Who is the Inventor of Today's DOUBLE SECOND?

Can somebody tell me Who is the Inventor of Today's DOUBLE SECOND that is Standardized presently? I thought it was Ellie Mannette, I always find myself saying  "Ellie Double Second".(See Attachment).

double second.gif

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

  • I always thought it was Ellie Mannette this was my understanding. Today I noticed many pantuners have taken out several notes in the pan eg We used to have 3 Bb.s 3 Bs 3 Abs, 2 Fs on the outside of the pan and now most pan tuner only have two. Look at the article in When Steel talks "Towards Standardized Pans 1988. A story written by Bert Boldon about Ellie Mannette

  • I don't know if BELGRAVE BONAPARTE  created the double seconds but when he and Bloc "brother"left Paris I took over from Bloc on tenor pan. I should not laugh but  one of the guys told me when they were doing  the festival in Globe cinema  some time ago Belgrave  was calling the double guitar man to go on stage but he said "Ah cyar come ah man stanning up in meh pan."

    • I think Belgrave pans were so that you play with three sticks.

  • The term "inventor" suggests to me a single individual or group of individuals coming up with a unique idea . sometimes in secret, to create something that was totally new , like for example the telephone .

    My understanding of the steelpan is that it was a collective creation , with many people exchanging ideas , copying from each other , improving on existing ideas and so on.

    There are certain individuals who were in the forefront of this process ; we are familiar with the names of these innovators, and they deserve that credit.

    But credit for the creation of the steel pan family as we know it has to be shared; it cannot be the province of any one individual or even group of individuals.

    Too many have contributed in various ways to its creation for this to be true or realistic.

    Which is why the instruments should have been claimed as a national instrument , patented as such , and whatever benefits gained,  shared among the innovators.

    However , as stated before , steelpan manufacturing technology now exists in the public domain.

    There are instructions readily available in libraries and on the internet for the manufacturing of pans , and as far as i know , no one has tried to restrict the sharing of this knowledge. 

    Now , as a layperson , I do not understand the references to fourths and fifths and all that technical stuff ( i was just an amateur panist who played tenor bass and cellos), but I do know that as far as patents in the basics of steelpan manufacturing are concerned , that ship has sailed , that bird has flown the coop , the cat is out of the bag, etc. etc.

    Just my two cents , people for what it is worth.

  • .Gentlemen,

    The Double-Second was invented by Belgrave Bonaparte and was first played publicly at the 1954 Music Festival. This is according to Neville Jules and is quoted in All Stars' Book. Ray Holman also endorses this (see Pg. 7 of A Myrna Nurse's Unheard Voices).

    The creation of a man from Dixieland was a Double-Tenor, not a Double-Second. Listen to Neville Jules:"A White Trinidadian gave me a picture from a newspaper article of another Dixieland man, a White Trini, with a double-tenor. This photo predates Bertie Marshall. You can tell by the clothing of the people in the photo; that pan was in the man's lap- two pans bolted together. So someone connected with Dixieland is not getting his due credit..." cf Unheard Voices, p.35

    • Rennie, Consequently, everyone suffered due credit for their various inventions and innovations. That is why the steel pan as we know it in the conventional way, is in public domain. The inventors virtually gave these inventions away to others for free, simply by bringing their inventions on the roads to show off. Others looked at them and copied ideas and went back and did adjustments to those ideas. Now that is normal human interactions which exist across the globe. Even if the inventors knew about patents and they patented their inventions, it still doesn't stop human from copying ideas from each other. Now if the copiers added something more, that something if it is brand new, would have be patentable. That is how Patents work. patents cannot prevent humans from coping patented or non Patented products. but if the guy who saw the welded double second or tenor added more notes to his pan or changed the notes around or changed the shape of the notes or welded the pans in such a way that they can fold or detach or be taken off the instrument entirely and placed on wheels instead, those changes are patentable. So early inventors really did not steal as such. there might have been a few who did that. But the majority of the inventors added new ideas to inventions which were their own spin on a new concept. If those new ideas did not exist before, then the inventor is no thief. Therefore I do not subscribe to calling inventors thieves because someone found an earlier invention of double seconds. unless we can prove that the double seconds created after the first apparent one had several distinct differences, they are two separated and unique inventions. this happens with all world products. lets us don't call our early pan inventors thieves now. Those who were honest and saw something or heard about something and did something slightly different that something was their unique difference. otherwise the universe does not allow one man to be an island of creation. it just doesn't work that way. This is what we need to understand about the early pan inventions. Remember the world is watching us. no one stole anything from the pan. the pan is still ours. every person who created something is an innovator of the pan and helped to place it on the world map. 

