Evolution of Steelpan Sticks/Mallets

Hi everybody,

I know lead sticks started out as just sticks without rubber and then people started wrapping bike tire tubing around the sticks. One of the things I don't know though, is how did sponge balls for bass pans come to be. Were those mallets ever wrapped rubber too? I have done some experimenting with wrapped rubber so I am curious as to how the sponge balls became the norm.

Thanks!

Matt

You need to be a member of When Steel Talks to add comments!

Join When Steel Talks

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • Bertel, yuh spinning top in mud, trying to educatate that youth, de boy learn ALL about Pan in ONE SEMESTER!!!! Education, without SOUL, and COMMONSENSE, is a WASTE! De Boy will NEVER understand where we coming from, re the Pan Sticks issue! I think his hero Matt should educate him about that!
    And de udder one, who thinks that Pan shouldn't go Global????? Wha Planet he livin on? Pan GLOBAL long time!!!........Pan is EVERYWHERE, and doing WELL, except, in the MECCA? Maybe, because of them who FEEL dey learn everything, in one semester!!!! FFS!!
    • Thanks Brian for the advice! Yuh know, yuh REALLY cant teach Patriotism and Loyalty! If so they would have learned it in that ONE SEMESTER!!!

  • Thank you for the added posts by Corey, Noah and Marcus.

    Marcus - I will let you know what, if anything, comes of my experiments.

  • Hello Matt,

    I have never seen a wrapped MALLET for Bass Pans. I am quite young so I don't know if that was ever done before but your experiment interests me. I would like to hear how that sounds and the possibility of having it as an option for the bass. Do keep me posted on the progress. 

    On another note, thank you for the interest you have and do continue to show in T&T's National Instrument and our Culture in general. It's not easy getting past people stuck in old traditions and not being able to move on so I commend you for still making attempt. Keep up the good work! Blessings!


    • You are quite young Son. Study our local Pan history well, and you would appreciate calling them Pansticks. It is also quite possible to move on/forward with old traditions! Thats a BIG problem with we Trinis, we follow too easily! This is our Pan world MAN! We made it! We TRINIS are the leaders!

      • Mr. Gittens,

        I hope this don't come across disrespectful in any way, but, I have quite a large bit of history covered. I'm not the average pan man...I actually studied what I do. With that being said, as a QUALIFIED musician that majored in Steelpan BUT played other instruments as well, I totally understand why they referred to Pansticks as Mallets. I don't think that they intended on having an argument started on this site due to the word Mallet. Both Noah and Matt are qualified at what they do (MUSIC) and therefore, they would understand that using the word Mallet is just keeping it international. This is an international forum with many foreign steelpan players which means that there are many different interpretations of one thing. While I would agree that they should know that a Pan is played with "pan sticks" we need to understand that not all steelpan players were taught to play pan by Trinis. With that being said, some people use other terms to describe things. 

        We need to be able to accept difference in order to move on up. It's not that I follow too easily. It's just that I have an open mind to understand that different cultures have different vocabularies. Maybe if we think with an open mind Pan might actually reach somewhere. 

        It's funny that there is someone who sells Pan Sticks away, who happens to have Trini background (born and went to school here) and he brands his Pan Sticks to sell under the name "Mallet Man". The question is, do we get angry with him? I think not. He is in a foreign country and hopes of making a living in a foreign community so he took his branding to an international level by selling them what they know. 

        And finally, you last statement says that this is our Pan world....we made it...we...are the leaders! 

        I just wanna ask something now...

        *If it's we (Trini) thing, why isn't it marketed like that anymore? The world has different opinions on that statement now.

        Is it because we were so unable to move forward with WE TING that while we were thinking on what we can do other countries were already ahead of us???

        We have Panorama, the greatest show on earth....but Antigua had it before us.

        We Trinis created steelpan and started panorama in 1963 and only got it proclaimed as the national instrument in the early 90's....Why???

