shelf because our musicians lack the musical talent to bring it to the MAINSTREAM MUSIC WORLD with QUALITY MUSIC.

    • Mi Amigo, I really do not want to get into this conversation, but I had promised that I got you and CH back so here goes, this so called academic educated "Scientological Mind Control Brainwashed Victim, struck a bad note that I heard, that note was "Intelligence", my " Abuela/Grand Mother" in Spanish, who raised me and paid my school fees so I could learn the definitions of words like that, "Intelligence means the ability to learn, ( 1 ) he Mr Sidd speaks about electronic, electronic is via electricity, which is not, viable to the human kind eye's,and travels in a vacuum at the speed of over 5,000 meters per second, therefore man did not create it but, man has learned to harness it, (2) steel did not come from the "Earth, the alloy "Iron and Carbon/Coal" came frome the Earth separately, when combined/ together, 80% iron and 20 % carbon/coal there's where you get steel, and we in St James North Stars/ Pan Am North Stars has been using sheet metal ever since 1968 to make our "Big Tenor Pans" Brian Copeland Plagiarized calling it His Genesis G-pan, D seconds, Quad Cellos, 3 Cellos, Basses ect ect ect, and magnetize steel is whats used in tapes CD, as it is perfect for recording sounds, that's Y the steel pan musical instrument is so UNIQUE, and there's none to surpass it, and never will, Bertie Marshall IS NOT the first to amplify a steel pan musical instrument, one Herbert Simpson of TRIPOLI" in 1957, and Dave Labarrie in "NUTRINE PLAY BOYS ON HENRY STREET Port of Spain in 1960, where Bertie came back out with it 1964 with MamaDis Is Mas, and Gypsy Rondo, therefore Mr. Sidd, U do not have the ABILITY TO LEARN, I also know that U believe the "Sun rises in the East and set's in the West, when the Sun do not move, but the EARTH DO...

      • I take your points of view. I like the one concerning the sun. I too accept that the earth that moves. and the sun stays in one position. I may not have the ability to learn but I do advanced research work in spiritual philosophy which contains all these truths that man is now discovering. Man does not create any thing. He merely assembles what is there already. He is a secondary creator who assembles material nature. Your are right about the steel that's why I had used the word "Processing" .Steel is still in the earth in those two forms. What do you think of the eclipse of the sun?

        The pan is unique to us on this earth, but to the universe it has been done before somewhere else. Nothing is really new under the sun. It has been going on for so long that creations revolve themselves and appear to humans as the first time. That's an illusion only.
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