Young people are the future of pan
These young arrangers working together in the BPTT sponsored Arranging and Composing for the Steelband course under the expert guidance of Michelle Huggins-Watts (second from right).
Bright young pan men and women, most of whom have already mastered their instruments, took one step further into a musical adventure in Arranging and Composing for the Steel Orchestra, an intensive three week certificate course that ran last month, at Trinity College in Moka, Maraval. There was a total of 21 participants, including primary and secondary school students, and a few teachers. The project was organised by the Pan in Schools coordinating council, and sponsored by BPTT in light of its sustained commitment to the steel band movement.
Pan arrangers in the making
The students were under the tutelage of Michelle Huggins–Watts, a music teacher at Trinity College for the past 18 years, Huggins–Watts entered the Big Yard in 1992, arranging a winning tune for WoodTrin Steel Orchestra in the school’s Panorama. She has captained Phase Two Pan Groove, and is now raising eyebrows with her Panorama arrangements for Valley Harps Steel Orchestra. “The students have exceeded expectations. We have some big arrangers coming,” Huggins–Watts said at the end of the workshop.
“In the first week we listened to different genres of music and asked questions in an interactive session in which among other things the students learned how to identify unison, harmony, call and response. They now know how to listen to music,” she added. “The last two weeks were spent on practical arranging in which they were asked to choose a song and arrange an intro, verse, chorus, verse and chorus, variation, jam, modulation and coda,” Huggins–Watts explained.
Fruits of our labour
The workshop is expected to bear fruit as early as Panorama 2011, when 28-year-old Tricia Richardson, who travelled each day from Maloney to Moka to attend classes, will arrange for Tripolians of St James. Coordinator Stacy Alcantara of the Pan in Schools coordinating committee said she has seen scores of students of all ages benefit from the annual workshops, all of whom, she said, have gone back to their schools and pan yards to share their knowledge.
She said the programme also served to raise the self esteem of music teachers who worked in the school system and were not comfortable with the instrument. “Besides the regeneration of culture this workshop, as well as another BPTT sponsored composing workshop for CSEC music students, it is also about creativity and conservation of the environment, after all steelbands use the discarded oil drum. Still, beyond all of that, the Pan in Schools Coordinating Committee is so grateful to be in a position to have BPTT partner with us,” Alcantara said.
Replies