        The U.W.I started a program for students to get their Certificate/BA In Musical Arts majoring in Pan in 1992....DECADES after the Northern Illinois University had up to a Masters degree majoring in Steelpan. WHY??? Are we sure Steelpan is Trini thing??? Are we sure that we are the leaders??? Yes we invented it...but in the voice of Earl Lovelace...."what have we done, with what we have done???"

        • Son, it seem to me that you are one of the youngsters that threw your hands up in the air and said, "what d hell, lets give it away." My advise is, lets forget about what the world thinks! Lets all just appreciate what we have created here and build on it in our way, in our time. Its ours to name, not theirs!

          • Mr. Gittens,

            In an earlier response to this very same topic, Matt said, " I would like to point out that this "discussion" is exactly the reason so many young panists do not take part in the community."

            The truth is that as a young person in Steelpan, one loses interest in something that can be beneficial to them by the way in which things are brought across. What I'm saying is, we (the youths) appreciate the older heads and people who cleared the way for us, but where do we fit in this? Does our input have value? Can we still agree to disagree? 

            If my last response gave you the interpretation that I'm saying "what d hell, lets give it away," am I wrong for thinking that way (not that I am thinking that way)? The reason that I ask these questions, Mr. Gittens goes back to what I said earlier again....what have we done, with what we have done? 

            Forgetting what the world thinks and taking the steelpan and building on it in our way, in our time (as you said above) to me, defines why Trinidad and Tobago is, and will remain, 3rd world for a long time. 

            Yes! Steelpan is WE TING! NOT THEIR'S!!!! But because something belong's to me others can't have an input? If that is so then this is MY opinion. Should anyone have an input on what I think? Again...I'm not trying to be disrespectful or rude in any way, but I just can't understand how an argument can arise from a question referring to Pan Sticks/Mallets. 

            Trinidad & Tobago has done a lot of innovations and upgrades since our first Steelpan was created but where has it gone? Our most recent invention - the G Pan sits stagnant in the office of the Attorney General and production of the instrument can't even be done because even our leaders are blinded by arrogance and ignorance in one. 

            We live in Trinidad & Tobago where the people who are responsible for governing ALL concerns and aspects of the Steelpan has no idea how to run an organization. An executive named Pan Trinbago which doesn't have someone in a "youth arm" position on that board to deal with matters that pertain to young persons in Pan, and you think that I am one of the youngsters that threw my hands in the air and said, "what d hell, lets give it away"?????????

            Hahaha, that's why youths involved in Pan only see it as a hustle for Panorama to suck the industry dry then move on. It hurts to see what Pan has become. And do excuse me for venting like this on this topic but it's something that needs to be said.

            Yes the older persons played an important role in the development of the Steelpan but what took the elders a lifetime to learn only took the youths ONE SEMESTER AT UWI and it was an easy A+ grade too. So now that we learnt how pan was created, and developed over the years, what now??? 

            In closing I would like to say that my point in the entire thing that I wrote is simply this:- Pan Sticks/Mallets/Sticks/Hammer/Whatever you may want to call it, whether foreign or local, whether East or West, it's simply a matter of Development for what WE TRINI'S created. Many things were created in one country and developed in another. It doesn't discredit the place where the instrument was given birth. It simply gives the country more to work with for them to get further ahead with business. 

            Blessings!

            • No disrespect but Marcus you do realize that many of the pan elders and inventors were doing miraculous things in pan when they were teenagers and early 20's. If they had access to what you have at UWI they might have been building space stations. I don't know how old you are, but I haven't any ground breaking developments in pan from any young person in Trinidad. I haven't seen or heard of any student from UWI who has done anything to further or match what Anthony Williams did as a very young man. And that's musically too.

              bugs

            • I know you know no 1st world country is going to stop what ever they are doing because Trinidad objects to anything pan related. So stop the crying crap. Mr. Ash what is your plan? 

This reply was deleted.