I wish to get a proper feel of the reaction to this question and would appreciate your response.
As popular as it is, thousands of people searching on Google for this type of band would enter the phrase "steel drum band" in the search query instead of the phrase steel pan or steel pan band; some even type the phrase Jamaican steel band, which I find annoying for obvious reasons. The term "Pan" is not as ubiquitous as the phrase steel drum band which is quite accurate when defining and describing the band. Outside of the Pan world, customers looking to hire the service have conducted more searches for "steel drum band" than any other variant when looking for a band. To reverse this trend would require a mammoth marketing exercise starting with the film Pan! Our music odyssey becoming a blockbuster. It would also require the government of T&T to do something that they have failed to do for decades, which is to take the initiative in promoting Pan to a global audience. The reality in 2014 is that the American bands have huffed the instrument and taken the initiative going forward. The phrase "steel drum band" is used on all of their major entertainment websites that offer the service. Clearly, there has been a shift towards the use of the phrase steel drum band for commercial reasons, but is that a bad thing if more and more customers are employing musicians who are skilled in the art of playing Pan?
What's your take on this? Do you think that there is an undo button for this misnomer? Does it matter?
Replies
Not half as much as "pan side!!" That pisses me off no end...it's a throw-back to when we used to say "combo-side" and sounds just as disrespectful.
having "vented" in my opening sentence, my opinion is that we are really ling in a global village and as such we really cannot control how the world at large refers to our national instrument, but if WE continue to call it by its rightful name, the world at large will realize that the two are the same.
Agreed, Brian (with your second sentence, that is) ... it's up to us to use our correct terminology if we expect the global village to follow suit.
Peter
There are two reasons why I do not get as annoyed as many on this forum. About the term.
A bit disappointed , but not really annoyed.
The first reason is historical
There is an undeniable connection of the steelpan to the African tradition of drumming , via the tamboo bamboo.
The second reason is that unfortunately there is a lot of ignorance about the steelband in this world of ours (outside the pan bubble ) , and one cannot deny that the term is a convenient shorthand for explaining to the uninitiated (or should I say ignorant? ) what a steelband is.
Sorry about that ,guys , but I myself may have transgressed in this manner.
Thanks for that link. Freddy has an interesting view.
The name Steel Drum became popular by Panyard Inc in the early '90 when they launch their business...
Prior to that, the term was widely used by Ellie Mannette when he introduced the steel pan to school systems across the USA. The owners of Panyard Inc are all past students of Ellie's steel band workshops and are influenced by his teachings.
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