HuffPost Canada
You haven't heard jazz until you've heard it played on a steel pan. I promise you.
Soca music has been in my life since I was old enough to remember it. I've been jumping up at Caribana since I was a kid — my parents are from Guyana and I was born in Hamilton, Ont.. But, I had never paid much attention to steel pan, it was always something that was in the background for me. Until the first time I visited a pan yard, where bands practice playing steel pan. It was a life-changing night.
A friend had invited me to a practice of her steel pan band and although I didn't know much about the genre, I was up for a new experience. I grew up playing the trumpet, which I loathed, but had never touched a steel pan. For some reason, the band trusted me with a tenor pan, two playing sticks, and notes to a song I'd never heard before.
Performing at "Impromptu", the Souls of Steel Orchestra's spring concert.
Imagine trying to practice a song you've never heard before on an instrument you've never played before with more than 20 people practicing repetitively at different volumes and speeds. It sounded like a "Game of Thrones" sized-wall of noise. I thought, "Maybe this isn't for me."
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