So Much Steel Drums, and Tobago

Julie and the Supernovas practicing

Some of the Exodus band members practicing

Renegades pan yard

     I last left you with the events of Tuesday, so I will begin with Wednesday.  Wednesday was another day of classes and lunch at Trincity Mall.  This time I broke out of my American food bubble and got a Bombay Chicken wrap which was absolutely delicious.  I'm definitely going to be getting that more often.  We also did some shopping briefly.  I didn't buy anything, but my friends got some pretty outrageous clothing.  Hopefully, we will have the chance to go back and shop some more because I definitely want to get some Trini clothes for the clubs.  After history class was done, we relaxed before heading out on our pan yard crawl.  We visited the Supernovas Pan Yard first, which is where we have our steel drums class.  The band was pretty impressive.  Apparently, everyone in the band is related except for Harvey and his wife, Linda.  My roommate Julie is also playing with them this year, which is awesome.  Next, we headed to the Exodus pan yard.  Exodus is a well-known steel band in St. Augustine.  One of the songs we heard them practice was a rendition of the Electric Slide.  Our final stop was the Renegades Pan Yard.  The Renegades are a huge steel band in Port-of-Spain.  This band had so many people and a larger variety of drums that smaller bands don't have. Watching the way these bands learned songs was very intriguing because it is so different from the way people learn to play music in the US.  The arranger essentially has all of the music in his head, and he teaches the players to play a section of the song.  After many repetitions, he adds the next part to the song.  This cycle continues until the players learn the whole song.  The pan players don't read music; they just learn from repetition.  Once we returned from our pan yard crawl, we hung out some more (we do a lot of that) and then headed off to bed.
    Yesterday, we had a shortened steel drum class where we recorded our rendition of Can't Help Falling in Love.  I'm looking forward to hearing it when it is done; it was impressive how quickly we learned the music and learned to play it well.  Our instructor, Harvey, told us this was the earliest he was able to have a group record a song, so we must be pretty legit.
After class, we traveled to Curepe to visit Gill's Pan Shop and the accompanying Scherzando Pan yard.  At Gill's, we got to see all the stages required to produce the high quality steel drum that the shop is known for.  I never realized how much work it takes to make one, and now I understand why they are so expensive.  The process involves a lot of hammering, tuning, retuning, and firing the drums, and all of this is done by hand.  While at the pan shop, we also got to watch one of Trinidad's well-known steel drum band arrangers play.  After our visit to Gill's, we grabbed lunch in Curepe.  I got more doubles because they are insanely cheap, filling, and delicious. Then we headed back to Xanadu for our history class, which still remains a struggle. After class, we spent the afternoon relaxing in preparation for another night out in Port-of-Spain.  We opted to go to Club 51 again, and it was just as much fun as the first time.
     This morning we headed to Tobago bright and early.  Staying out until 4 AM the night before didn't lend itself to us all successfully getting up early and being fully functioning, but somehow it all worked out.  A 20 minute plane ride later, we landed at the Tobago airport, an airport that overlooks beautiful Caribbean water.  After a 10 minute walk that consisted of us dragging our luggage down rough and uneven sidewalks, we arrived at our home for the weekend, Sunspree Resort.  We checked in, and my roommates, Abby and Julie, and I immediately decided to make another mega bed, though it's not as big as our super mega bed at Xanadu.  Then we swam in the pool and napped before heading off to Store Bay Beach.  The beach was beautiful, and the water was that crystal clear blue that the Caribbean is known for.  We had a fun afternoon of swimming, bodysurfing, and sunbathing on one of the most pristine beaches I have encountered.  Unfortunately our day at the beach had to end and we had to go back to the hotel. When we returned to the hotel, we swam some more and then headed into town to explore a little and grab some dinner.  The town in Tobago definitely has a different vibe than any of the places we've visited in Trinidad.  It is much smaller and does not have the metropolitan vibe of cities like Port-of-Spain or even towns like Curepe and Arima.  Hopefully we will get to check it out some more this weekend.  Tonight, we are keeping it mellow to catch up on rest and prepare for our day of snorkeling and boating on a glass bottom boat.  That should be a lot of fun.  Anyway, thanks for reading, and look out for my next post about the rest of my stay in Tobago!

Making the bubbles

Initial tuning of the drum

Lining the drum