I made a contribution to a post on this site and I was accused of trying to promote Tripoli, I replied to the person telling them I had lost respect for them.
I do not know why this hurt so much and is still hurting that I am prompted to talk a little about myself here.
My father Caspar Durant born 1919 died 2008. Brought me up to LIVE by these words. "A MAN IS ONLY AS GOOD AS HIS WORD" Now I am going to call some names who can attest to this, Phellom Goddard, I was born two houses away from him, his mother was my first primary school and MUSIC teacher, we played Hosay Drum together in Balma, P. G. arranged for Tripoli and more, before he had his own band, I guess some of you will doubt this also because only what YOU know is FACT.
I was born in March 1952, These are JUST A FEW of the persons that I spent the first 15 years of my life growing up with before I went to Expo 67 in Canada with Esso Tripoli, I was always the youngest. P. G. Othello Molineau, Luther Cuffy, Tommy Critchlow, They also arranged for Tripoli, Michael G. Kernahan, Victor Crosby, Keith P Maymard, Boogsy Sharp, Kenneth Cleark, and so much more. So go ask these people who amplified pan first, Also when I say something pertaining to those years I would not want ALL THE REPUTABLE people I grew up with, having to say to themselves and others "Junior" grew up to be a LIAR we can't trust him.
If I talk about the making of pans I know what I am saying, Boogsy has a pair of double seconds now let him tell you how different this pan is from any other he has played in his life, IT WAS MADE BY MICHAEL G. KERNAHAN, Austin Wallace is like My Father, because of him and the other tuners in my pan career, Allan Gervais, Lincoln, Michael and Coker there is so much more I can say on this topic, but I will stop here.
Finally In closing, I would like to say there is a VAST difference between KNOCKING IN a note and TUNING,
If I am at a concert and for what ever reason a note should move, I could knock that note in and be able to perform. That is not tuning, and this is exactly what most modern tuners can do, nothing more, you have to visit them ever so often for a touch up. A REAL TUNER can take a finished pan, TOSS IT, yes toss it 10 to 15 feet away from him, go pick it up and play it, not one note will move, A pan like this will not need tuning for as long as you have it. Let people like Cliff, Michael and Birch Kelman tell me this cannot be done and I will not open my mouth here again.
Let me go all the way, Most of the tuners mentioned above will always flavor their notes like tuning a C with a tinge of E or G somewhere in there, All I know is they do it, I do not know how and which notes they mix, It would sound TRUE bot it would have that underlying flavor, These are the secrets that modern tuners do not know.
Thanks All for you time.
Replies
Word...
Mr. Caspar Durant: You promised to tell us the TRUTH on this forum but now it seems to me that you are just trying to fool these FORUM EXPATS with old myths like a "locked pan note" and contrived memories about your exposure to all the LEGENDS. Every TRINI know everybody and GROW UP on the same street with everybody of importance.
"A man is only as good as his word" but I am watching your words get refuted on this forum so ah have to wonder!!!
Oh boy! (or girl)! So they like to argue on this site. But that’s a topic in it’s own right. But because It’s so potentially inflammatory, we will leave that one alone for the moment, and move on, we hope, to better things.
Although related to that topic noted above; the confusion with respect to ‘amplified pan’, and one or two other issue with respect to pan ‘tuning’, may be better clarified, had the proponents of these arguments had a better grasp of understanding of some of the underlying principals of material ‘physics’, mechanical, electrical & electronic and acoustic engineering.
The arguments may quite simply be resolved by applying the correct scientific definitions to what each party was trying to do, and then the arguments evaporate into tidy un-contentious boxes; each explaining what was going on. So lets have a go at this.
Bertie Marshall
Marshall was the first person noted to have experimented with electrical technologies of the day to make an ‘electric pan’. By that we mean, equivalent to the ‘electric guitar’; by means of applying ‘electrical sensors’ to each ‘note’ of the pan, Marshall then electronically amplified the signals and reproduced the sound on an available sound speaker system. Marshall was successful to some degree with this, but was frustrated in his endeavours because of a lack of resources (and perhaps technical knowledge beyond his own understanding) to fully succeed. Bertie Marshall must be considered as a pioneer of this field, frustrated by the then available technologies, which made the endeavour an over-complex exercise, too fiddly to mature into an acceptable ‘electric’ instrument (1965-1971).
The best person to consult as to ‘what exactly Bertie was doing’ is none other than the next pioneer in that field, Dr Brian Copeland, who himself experimented with many unusual devices around the ‘pan’ along his way to becoming one of Trinidad’s leading experts on the mechanics and physics of pan at UWI. Copeland, Marcel Byron, Keith Maynard and Earl Phillips. were the noted pioneer developers at UWI of the electronic synthesized pan instrument the ‘Phi’ (2008). The other synthesized pan is the ‘E-Pan’, developed by Salmon Cupid (2008/9).
