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Pan Trinbago has been basking in a new dawn of support for pan in its birthplace. But for some of us there are still clouds hovering over the financing and sustainability of the steelpan, our national instrument.
Political grandstanding will not dissipate those clouds.
Photo: Office of the President
Primarily, we left a significant part of the field in pan manufacturing wide open to others a long time ago without maintaining a sufficiently fierce competitive presence of our own.
We made no serious investment in the much touted “pan factory” while persons in many other countries moved ahead in pan manufacturing.
Those who, for political purposes, rode the backs of the pan movement had little vision for what that investment and appropriate incentivisation might mean for the creation of a sustainable pan industry.
Photo: Supernova
Just as they are failing adequately to invest in the healing medium of the panyard model, which I first described in 2007, our governments continue to fail to provide a business framework for pan manufacturing or to invest in it as appropriate.
Pan manufacturing as a business has advanced only moderately in Trinidad and Tobago. We are not the clear leaders in pan manufacturing as we should have been.
This failure is a particularly gross one, given what I have repeatedly asserted is the scientific patrimony of pan. The next two paragraphs set out in summary the intellectual property that we left adrift without an organized industry of our own, while others built on it.
When our pioneers invented the pan instruments, they were applying two branches of science. By applying heat and hammers to the surface of a steel drum to alter it to produce embryonic musical notes, they were applying the science of metallurgy.
In observing and developing the sound produced by the vibrations of those embryonic musical notes, they were applying the science of acoustics—just as Pythagoras, the mathematician and philosopher, did 26 centuries ago when he studied the harmonic tones of strings of different lengths.
Acoustics is also the science that pan tuners apply. A future column will examine our situation with pan tuners.
Currently, with regard to pan manufacturing, we now have an impressive manufacturing facility located in the Diamond Vale Industrial Estate. I refer to Musical Instruments of Trinidad and Tobago Company Limited (Mittco).
At the invitation of Akua Leith, accomplished musician/ arranger/ conductor and co-founder of the facility, my wife and I recently had a personally conducted tour of the Mittco facility.
I pause to pay tribute to the foresight, courage and persistence of Michael Cooper of Panland, also a producer of steelpans and the innovative work of Laventille Steelband Festival Foundation, which introduced the Eight of Hearts concert in 2010 using two stages.
We were also Michael’s guests at his business place on one occasion of the Laventille Pan Parade. If our governments paid attention to Michael’s urgings to put pan manufacturing on a firm footing we might not now be fighting to regain lost ground.
Photo: Pan Trinbago
But let’s get to the chrome elephant. As is plainly visible, several pans used in a steel orchestra are chromed, that is chromium-plated.
These chromed pans are the front line, mid-range and background pans. They are significant both in terms of numbers and their musical function and output.
The lack of a firmly established facility for chroming, popularly referred to as a chrome factory, is the elephant in the room of our business of pan.
Photo: Office of the President
There was a reputedly reliable chrome factory but that burnt down in 2021 and is not yet back in business. Despite other micro businesses doing chroming, the reality is that pans, even those of Mittco, have to be sent abroad for chroming.
Sending pans abroad to be finished is a serious supply chain delay and an addition to the cost of pans borne by our exponents of pan music.
No matter how sweet or accomplished the music we play, the sustainability of pan depends on a regular supply of quality pans at a reasonable price.
Photo: Pan Trinbago
A chroming facility located in Trinidad and Tobago is required to regain lost ground, but it is a capital-intensive investment with significant environmental issues to be resolved.
Who is thinking this through?
As I close off three weeks of analysis of pan manufacturing, I will refer to the inspiration to be taken Read more
“All those initiatives are undermined by the fact that in 2024, the Steelpan Manufacturing sector does not have a dedicated Read more
“[…] Amazingly, Pan Trinbago has opted to forgo any possibility of sustainability by giving up this potential by exchanging 13 Read more
“All of the things happening recently in the pan world, the national instrument status, the GI (Geographical Indication) certificate, pan Read more
“[…] It is my view therefore that a decision to alter the Coat of Arms should not have been made Read more
Joseph Biden, president of the United States, and our former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who became our country’s constitutionally appointed Read more
Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.
Thank you Mr Daly for recognizing Mr Cooper a pioneer as it relates to in pan manufacturing, a true patriot.