  • Patrick Ramdoo is absolutely correct. the first steelband to use amplification on the road was TRIPOLI several years before Bertie. Bertie is an INNOVATOR not an INVENTOR. 2 MEN STAND OUT AS INVENTORS OF PAN  Mr TONY WILLIAMS and ELLIE MANNETTE. The rest are merely iINNOVATORS.. THE OXFORD DICTIONARY MAKES THE MEANING OF THOSE 2 WORDS VERY CLEAR. paddy corea

  • What is the today's Double Seconds?

  • Bede

    The answer no one knows for sure. So it is an ignorant question to be asking at this point. No one wrote down their inventions and did not patent them and it all happened very fast. Actually we have to thank God for the "No Patents" era. This fact helped to spread the inventions across T&T and the Caribbean, plus as someone had said The Americans on the Navel Base Chaguaramus could have also stolen the ideas and go back to America and patent it. But God was protecting the pan. So its good that no one really knows for sure. As soon as someone say Tom, another says Harry, then another say Johnny. And so it goes up to today. And that is best for pan. Suffice it to say that steelpan has spread across the globe by many persons from T&T, Caribbean and elsewhere. Everyone knows that it originated in T&T. The G-pan holds Patents for its high tech measurements, calculations, steel thickness, and so many other modern approaches and standardization it offers. Yet it does not sell any where. Its too heavy and cumbersome. So the pans that should have been Patented sold and continue to sell over the world. Whereas the Patented ones fail.   What the universe is saying is that the creative ideas which five men imputed that truly made the pan a professional musical instruments is really the finished product of the steel pan. nothing much can be added to it. The only way it has to go now is electronic and be able to be as loud as other electronic instruments which went through almost the same evolutions. We must not spend too much time on who made this first and who made this and that. No one has the answers to those questions. Absolutely no one. we cannot convince the rest of the world that someone made the pans. many people made them and experimented with them. Five persons experimented with them and came up with experiments which cannot now be put down. They have to be continued including the electronics that Bertie Marshall first thought about and came out with amplified pans and made sure he made it known. Dedication therefore ends in good credit. Not someone started something and then discontinued it. The persons who did not get the full credit discontinued their dedication and so no one fully recognized them. All the five innovators continued in pan and were still interested in its development. Rudolf Charles died while trying and so did Bertie Marshall. Tony Williams is still interested in its development. Neville Jules the same. Ellie Manette the same. Its only we who separate these men. Otherwise they acknowledge each others input. And their input still reigns supreme. So who made the second pans of today. those five did it by their commitment. who made the rest of the pans we play and hear now. Those five did it by their commitment. They are the inventors of the modern steelpan from tenors to bass and in between. They are credited for their actual commitment and dedication. They did not give up on it at any time. That is how it should be understood. Why single second? Why double second. There can be six pans ranging from soprano to the real tenor range in music which one man can play. Who made such a pan? 

    • Riff Jammz, You sound like a fella that used to be on the Forum all the time by the name of SIDD, I can tell by your long Comments and speaking about Electronics, Are you back in Disguised? If its you that's hiding, Welcome Back.

       

This reply was deleted.