One must make a very clear distinction here; the ‘Phi’ and ‘E-Pan’ are electronic synthersizers and are in no way ‘electric’ Pans. No one since Marshall, has made an ‘electric’ pan.
Tripoli
Unless otherwise historically usurped in time-line position by the researches of the pan historian Dr Kim Johnson; Tripoli is noted as the first steelband to have had the sound of the band amplified; using standard microphones attached to available sound systems of the day.
The ‘locked pan note’
DON’T YOU EVER throw a steelpan instrument around anywhere, it WILL GO OUT OF TUNE.
If you ever tried that in my panyard, without a very good reason, I’d throw YOU OUT.
This goes to dispel the TT myth of the ‘locked pan note’.
We start here with the unusual realisation that TT pan culture describe all the people who make and tune their steelpans as ‘pan tuners’. So ‘pan tuners’ are really = ‘pan makers’. The reality is that the heavy work of ‘sinking the pan’ and ‘placing the notes’ may be performed by one person; and the actual ‘tuning’ of the resulting ‘notes’ is performed by another person, the master, the ‘tuner’; thus fortifying the usage of ‘tuner’ in the language of TT. This division of labour is practical for a busy pan makers yard; but make no mistake, any pan maker of repute is fully able to go through the whole process, from start to finish, with no problem. That’s how he/she (and yes, there are women pan makers) learn their skills of this mainly hand-crafted art-form.
What is usually underestimated by the obstinate and prideful TT ‘pan enthusiast’, is the number of competent ‘pan makers’ there are on the planet. No one is really sure, as there is no full register anywhere (Try Ulf’s Forum for Pan as a good start) that lists them all. But what we can be assured of, following on from the ‘pan making’ courses run by 2 Universities in the US, and the number of pan ‘manufacturers’ listed outside of TT, on many continents; that there are as many or even more ‘pan makers’ out there in 2016, than exist here in TT.
An early myth out of TT pan culture is the ‘locked pan note’. This derives from the observation that, by comparing the sound of differing steelbands, particularly around the heavy sessions of Panorama use, some steelbands pans would remain ‘in tune’, despite all the heavy hitting they had experienced in the shows. As there was usually one particular ‘tuner’ associated with those ‘pans’; he (more usually than she, in those days) earned the accolade of being able to ‘lock a pan note’ so that it would not drift ‘off tuning’. Whereas this story is ‘true’, and of note applicable to the craftsmanship of one Bertram Kellman, among a few others, it is ALSO dependant on the quality of the steel out of which the pans are made; much dependant on the higher ‘carbon’ content of the steel. As the quality of steel may vary, not all pans will ‘lock’; no matter how experienced a ‘tuner’ you are.
However the myth has it’s limits. If you go throwing around a (beautiful) pan on the floor; the deformation of the body and the resultant ‘shock waves’ reflecting around it’s intricate innards, will in some places ‘peak’ and undo the delicate ‘stresses’ that the panmaker has worked so hard to put there, and the pan will go out of tune. That kind of heavy jammin’ they can’t take; so don’t!
'Tuning'
Let’s now finally look at that comment made by Durant that, ‘tuning a C with a tinge of E or G’; and ask whether this is also true. It Is; but it’s a right pain to explain. But say what, lets give it a go; am sure you can handle it, although it is a pinch of ‘rocket science’. It’s all in the theory of ‘vibrating plates’, or ‘loosely supported vibrating shells’ as some would term a single pretty steelpan ‘note’. And that’s all we’ll say about the science for now. Now the magic of a steelpan note that both Bertie Marshall and Allen Gervais discovered to ‘tune’ at around the same time (I’ll give it to Gervais, despite what other people might say), that magic quality that makes a steelpan note, brighter and clearer than it ever was before; is that you need to tune ‘3 notes’ into every ‘1 pan note’. Once you understand that this is what you need to do; then It’s just a craft you learn, it’s tricky to do, but it’s explainable. OK? Nice.
Sing us a note. Right. Go up one octave, lets have it!. Go up one more octave; when you ‘bus’ you know you reach!. Nice. Each of these notes is called a harmonic. It’s those ‘three notes’, the ‘three harmonics’, you have to put into ‘one’. Now when you hit a pan note, the steel vibrates all the way up the harmonic ladder, into notes so high, that you can’t even hear them.
Now the physicists call these harmonics, ‘modes of vibration’; but we will leave them happily with their ‘modes’, as we can handle the rest in our own way.
