Ac­cord­ing to Auburn Wilt­shire, project man­ag­er of the Mu­sic School in the Pa­n­yard project, the Min­istry of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism will sup­port the ini­tia­tive through the pur­chase of $300,000 worth of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments. Trum­pets, sax­o­phones, clar­inets and trom­bones were bought to be used in the pi­lot pan cen­tres, Casablan­ca Pan The­atre (North), Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, San­gre Grande Cordettes and Po­ten­tial Sym­pho­ny Pan The­atres (East), Cou­va Joy­lan­ders (Cen­tral) and Ju­nior Sam­my Group Skif­fle Bunch (South).

Ef­forts at for­mal­is­ing mu­sic learn­ing us­ing the steel­pan are not new. As re­cent­ly as 2005, mu­sic pub­lish­er Sime­on San­di­ford re­leased a dou­ble CD pack­age ti­tled Pan in Ed­u­ca­tion, a com­pre­hen­sive col­lab­o­ra­tion with pan com­pos­er Mark Lo­quan to cod­i­fy a learn­ing process for mu­sic based on the cen­tre­piece of the steel­pan.

As an in­stru­ment, the steel­pan is no­table for its ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to neo­phyte mu­si­cians and pro­vides an ex­cel­lent first point of con­tact for learn­ing es­sen­tial mu­sic prin­ci­ples that can be ap­plied to all in­stru­ments in an en­sem­ble. Mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion is a crit­i­cal part of the ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum in the Unit­ed States and when bud­get cuts en­dan­gered these pro­grammes in the 1990s, mu­si­cians ral­lied to save them.

To­day, it's a rare school in the Unit­ed States that has a foot­ball team with­out hav­ing a "band" pro­gramme, a mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that aligns suc­cess in per­form­ing in a march­ing band with sup­port­ing the school's sports teams. If there's any­thing sur­pris­ing about the Mu­sic School in the Pa­n­yard project, it's that it's tak­en so long to be­come a part of the ed­u­ca­tion agen­da.

Wo­ven in­to the cul­tur­al his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go is the suc­cess that mu­sic, as ex­pressed through the steel­band, has en­joyed in calm­ing trou­bled com­mu­ni­ties, bring­ing iden­ti­ty and pride to dis­en­fran­chised young peo­ple and cre­at­ing sus­tain­able ca­reers as mu­si­cians for many who might not have had such an op­por­tu­ni­ty oth­er­wise.

Mind­ful of both her­itages, Di­rec­tor of Cul­ture In­grid Ryan Ruben urged stu­dents com­ing to the work­shops to "ho­n­our that space" and the cre­ativ­i­ty that was spawned in the coun­try's pa­n­yards. This pro­gramme, a valu­able ad­di­tion to the myr­i­ad ef­forts to make mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion avail­able to school-age chil­dren, is dis­tin­guished by its choice of the hearth space of the pa­n­yard, many of which are in need of a more ro­bust re­con­nec­tion with their com­mu­ni­ties.

Link­ing mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion to pa­n­yards of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rein­vig­o­rate the role of these spaces be­yond their pop­u­lar­i­ty in the run-up to Panora­ma and Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­vals and re­turn them more di­rect­ly to be­ing pos­i­tive in­flu­ences and at­trac­tors for young peo­ple. The project is still in its ear­li­est stages, and over the next three years mu­sic schools are planned for all pa­n­yards in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Even more com­pelling is the Artiste-in-Res­i­dence Ini­tia­tive which will bring stu­dents and tu­tors in­to mean­ing­ful con­tact with mu­si­cians like Er­rol Ince, Roy Cape, Pel­ham God­dard and Le­ston Paul whose con­tri­bu­tions to the mu­sic of this coun­try have been trans­for­ma­tive. These are valu­able, mar­quee ideas, but for the project to tru­ly suc­ceed, there will need to be more links be­tween the new ef­fort and ex­ist­ing pro­grammes for mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion.

Col­lab­o­ra­tions with the work be­ing done in the pro­grammes of UTT at Na­pa and in­te­gra­tions with ex­ist­ing mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion in the school sys­tem, in­clu­sive of mu­sic and in­stru­ments from oth­er cul­tur­al tra­di­tions, would do much to en­sure that every pos­si­bil­i­ty for pa­n­yards to serve as a catch­ment for cu­ri­ous young peo­ple is lever­aged.

The project would al­so be en­hanced by con­tin­ued mon­i­tor­ing and sup­port from both the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion as well as pri­vate-sec­tor sup­port of a project that has the po­ten­tial to be­come a crit­i­cal in­ter­ven­tion in com­mu­ni­ties over the next three years.