Dr Mar­lene Attzs

On World Steel­pan Day, Trinidad and To­ba­go has every rea­son to cel­e­brate. There are not many coun­tries that can say they gave the world an en­tire­ly new mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. We can.

Born from in­ge­nu­ity, re­sis­tance, ex­per­i­men­ta­tion and ex­tra­or­di­nary cre­ativ­i­ty, the steel­pan is un­mis­tak­ably ours. From the ear­ly pi­o­neers who coaxed notes from dis­card­ed met­al to to­day’s or­ches­tras per­form­ing on in­ter­na­tion­al stages, pan tells a re­mark­able sto­ry about T&T: peo­ple tak­ing what was avail­able and cre­at­ing some­thing the world had nev­er heard be­fore.

World Steel­pan Day pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty not on­ly to cel­e­brate the in­stru­ment, its pi­o­neers, tuners, arrangers, pan­nists and steel­bands, but al­so to con­sid­er what pan rep­re­sents for the next stage of our na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Be­cause pan is more than mu­sic. It is cul­ture. In­no­va­tion. In­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty. Ed­u­ca­tion. Com­mu­ni­ty. Tourism. Ex­port po­ten­tial. And, per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, the pa­n­yard can be a place of be­long­ing.

From T&T to the world

The in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of Au­gust 11 as World Steel­pan Day, des­ig­nat­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions in 2023, rep­re­sents an ex­tra­or­di­nary achieve­ment for our small Caribbean na­tion. An in­stru­ment once mar­gin­alised has be­come glob­al­ly recog­nised. To­day, pan is played in schools, uni­ver­si­ties, or­ches­tras and com­mu­ni­ties far be­yond our shores. Wher­ev­er it is played, its sound car­ries T&T with it. We should take enor­mous pride in that jour­ney.

But in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion should al­so en­cour­age us to ask a dis­tinct­ly de­vel­op­men­tal ques­tion: How do we con­vert cul­tur­al achieve­ment in­to last­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic val­ue? Cel­e­brat­ing pan must in­volve more than per­for­mances and Panora­ma vic­to­ries. We should think about the ecosys­tem sur­round­ing the in­stru­ment—the peo­ple who make pans, tune them, arrange mu­sic, teach young pan­nists, man­age bands, or­gan­ise events and take our mu­sic in­to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. Prop­er­ly sup­port­ed, the steel­band can be­come a mi­croen­ter­prise and a hub around which oth­er eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty de­vel­ops.

The pa­n­yard as a com­mu­ni­ty as­set

Across T&T, pa­n­yards have qui­et­ly per­formed func­tions ex­tend­ing well be­yond mu­sic.

A young per­son en­ter­ing a pa­n­yard learns to lis­ten, prac­tise, co­op­er­ate and per­form as part of a team. There is dis­ci­pline in ar­riv­ing for re­hearsal, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in mas­ter­ing one’s part and con­fi­dence in even­tu­al­ly per­form­ing be­fore an au­di­ence. At a time when we speak fre­quent­ly about the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of some of our young peo­ple, the im­por­tance of safe, struc­tured com­mu­ni­ty spaces can­not be over­stat­ed.

Not every young pan­nist will be­come a pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cian. That is not the point. A pa­n­yard can ex­pose young peo­ple to event man­age­ment, sound en­gi­neer­ing, mar­ket­ing, dig­i­tal me­dia, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, ad­min­is­tra­tion and in­stru­ment fab­ri­ca­tion. It pro­vides some­where to go, some­thing pro­duc­tive to do and, crit­i­cal­ly, peo­ple with whom to be­long. The pa­n­yard can there­fore be both a cul­tur­al space and a de­vel­op­ment in­sti­tu­tion.

From spon­sor­ship

to part­ner­ship

Cor­po­rate T&T has long been part of the steel­band sto­ry. In­deed, the names of cor­po­rate spon­sors have be­come so in­ter­twined with many of our lead­ing bands that gen­er­a­tions of Trinida­di­ans have grown ac­cus­tomed to say­ing the names to­geth­er. These re­la­tion­ships de­serve recog­ni­tion. But World Steel­pan Day al­so al­lows us to re­flect on what the best of them can ac­com­plish.

