The Kid Should See This

The map of notes on a steel pan drum

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After watching How to Make a Steel DrumΒ from a barrel, a Sesame Street classic, it’s great to see exactly where these notes live on this 22” surface, as shown in the diagram above. How do steel drum players know where the right notes will be? Turns out that they’ve got this musical map memorized!

Update: Follow that video up with this clip of musician, composer, and pannist Ray Holman describing how a Tenor Pan‘s 28 or 32 notes are formed:

Related reading: Steel pan history and Making and Tuning a Steel Pan.

There are more drum videos to watch in the archives.

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