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  • March 5, 1982

STEEL BANDS can produce some of the sweetest, the most mellifluous, the most joyous and the most uplifting music in the world. Believed to have been invented as a percussive musical instrument by Trinidadians about four decades ago, the steel drum, or pan, is now heard solo in churches in New York or in aggregations of more than 100 marching thunderously through the Queen's Park Savannah in Portof-Spain.

Tomorrow, the 12-member Johnston Fantastic Symphony Steel Orchestra - billed as ''the only orchestra of its kind in the world'' - will perform in concert at Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th Street, at 8 P.M. The music will include hymns, Calypsos and works by Handel, Mozart, Chopin and Strauss, and admission is $12.

The orchestra is headed by Herman Johnston, who was once designated as ''the king of the pan men'' in his Trinidadian homeland. But because Mr. Johnston wants the steel band to have a serious international musical status, the orchestra's repertory transcends Caribbean melodies.

It's Been 'a Calypso Thing'

''Some Americans know about steel bands,'' Mr. Johnston said the other day, sitting at the dining-room table in his Brooklyn home. ''But they just figure they hear one steel band, it's a Calypso thing; they hear another steel band, it's a Calypso thing. So they figure, 'I hear them one, I hear them all.'

''I want to prove that wrong,'' he continued. ''I want to prove that the steel drum is like any other instrument. If you take a guitar and you feel like playing Calypso, that's fine; if you want to play jazz on a guitar, you play jazz, and if you want to be a classical guitarist, you play classical music on a guitar. We're still at an early stage with the steel band. I don't want the steel band to get branded and left out of a lot of things just because people figure it is suitable only to 'Rum and Coca-Cola' or 'Yellow Bird' music.''

Everyone in the Johnston Fantastic Symphony Orchestra is a member of the family. There is Mr. Johnston, his wife, Joan, their two sons, his brother and seven nephews. The band leader calls his wife ''one of the top professional woman bass players that you'll find in the steel-drum field.'' Then he reconsidered. ''She's one of the top bass players. She's really slick on those things, really fast.''

In the 18 months the Johnstons have lived in the United States, they have performed in many churches, at Queens College, at Thomas Edison High School, at a union auditorium in Waltham, Mass., at Bishop Loughlin High School and at Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center. It Started in Early 1940's

Anthony Mark Jones, a cultural historian, says in his book, ''Steel Band,'' that the steel drum came into existence in the early 1940's. Historically, he writes, slaves in Trinidad were forbidden to make or play drums, in common with taboos in other slave societies, including the United States, because the masters believed that the slaves would use the drums to communicate among themselves. One result of the ban in Trinidad was that bamboo shoots and, later, biscuit tins and lard cans were used as percussive instruments, producing what Mr. Jones calls a ''discordant din.'' The steel drums emerged in the early 1940's because of the availability of metal containers used in the burgeoning oil industry in Trinidad, and Mr. Jones says these drums produced a ''minimal melody.''

Nowadays, the drums are usually made from 55-gallon oil barrels hammered into shape and tempered for tonality and pitch, a process called tuning, which gives the drums a range of about two-and-a-half octaves. Mr. Johnston said a good drum can cost several hundred dollars. Each drum is played with rubber-tipped mallets.

Mr. Johnston has also developed a drum that he calls an echophone. It's made of three drums, he said, and ''it's mainly used to do works for the French horn; it can play harmony and melody.''

Mr. Johnston said steel drums were used almost exclusively for Calypso until 1962. Then, he said, the Pan Am North Stars, of which he was a member, won a music festival competition after playing Strauss's ''Voices of Spring.'' That, he said, heralded a new day for the steel drum.

A version of this article appears in print on March 5, 1982, Section C, Page 4 of the National edition with the headline: A STEEL DRUM FAMILY IN CALYPSO AND MOZART.

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