Cor­po­rate in­volve­ment should not be re­duced sim­ply to the size of a cheque or a con­tri­bu­tion at Panora­ma time. The most valu­able part­ner­ships are those that de­vel­op over years, al­low­ing com­pa­nies to con­tribute not on­ly fi­nan­cial re­sources, but ex­per­tise, men­tor­ship, net­works and in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port. Through­out the steel­band move­ment, there are ex­am­ples of re­la­tion­ships span­ning decades. Their sig­nif­i­cance lies in demon­strat­ing how sus­tained part­ner­ships can con­tribute to lead­er­ship, gov­er­nance, ed­u­ca­tion and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al strength­en­ing. That dis­tinc­tion mat­ters. A cheque can help a band pre­pare for a com­pe­ti­tion. A gen­uine part­ner­ship can help build an in­sti­tu­tion.

Imag­ine ex­tend­ing that phi­los­o­phy across the move­ment: com­pa­nies shar­ing ex­per­tise in fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, gov­er­nance, mar­ket­ing, tech­nol­o­gy, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­tel­lec­tu­al-prop­er­ty man­age­ment; help­ing bands strength­en ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems and sup­port­ing pro­grammes that op­er­ate through­out the year.

The ob­jec­tive should not be per­ma­nent de­pen­dence on cor­po­rate sup­port. Quite the op­po­site. Strong part­ner­ships should help bands de­vel­op the ca­pac­i­ty to gen­er­ate in­come through per­for­mances, ed­u­ca­tion, cul­tur­al tourism, mer­chan­dise, events and dig­i­tal con­tent. That is where cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­comes more than spon­sor­ship. It be­comes in­vest­ment in in­sti­tu­tions, com­mu­ni­ties and pro­duc­tive ca­pac­i­ty.

Cul­ture as cap­i­tal

We of­ten speak about eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as though it must ar­rive as a new fac­to­ry, ma­jor for­eign in­vestor or en­tire­ly new in­dus­try. Those things mat­ter. But di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion can al­so grow from as­sets we al­ready pos­sess. Cul­ture is one of those as­sets.

The steel­pan ecosys­tem can sup­port arrangers, per­form­ers, tu­tors, tuners, man­u­fac­tur­ers, de­sign­ers, event man­agers, sound en­gi­neers and en­tre­pre­neurs. In­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mances can earn for­eign ex­change. Cul­tur­al tourism can bring vis­i­tors in­to com­mu­ni­ties - some­thing we al­ready glimpse dur­ing Panora­ma sea­son with pan crawls. Dig­i­tal plat­forms can take per­for­mances and in­struc­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences. The ques­tion is: how much of that val­ue are we cap­tur­ing?

There is, how­ev­er, an im­por­tant cau­tion. Com­mer­cial­is­ing pan must nev­er mean strip­ping it of its com­mu­ni­ty roots. The pa­n­yard can­not be­come so fo­cused on gen­er­at­ing rev­enue that the child who sim­ply wants some­where safe to learn pan no longer has a place. The so­cial and eco­nom­ic func­tions must re­in­force each oth­er.

Our gift to the world—and our­selves

World Steel­pan Day should there­fore be both cel­e­bra­tion and in­vi­ta­tion. We cel­e­brate the pi­o­neers who cre­at­ed the in­stru­ment when nei­ther recog­ni­tion nor re­ward was guar­an­teed; the tuners and arrangers who ex­pand­ed its pos­si­bil­i­ties; gen­er­a­tions of pan­nists who car­ried the sound across oceans; and the young child hold­ing pan sticks for the first time. And we al­so cel­e­brate T&T—for all the chal­lenges we con­front as a na­tion, this small twin-is­land state did some­thing ex­tra­or­di­nary: we cre­at­ed an in­stru­ment and gave it to the world.

Per­haps the next chap­ter is about what pan can con­tin­ue to give to us: safe spaces for our chil­dren, stronger com­mu­ni­ties, en­tre­pre­neurs, cre­ative ca­reers, cul­tur­al ex­ports, for­eign ex­change, na­tion­al pride, pur­pose and be­long­ing.

Cor­po­rate T&T can help write that chap­ter—not sim­ply by spon­sor­ing steel­bands, but by help­ing them build the gov­er­nance, skills and busi­ness ca­pac­i­ty to be­come sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty en­ter­pris­es. The steel­pan has al­ready demon­strat­ed what T&T’s cre­ativ­i­ty can ac­com­plish on the world stage. The chal­lenge now is to en­sure that the com­mu­ni­ties from which that cre­ativ­i­ty emerged par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in its so­cial and eco­nom­ic val­ue.

On World Steel­pan Day, we cel­e­brate the sound. But we should al­so recog­nise the pos­si­bil­i­ty be­hind it. Pan is our gift to the world. Prop­er­ly nur­tured, it can re­main an ex­tra­or­di­nary gift to our­selves.