But we’re the boss, so we go for ‘tuning’ the first lower three harmonics that we can easily hear. Nice, that’s it. So harmonic ‘0’ is the ‘fundamental’ note that we started with. Harmonic ‘1’ is the octave above it; and harmonic ‘2’ is the octave above that. But pan ‘tuners’ have learnt that the whole note sounds a lot more pleasing if they can tune the ‘2’ harmonic either a ’third’ or a ‘fifth’ note lower than that top ‘octave’; that’s those ‘off notes’ Durant was talking about. Each pan ‘tuner’ uses his/her preference on which flavour of ‘2’ harmonic to use; giving ‘their’ pans a particular ‘timbre’ that reflects their own characteristic craftsmanship. And that’s how a pan note is ‘tuned’; you’ve done it! There you are, told you so, piece of cake.
Bye. tobagojo - 09 June 2016
Jeremy,
Are there any pictures of the working part of one of Bertie's amplified pans? I thought, possibly incorrectly, that he had one pickup per physical pan side, i.e. one on a tenor, two on a double second, etc. My direction came from a band here in Queens, NYC. Pan Ivory, run by some folks with connections with Bertie, so I was told. They are amplified, or at least were when I saw them some years ago. They used contact microphones, or possibly guitar pickups, one duct taped to the skirt of each pan. I couldn't see under the tape, and the person I talked to wasn't particularly forthcoming as to the details. The bases used an EV 635 or such microphone laying on sponge rubber at the feet of the player. All of these fed a small mixer, like a Mackie.
Now, the sound was "panish", but with its own character, a slower attack and decay. pleasant to listen to, but not the same as an acoustic pan.
So my question, is this what Bertie did, as I was made to believe, or did he do something different? As a music technologist involved in pan, I'd love to know. Pictures or an accurate write up from Bertie might be definitive.
Now on to tuning and touches of other notes. Bertie (and also Anthony Williams) learned to tune the harmonics which gave the pan its ring, but there is another bit of physics also involved: sympathetic vibration. Anthony was well aware of this when he laid out his 4ths and 5ths spiderweb. A good portion of the second harmonic "ring" of the low octave on a tenor pan is from the second octave notes just inside. Play a note from the lowest octave, then "damp" the same note in the second octave, with your finger (or a piece of magnetic tape, like many tuners use). Play the outer note again, with the inner note damped, notice that much of the ring is gone. The inner octave notes vibrate in step with the fundamental outer notes. This is sympathetic vibration.
But there may well be more, the notes on either side of the struck notes may also vibrate sympathetically with the struck note. If you play the C, particularly if you strike it hard, there may well be some F and some G sounding as well. I've personally never checked this out, again, try damping the adjacent notes and see if the timbre changes. The E is a long ways from the C on a tenor, but there could possibly still be some sympathetic vibration. A good physics research project, probably already done.
Now, the process of grooving, or boring, is supposedly done to reduce "coupling" or sympathetic vibrations. This is important with dissonant notes, but possibly, as Casper says, a little controlled cross coupling between adjacent notes may be one of the "secrets" of the better tuners.
MIND EXPANDING POST, Mr. de Barry.
I like the "obstinate and prideful" characterization.
Mr de Barry you took the words right outta my mouth.
Nice tobagojo!!!
Casper with all due respect, you have a very interesting life story that should be documented for the Pan Historians and students in the art – form. I believe it’s time for you to give Dr. Kim Johnson a call.
Your profile on this form shows you were involved in the history making Tripoli’s accomplishment s in the US and you continue to be deeply embedded in the steel band movement. The photos and videos tells a great story…https://whensteeltalks.ning.com/profile/CasparDurant660
I’m challenged by what you are questioning and your motivation…time to put the emotionalism (hurt) aside.
Andy’s response (no hurt) to you highly popular Panorama post is revealing in how your question was viewed…
Andy Narrel in Panorama… Posted by Caspar Durant on January 25, 2016 at 2:32am https://whensteeltalks.ning.com/forum/topics/andy-narrel-in-panorama...
Reply by andy narell on January 26, 2016 at 1:27pm
Caspar - Unfortunately there is a lot of xenophobic and racist talk in this discussion group, which saddens me, and that's all I really want to say about that for the moment. I appreciate the tone and content of your comment that launched the discussion - about me arranging a Trini tune in my own style. However, since your kid plays in the band, I'm wondering how you missed the fact that that's exactly what I did last year with Nyol Manswell's 'Pan Magic.'
Grammy Award Nominee Caspar Durant performs a version of Trinidad & Tobago's national anthem on the 'Quads'
Was that MUSIC? I will call that N-O-I-S-E!!!
Promote TRIPOLI all yuh want. They are deserving of the praise. They did a lot back in the day. To me, they were the best then.
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